Harmonic considerations of simple canons. The only change in sound as the piece continues is in rhythmic and melodic variation. Every two-bar phrase in the Kanon in D utilizes the following sequence of chords. This particular canon is so well known and the chord structure so distinctive that it has become known as the Pachelbel progression. Definition and background.
Mensuration is an early musical term which is analogous to our notion of time signature.
In some of the early examples of mensuration canons from the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, the melody line is denoted once, along with several time signatures and each musician is expected to perform the line at one of the time signatures. The faster performers might be instructed to repeat their line several times or else the piece might stop short of the slower performers completing the entire melody line. In particular, this means there are two melody lines each of which are sung simultaneously at two different speeds by a total of four voices. Accompanying the manuscript was an appendix containing a cycle of fourteen canons upon the first eight notes of the Goldberg ground. The discovery of the hitherto unknown manuscript was immediately hailed as the most important addition of a Bach source in recent decades.