Roundelays can be songs, poems, or dances. In a song, they revolve around fundamental phrases and musical statements that are repeated throughout a piece. One can say that even in a highly-experimental jazz genre, roundelays are crucial, because they provide a basic theme and framework for musicians to improvise around and return to over and over again.
I developed today’s song, as a roundelay, based on the occasion that gets repeated over and over again throughout one’s life – birthdays. I recorded lyrics and music, then “chopped” up some phrases and added them back to the mix as loop repetitions. It’s a party song, and it’s a sad song, much like life coming together full circle. You can’t have the highs without the lows.
Conclusively, many dance styles, written poems, and musical genres display aspects of the roundelay form. One could say that many forms of art, design and architecture are dependent on roundelay theory as well. Therefore, I included on the title page of the video a 1892 painting by Camille Pissarro called “The Roundelay” on it, naturally!