Rounds are songs written specifically for multiple performers to sing the same words and melody. When sung at evenly spaced intervals, this single melody line creates its own harmony.
Two, three, or four singers can perform a round. Aside from that, a number of variations are possible. The song’s ending could be achieved each voice stopping in turn, demonstrating the effects of addition at the start and subtraction at the end. Alternatively, all of the voices can come to a halt at a specific chord. In addition, some rounds feature instrumental or vocal accompaniment provided performers other than those who take the round’s single melody.
Rounds have been used in English since the Middle Ages. “Sumer is icumen in,” a mid-thirteenth-century round, is still sung today. The name round is believed to have originated in the early 1500s. From the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, the term “catch” was used to describe a comic round.
In music lessons, rounds are frequently used. While they are simple to learn, they still give participants the feeling of singing in harmony because everyone sings the same part. Rounds are great for developing independence and the ability to stick to one’s part, and they’re also appealing to younger students because they don’t need to see the music.
Among the most popular rounds are:
• “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” “Music Alone Shall Live,” and “Shalom Chaverim,” all for two voices;
• “Chairs to Mend,” “By the Waters of Babylon,” and “Dona Nobis Pacem,” all for three voices; and
• the 4-voice rounds “Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree” and “Frère Jacques,” also known in English as “Are You Sleeping?”
Several dozen rounds were written Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven included round structure in larger works such as his opera Fidelio and his Sixth Symphony. In his Symphony no. 1, Gustav Mahler also used a round in a symphony. In his opera Peter Grimes, Benjamin Britten included a round.