Canon in D

I listen to all kinds of music from Classical to Rock to Heavy Metal to Trash. I have gone from all sorts of genres like Religious music to Satanic music. My listening range of music is wide.

I first heard Johann Pachelbel's Canon in D on my walkman player as performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra. It was soothing and I kept asking why would Pachelbel name it Canon. I kept searching for the booming sounds but mostly they were of violins and bass.

The actual canon is played by the violins over the ground bass. In the beginning, the first violin plays the first two bars of the canon's melody. At this point, the second violin enters with the beginning of the melody, whilst the first violin continues with the next two bars of the canon. Then the third violin commences the canon, whilst the second violin plays the third and fourth bars and the first violin continues with the fifth and sixth. The three violin parts then follow one another at two bars' distance until the end of the piece. The canon becomes increasingly dense towards the middle of the piece as the note values become shorter (first in the first violin, then in the second, and finally in the third violin). Afterwards, the piece gradually returns to a less complex structure as the note values lengthen once more. There are 28 repetitions of the ground bass in total. The canon is relatively simple and does not make use of any advanced contrapuntal devices such as inversion, augmentation, diminution, etc.

The first 9 bars of the Canon in D: the violins play a three-voice canon over the ground bass which provides the harmonic structure.

Paul Mauriat and his Orchestra transformed this classical piece into semi-pop with the rhythmic beats of the drum. This is easy listening for those who find Classical Music not to their liking. You can get all his classic hits on ebay here.

I was surprised last year to hear Yngwie Malmsteen's version of Canon in D. It was loud as compared to the Classics but yeah I can still recognise the music.

When I hear him play, I smiled as this was something of a pleasant surprise. Pachelbel's Canon interpreted by heavy metal guitarist, Yngwei Malmsteen with his electric guitar.

But kudos goes to JerryC's version and played by funtwo who played with his electric guitar as posted in YouTube. It is of no wonder that it has received more than 59,947,393 views!

Just look at this magnificient guitar skill.

Post Edit:
Tuesday, 8 November 2011 @ 2130hrs

It seems that the video was recently deleted by YouTube due to some infringements.

I have found the original video by funtwoHimself.

So ... now ... ENJOY!!!