Complete Encyclopaedia of Music/A/Augmentation
Augmentation. This word is chiefly confined to the language of fuguists. Augmentation is the doubling the value of the notes of the subject of a fugue, or canon ; or, to speak in plain terms, giving the intervals of the subject in notes of twice the original length. When whole notes are used for half notes, half notes for quarter notes, or when in any part of a fugue the subject is taken up in notes of double the value of those in which it commenced, the process is called augmentation. In fugues by augmentation, feet become phrases, phrases become sections, &c.