I wrote A Canoe on a Lake to introduce young pianists to two compositional concepts: the whole-tone scale and a musical palindrome (it is the same forwards and backwards). I was also interested in exploring what happens when you use the staves as a canvas and create a literal picture of a canoe on a lake. If you were to lay the music out in a line and connected the noteheads (like connecting the dots) it would be a picture of a canoe on water!