Mirror Canon
Encyclopedia
The mirror canon is a type of canon
Canon (music)
In music, a canon is a contrapuntal composition that employs a melody with one or more imitations of the melody played after a given duration . The initial melody is called the leader , while the imitative melody, which is played in a different voice, is called the follower...

 which involves the leading voice being played alongside its own inversion
Inversion (music)
In music theory, the word inversion has several meanings. There are inverted chords, inverted melodies, inverted intervals, and inverted voices...

 (i.e. upside-down). The realisation from the 'closed' (unrealised) form can be effected by placing the page in front of a mirror, thus upside down, and beginning with the already progressing first voice.

The Canon a 2 'Quaerendo invenietis' from Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

's A Musical Offering, BWV 1079, is a fine example of the process. In its original closed form the alto clef and an upside-down bass clef indicate both the mirror procedure and the appropriate pitches of the voices for the purpose of realisation.
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