Catch (music)

A catch or trick canon is a type of round - a musical composition in which two or more voices (usually at least three) repeatedly sing the same melody or sometimes slightly different melodies, beginning at different times. In a catch, the lines of lyrics interact so that a word or phrase is produced that does not appear if sung by only one voice. This phrase is often innuendo-laden, politically subversive, or lewd.

In the score for a catch the different voices are usually labelled, "1", "2", "3", etc. This indicates that voice "1" sings its part first. When the part has been completed it is typically repeated and voice "2" joins in and so on. After they have sung to the end of their parts, voice "3" joins in. Sometimes there may be variations in the words or music to be sung to each part, the second or third time it is sung.

A common mistake in performance is for all parts to start together.

Henry Purcell, Michael Wise and John Wall Callcott were noted composers of catches.

Purcell's catches include [http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/images/b/b5/Musikcatch.pdf "A catch upon the viol"]

Wise's catches include [http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/images/1/1e/CatCatches.pdf "A catch upon the midnight cats"] , [http://www.dwsmp3.com/multivocal.htm performed live here] .

[http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/images/7/70/Eccles_My_Man_John_PML.pdf "My man John"] by John Eccles is particularly lewd

Callcott's best known catch [http://wso.williams.edu/cpdl/sheet/call-his.pdf "Sir John Hawkins' History of Music"] ridiculed Sir John Hawkins' work by comparison with a similar work by Charles Burney.