CAST · QUARTET · canon · round · four voices
Quartet.
Pick a melody. Four voices sing it as a round — each entering one phrase later than the one before, each in its own octave. Once they're all in, it loops forever. The Row-Row-Row-Your-Boat geometry, in 8 hand-built subjects and 5 keys.
SUBJECT
KEY
TEMPO · 88 BPM
Voice 1 enters at bar 1. Voice 2 at bar 2. Voice 3 at bar 3. Voice 4 at bar 4. Then they all loop together.
What's a round, exactly
A round is a piece of music where every voice sings the same melody, but each starts later than the one before. Because the melody is written so its bars harmonize with each other no matter the offset, you end up with what sounds like 4 different parts even though it's really 4 staggered copies of one part. "Row Row Row Your Boat" is the canonical example. "Frère Jacques." "Three Blind Mice."
This page implements that pattern directly. The melody is 4 bars × 4 beats = 16 beats long. Voice 1 starts at the downbeat. Voice 2 enters 4 beats later (bar 2). Voice 3 enters another 4 beats later (bar 3). Voice 4 enters at bar 4. From that point on, all four voices are singing the same melody at different positions in the cycle, and the page loops forever.
Each voice gets its own octave (bass / tenor / alto / soprano-ish), so they stack rather than crash. Each voice has its own color in the staff display: walnut, rose, sky, mint.
All 8 subjects are written to harmonize against themselves at every 4-beat offset — drop any voice in at any bar and the result will still sound consonant.
Pair with /cast-rivers for different-tempo phasing, /cast-throw for melodic call-and-response, /cast-wheel for key relationships.
