EN imitation compositionTechnique core term Support my free tools
one voice takes up another voice's idea
What is it?
Imitation is a contrapuntal technique in which one voice takes up a recognisable idea first stated by another voice.
What does it do?
Give a phrase to one voice, then have a second voice answer with the same idea a beat or a bar later, usually transposed — most often to the fifth (the dominant). Stack the entries and you have a point of imitation, the engine of Renaissance polyphony; tighten the gap between entries and you have stretto; close the loop strictly and it becomes canon; build a whole movement on a single subject answered at the fifth and you have a fugue. The imitation can be exact, or loosened by inversion, augmentation or diminution — the ear only needs to recognise the idea returning in a new voice.
The texture sounds woven rather than stacked: the same shape keeps surfacing in different registers, so the listener follows a single idea passed hand to hand. It reads as craft and inevitability — the music seems to grow out of one cell rather than being assembled from chords.
Imitation includes strict canon, freer imitative counterpoint, fugue subjects, and prolation imitation, where a voice imitates another in different note values or tempo proportions.
In context
Imitation is the repetition of a melody in a polyphonic texture shortly after its first appearance in another voice, often transposed to the fifth. Successive imitative entries form a point of imitation — the foundation of Renaissance polyphony (Josquin) and of fugue and canon (Bach).
Equivalent terms
- DA imitation
- DE Imitation
- IT imitazione
- FR imitation
- ES imitación