Talk:Crab canon

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[edit] Alternate Definition

The definition I had heard from my music teacher is one that she had to compose during college. By her idea, she had to compose piano sheet music, with the treble and bass clefs, that, if turned upside down, could be played exactly the same, substituting the bass for the treble and vice versa. Obviously, this was a hard piece to compose, but that's about all I can remember. Has anyone else heard this definition? MToolen 19:33, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This would be a canon in retrograde inversion (Counterpoint#Contrapuntal derivations), whereas a typical crab canon is in retrograde. I don't recall ever seeing something like that, though. Among Bach's canons (see [1] for excellent descriptions of all of them) inversion (ascending motion in the leader becomes descending in the follower) is common, and there's at least one crab canon (in the Musical Offering), but the two are never, as far as I know, combined. Anyway, I don't think the term "crab canon" is commonly used to describe this. EldKatt (Talk) 21:01, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Naming

Does anyone have the foggiest idea why this is called a crab canon? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sockatume (talk • contribs) 22:45, 20 March 2007.

Because of the movement of Crabs of course, which walk backwards and sideways rather than straight forward. [2] --FordPrefect42 00:10, 21 March 2007 (UTC)