page_title: Imitation (music)
hierarchical_section_title: Imitation (music)
caption_attribution_description: Music for "Row, row, row your boat". Music and lyrics public domain. Engraving by me.
context_page_description: In music, imitation is the repetition of a melody in a polyphonic texture shortly after its first appearance in a different voice. The melody may vary through transposition, inversion, or otherwise, but retain its original character. The intervals and rhythms of an imitation may be exact or modified; imitation occurs at varying distances relative to the first occurrence, and phrases may begin with voices in imitation before they freely go their own ways.
  Imitation helps provide unity to a composition and is used in forms such as the fugue and canon.
  The near universality of imitation in polyphonic styles in Western music is evidence enough of its paradoxical value in asserting the individuality of voices.
context_section_description: In music, imitation is the repetition of a melody in a polyphonic texture shortly after its first appearance in a different voice. The melody may vary through transposition, inversion, or otherwise, but retain its original character. The intervals and rhythms of an imitation may be exact or modified; imitation occurs at varying distances relative to the first occurrence, and phrases may begin with voices in imitation before they freely go their own ways.
  Imitation helps provide unity to a composition and is used in forms such as the fugue and canon.
  The near universality of imitation in polyphonic styles in Western music (and its frequency in homorhythmic, homophonic, and other textures) is evidence enough of its paradoxical value in asserting the individuality of voices.
caption: "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" (1852) round About this soundPlay (help·info). A new part can join the singing by starting at the beginning whenever another part reaches any asterisk. If one ignores the sixteenth notes that pass between the main chords, every single note is in the tonic triad—in this case, a C, E, or G.
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