Why is 'Canon in D' so Popular?
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- Опубліковано 6 чер 2024
- Why is Pachelbel's Canon heard literally everywhere? How did it rise from obscurity to arguably the most famous piece of classical music within just a few decades?
Canon in D:
Original version: • Pachelbel: Canon in D ...
Paillard's version: • Jean-François Paillard...
Pachelbel's Canon is like calm breathing. This may have something to do with its timeless and universal appeal. There's a simple but profound peace and beauty in it.
it sounds like a fancy asshole looks
it’s mozart, bach, and beethovens inspo but they get all the credit for it somehow
One of the most beautiful & evocative pieces of music ever written. As a pianist I’ve been playing this for decades, but a full orchestra only does it supreme justice.
Tashaki Ueno is the only conductor I have heard perform this song with more than cello's, bass cello and the violins for which it was written. What he put together is truly a masterpiece.
It is one of the most beautiful pieces ever written. It is a progression of beginnings and endings of life. If you do not feel any emotion listening to this song, I truly feel sorry for you.
yes, i can feel the trauma from when I made a bunch of mistakes everytime I played that song in front of a public
There are better pieces
@@aprilyoru8673 SHARe LiNK
@@aprilyoru8673This is the most beautiful for me especially Lee Galloway's rendition.
It’s cool but super overplayed. I prefer the original version . It’s faster.
You know the adage. If it's not baroque, don't fix it.
I first heard Pachelbel's Canon in D while flying (Pan Am) eastward over the Pacific Ocean in 1968; I was returning home from a year in Vietnam, and I have ever since associated the Canon with relief, anticipation, celebration, and joy.
We had a mini series here in Australia called " veitnam " based on 1 Australian families experiences of the veitnam war. The son was conscripted while his sister got involved in the anti war movement, the father was a federal politician. It was a very moving and sad show. This song accompanied the show. As a side note Nicole Kidman played the part of the sister. It was when hardly anybody knew who Nicole kidman was
It discovered me while on a flight from California to florida. I listened to it while looking thru the window. Still amazed from that.
It's a nice memory
It's unfortunate that flying with pan am is in the past....my mum flew for the first time in 1975 to Montreal as the Director of the Friendship Centre in Lethbridge. She received a Peace Pipe and Sweet Grass also. It was a thrill of a lifetime.
Pracabels Canon sung is so beautiful also. What a masterpiece
After this she flew to las Vegas to see Elvis and the Jerry Lewis Telethon.
Forget the haters. This is the perfect piece of music.
My Japanese wife is a most analytical... hmmmm...
That is why we have been married for thousands of years... hmmmm...
I'm with you!
Indeed
Agree
@@peaceleader7315 What Anniversary is that?
Canon in D is a TIMELESS beauty! 🎶👍
I've been listening to Pachelbel's Canon since I was, 15,16 years old. I'm now 64 ! And... this video is EXCELLENT to describe the "inside" of Pachebel's Canon. I had the unique chance to hear the Munich Pro Arte Orchestra under the direction of Kurt Redel playing it. Also some other songs that have a real strong influence from Pachelbel's Canon are "Le Temps de Vivre" by Georges Moustaki, a french singer, and "Find a way to my heart" by Phil Collins. THANKS.. for sharing this video Greetings from Monterrey Mexico.
Thank you so much! Glad to hear more songs that are influenced by Pachelbel’s Canon, thanks for sharing :)
@@guweimusic The first time I heard a Canon pop song would habe to be All Together Now by the Farm, a song about the Christmas Tryce that bit the British charts in the 90s.
Well, I had the privilege of seeing Pachelbel himself in concert. He was...cocky.
Ahhh I turned 5 in Monterrey :) Thanks for your comments.
@@guweimusic USSR (and current Russian) anthem also contains Pachelbel’s sequence in the second half of the couplet.
It makes you feel happy and sad at the same time, it is pretty special.
That’s really true!! I never understood that until I read your comment! 🤯
Agree - there is a deep sadness in this tune
I’ve always said this too , happy and sad at the same time
Come to think of it, it seems to be closely connected to dying.
Back in the dark ages when I was a girl, TV stations went off the air at midnight, and our local station played this before signing off. I used to stay up on the weekend to hear it. For years I wanted to know what the name was but there was no way to look it up. Then I head it in a movie and read through the credits to find the name. I have been listening to versions on UA-cam trying to find the one I remember and I think you've led me to it. Thank you! Only took 50+ years.
What a beautiful story! Thanks for sharing.
When I began to explore classical music (during middle school/high school) I started out with some of the most popular (since it was before the internet and WAAAY before anything like UA-cam and Spotify, we had to find music other ways). "Hooked on Classics" actually became a way for me to connect familiar tunes (like, ones I'd heard on movies, commercials or TV) with name and composer. Canon became one of my favorites.
Only within the past decade or so did I discover how much people HATED it. I first heard Rob Paravonian's "Pachelbel Rant" and then "The Axis of Awesome" show how many songs used that progression. Many serious classical musicians and music lovers have a sort of disdain for it, probably due to its ubiquity. (By the way, the earliest versions that I listened to, it was played on 3 violins and a bass, not cello, so didn't even know cello was involved till later, and I figured basso continuo was usually boring anyway).
To me, rather than Comic Sans, it's more like Helvetica. It's everywhere (even if you don't know it's there). It's actually quite beautiful and in its own way,. very functional, but because it's EVERYWHERE (and perhaps due to its simple structure) people either hate it or say they hate it. But for those of us who learned about classical music where we could find it, the ubiquitous isn't always BAD. As much as we might want to branch out and find more obscure or complex pieces, these familiar tunes bring us back to when the joy of classical music began to blossom. In that, I find comfort and some gratitude, since these - Canon, Vivaldi's Four Seasons, Handel's Water Music, Ravel's Bolero, etc., - were our "gateway drug" of sorts, into the world of classical music.
Haha, I like how you describe it as Helvetica - it’s everywhere but not “basic”. To me, the fact that it is everywhere must have a good reason. There’s something about it that is intrinsically attractive to many people with different reasons, which are perhaps often difficult to explain with words. Thanks for your thoughts! :)
That album was my gateway drug way back in ‘81. It was published by K-tel, the same cheesy infomercial company that brought us the Veg-O-Magic. 🤪😱
I likewise started out with "Hooked on Classics" learning the names of all the tunes and their composers sampled in each track. From there, I bought the "Penguin Guide to Classical Compact Discs" or annual yearbook and looked for recordings awarded "rosettes" by the editors and used their reviews to decide what CD's to order through BMG or Columbia House mail-order CD clubs.
I used to listen to those CD's all the time as a teenager and young adult until I got married and had children whose little hands can be quite destructive.
Now my collection of 300+ classical CD's is tucked away safely in storage bins in the garage waiting to be converted into FLAC files and saved on external drives or uploaded to the cloud if I can ever figure out all the technical and legal ins and outs of such a Herculean undertaking.
@@marktabla5434 I don't think people realize what a wonderful educational tool Hooked on Classics were, especially before the internet. You might hear a tune but can't do anything about it (like getting a recording) without at least the composer's name.
A lot of classical enthusiasts (especially the purists) deride things like that, but it helps people get exposed to the music and learn about it.
I feel the same way about well-done remixes of classical pieces. It gets the melody out there and if that's enough to pique someone's curiosity, and allows them to comfortably enter the world of classical music (even with baby steps) I say it's a good thing. Same with people on UA-cam who make it fun, like TwoSet Violin who (yes, they make a LOT of fun of Canon, but that's OK) make classical music enjoyable and accessible. And we need people to keep listening to it, attending concerts, buying recordings, adding to playlists, and even becoming musicians themselves.
@@GoddessPallasAthena like TwoSet Violin, pianist-comedian Victor Borge made classical music fun and accessible to the general public back in his day with his PBS comedy specials that were often featured during pledge drives.
Movies and television can also make classical music accessible while forming strong mental associations for generations of listeners/viewers, two obvious classic examples being Rossini's William Tell Overture as the theme to the 50's TV show, "The Lone Ranger", and Rachmaninoff's 18th variation from his "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini" being used in the 1980 Christopher Reeve film, "Somewhere in Time".
In addition to being fun, romantic, etc., such musical associations can be uplifting. For example, I'll never be able to listen to Schubert's Serenade in d-minor without thinking of the master violinist playing that melody in the auction scene in the video, "The Touch of the Master's Hand" with its message of the divine worth of the human soul:
ua-cam.com/video/SsyXhv0q_fY/v-deo.html
I absolutely LOVE the Pachelbel Canon slow version… have done so for as long as I can recall.
This is a WONDERFUL video. Thank you so much for producing it. I've tried, and failed miserably, to teach one of my granddaughters how pop music has been influenced and has roots coming from many styles including blues, jazz, Persian, African, classical, and even Klezmer, amongst others. The next granddaughter gets to see this.
What a classic and beautiful exposition on Pachelbel's Canon! I too have listened to it since a teenager and really appreciate this analysis. Although I took some academic music classes in college, I never learned the lineage of pieces such as is explained here. Thank you so much for this.
This caused me to look up the commercial that Tosando Music of Japan made. Whomever put together the music with the Japanese father playing it at his daughters wedding was Brilliant. Very sad but this caused me to search for it.
@@richardkroll2269 Just listened to the commercial. Very moving. Thank you for the suggestion.
I first heard this music during the interval between films in a cinema around 1969. I was so taken by it I asked the staff to find its name by getting someone to go upstairs to ask the projectionist. The answer was: Raymond LeFevre Orchestra - The Immortal Cannon Of Pachelbel - 1969 45rpm. This was an up-tempo piece, probably the first of the 'pop' versions, and although I was never a pop enthusiast, I went out the next day especially to buy it. Its still here on UA-cam - search using the title above.
Very good breakdown and expert editing of the visuals. I will check out more of your videos.
Thank you so much for giving us this very important background, which deepens our understanding and love for this tune.
This is such a great and professional analysis of that great piece of music. Thank you so much for your effort ❤
This is excellent material not only due to the historically informed derivation of the chord structure from the Romanesca progression but also for the non-judgmental repertoire of examples, both from classical and pop music. Enjoyed your video a lot!
The Pachelbel's Canon registered with me at a very young age. The progression to me was as if nature born. I seem to have been a tuned to it in easily recognizing it in other works. I often tried to argue the point with other music lovers of my genre with little to know traction because I myself didn't understand the musicology of it until this very fine synopsis. Having a long career in spacial and mathematical optimizations, including progression theory, I have not until now been enlightened to the history of music theory and progressions until now having seen this vid. For someone like me who has been on the spectrum for so long in relating my love of music with my love of mathematical modelling, this vid has been a real revelation.
Wow!
Better late than not at all. 😁
There is something special about this music. I don't like very much classical music but love this piece. It's soothing, beautiful and inspiring. Thanks for this analysis.
My cat loves it.
Fabulous . 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
You explain every detail in detail, answering all questions from different perspectives. Love the video, the illustration, the narrator and narrative! Like the chord progression… smooth and very pleasant to listen to. Thank you 🙏 so much
Thank you! :)
I'm learning this now, and this was a great insight behind it. Thanks for this video, it's really good!
Great Video. Heard the canon first on "December" from Georg Winston.
Well produced video, good job!
Thank you for your wonderful elucidation 👏
I can't say when I first heard this, but probably close to 70 years ago. It still sounds fresh - perhaps its deceptive simplicity which leads to so many variations.
I just think it's a shame that everyone knows the slowed down version played at weddings and not the original dance speed
This is a classical piece that I have liked since my high school days (80s). I had no idea it was in so much of our pop music we listen to today. And thanks for the brief history and music lesson.
I am super grateful for this amazing informative video. I've always wondered about all of this
Super glad to hear that! :)
Thank you for this insight! This was extremely interesting 👍
Many blessings!!
On a snowy New Year's Eve in the 70's, a high school music teacher played this for a bunch of us guys, and were captivated. It set the tone for the whole rest of the evening. Thank you Lin.
I can imagine Pachelbel reacting the same way when people play the Canon as Ravel did when people kept asking him to play Bolero - "You know, I have written OTHER pieces?!"
Even though I had heard Canon in D over the years at various weddings, I did not become fully aware of it until Funtwo's version of Jerry C's guitar rock version some years ago. I made it a mission in life to learn this on my guitar and except for the sweeps, I now play my own version of it. A very fun piece that I never get tired of playing.
thank you for explaining this beautiful piece
A month ago I had a boy ask me my favourite song to play (on piano). First thought: Wow! No one has asked me that before. Second thought: I couldn’t possibly pick! Third thought: Why is Canon coming to mind? THAT can’t be it, with ALL the pieces I’ve learned? Final thought: It is. It’s Canon. I’ve been playing it for 40 years. It was the song I played for my first recital. It is simple. It is overplayed. It is MASSIVELY overplayed. And, I never get sick of it. I love the simplicity. I love that you can make it as long or as short as you want, as simple or as difficult as you want. That a beginner can play it, and a professional still find beauty in it. But mostly? That chord progression is straight up therapy. No matter what craziness is happening at the time, the moment the piece starts, my heartbeat slows down, tension drains away, I want to close my eyes and drift (not good when it comes on while driving!😂). Playing it on the piano is hypnotic. It is perfect.
Thank you for your analysis!
The history of partimenti and the pedagogy of learning how to improvise (and compose quickly) is very interesting.
Thanks for that excellent explanation ! Well done.
Thank you for an excellent treatise here. Bravo.
amazing video, good job, Blesings!
To me, Cannon in D and its descending fourths is uniquely, almost perfectly 'mathematical.'
The way it starts of simple and gets increasingly complex is almost fractal.
the music stirs up the spirit which pierced deep on your very soul.. it's definitely unique beyond compare.. No time can ever replaced the power of this wonderful piece.
Thank you for this video. From someone who knows almost nothing about music, I found it captivating, which I guess means that it went above and beyond. Well done!
Thank you! I had no idea the pachelbel themes were used by bach and Mozart. Very interesting video.
Thank you so much for this excellent presentation of Pachelbel.
I remember hearing Canon in D for the first time on a classical radio station in 1975 or 1976. It as immediately riveting. I was already very familiar with much or classical music, but this reaction was unique for me. I remember wondering how an unknown piece of music could seem so familiar on a first hearing.
Now of course, I hope never to hear it again.
A really remarkable video ! I wonder if melodies which are composed today are still used in 2320.
Thank you for sharing.
Why can't people just enjoy a well written piece of music?
I first heard it in 1978 (the Paillard version), during a time when my life was falling apart. To me, it was beautiful, melancholy, and meditative. In the shitstorm that was then my life, it was a haven for my soul.I have always been grateful to the friend who turned me on to it.
Oh my goodness. This sounds exactly like my life experience!
When i bought my first CD player around 1987 or so, one of the first two albums i bought was a collection of Baroque works, because it had Canon in D. I thought it would be a great piece to judge CD's and my component system.
I didn't know how far back the piece went. Definitely learned a few things I would've never come across on my own.
I've been listening to this piece for 50 or so years and thought I knew a lot about it. Thanks for adding to my knowledge of it. As you point out, it has been adapted by countless artists, one of which is a friend of mine, the Irish fiddler Eileen Ivers. It can be found here: ua-cam.com/video/mL6THuNstt8/v-deo.html
She starts out fairly straight forward, eventually takes it to a minor key, and then back to major and sped up as it become a full-fledged Irish reel. Enjoy.
Thanks for sharing! It’s very interesting and refreshing to hear a minor rendition of the piece :)
Wonderful work research!
Pachelbel’s music is…perfection and genius! Your analysis is truly….excellent…and beautifully presented! 😲 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏😊👍👍
Nice analysis, bravo!
Thanks the history lesson. I now have even a deeper appreciation for the song and chord progression's use in other songs.
thank you for this video!
Excellent lecture! Please allow me a footnote:
Being a classic gem indeed, one of absolute musical masterpieces, it's baroque music, not "classical music".
thankyou for doing this video, very interesting..
i really like you are taking this piece apart and explaining it..
will have a look and see if you talk about my favourite, tchaikovsky, on your channel.. 🙂 x
thankyou!
This makes me want to try to pick up my violin again. I stopped playing 20 years and and then some…
I love Canon. It’s beautiful, it’s moving. I could honestly listen to it anytime.
This is my favourite piece of classical music. I walked down the aisle to it. I don’t know what it is about Pachelbel’s Canon in D Minor but it always moves me to tears…..it’s such a moving and emotional piece of music.
^🙄🤦♂️🤦♂️🤡
The popular Blues Traveler song called 'Hook', is a tribute to Canon in D: using the the chord progression and adding vocals that mimic the 'improvised' melodies of the original. Its very clever, combining many different themes, including the persuasiveness of music in altering our moods, and how that can be used for good or not so good.
Thank you for this video!
Thanks. Quite illuminating!
love that B and E flat works so easy and sounds great
Thank you for this information.
I have sung The First Noel to Canon in D. As well as another song to it. I love this song.
your pronunciation is very special. But very interesting. Can you make more videos about music.
10 years i have been listening to this canon cannot for get it its so romantic and drama wonderful
A mention for its influence on Aphrodite Child's "Rain and Tears' " hit in the mid 60s
In eight years of public school orchestra participation I never had a chance to play this piece. Even the four years of community orchestra after it was not done. I was robbed.
This was played at my Daughters wedding coming down the isle perfect
Very interesting. Thanks.
Merci pour cette analyse! 👍
Because the melody and harmony is appealing to all genres of music and many genres have borrowed phrases from it.
Pachebel is the OG of one hit wonders and deservedly so.
The one reason i know of Canon in D is because of the various guitar/metal covers of it from the early UA-cam days.
Also, alot of punk music uses this, Superman by Goldfinger and Basket Case by Green Day.
Simply it is good to ear , peole who really love music love clssical music ..
As a kid, my first exposure was via Raymond Leppard conducting the English Chamber Orchestra on the "Baroque Favorites" album in the CBS "Great Performances" series. I played that cassette tape to death.
Great video!
Très intéressant, merci des informations! Et t’as très raison; on entend cette belle chanson partout, mais je ne m’en tanne jamais.
That was very interesting, Guwei.
One of the most beautifully pieces of music. ,,..most people don’t realize it’s the main riff of “sing us a song, the piano man” by Billy Joel. Different key, same progression. I always like to start a wedding with his version…..gets the crowd going, lol.
Very Good detail explanation 🎼💪✌️ - eg Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Nicolo Paganini & others classical influences composers 🎼👏💪👏
The movie; "Ordinary People", (thanks to Paillard), brought Pachelbel into our hearts.❤
Its popularity is because it produces an emotional reaction of calmness and complexity with the resolution that happens right at the final note. What more can you want from a pop song or a piece of classical music?
Excellent. This beautiful music sounds so regal. Always reminds me of the old sailing ships and the waves on the sea.
And like a wave, it gently rises and falls, both tension and relief in seconds. It features every emotion, from sad, lonely, happy, and elated. Listening makes us breathe to the rhythm
gently, and calms the soul. Baroque music was made to calm and soothe us and heal as well as entertain us. Bach's Ayre on a G string, is another example of making us breathe to it also.
Studies have shown. that Bourque music is beneficial to health and well-being. This is known as the Mozart effect. Studies have also shown. If plants are playing this music, they grow towards it, and even wrap themselves around the speakers,. Rock music has been shown, to do the opposite.
Even cows have been shown, to produce more milk.
Thank you for an excellent informative, presentation.
just imagine, what this beautiful piece would do to the world, if it was played on giant speakers on a low level every day, and everyone could hear it?.
Very interesting, thank you
Wonderful video
Very well made video! 👍👍
The short version is : because our brains love repetition and even more so, predictability.
Nice video! But they forgot to mention the most famous popsong „Streets of London“ by Ralph McTell, which is obviously based on the fantastic Canon of Pachelbel!
Dear Jörg,
Had never thought about it in that way. The “Streets of London” progression is C G Am Em, Izzy’s “What a Wonderful World” is the G D Em Bm progression or as played on Ukulele C G Am Em.
Thank You for your comment.
Streets of London is one my all time favorite songs which I first heard when living in London in the early 70s.
When I was a little boy, I used to get confused and I thought this was called "Clarabelle's Passion"
I never knew the name of the piece or the progression, but I now realise that a piece I wrote back in about 1965 uses this sequence, except that the penultimate chord was not IV but II# (or V of V as it's sometimes called, but some of the examples played use II rather than IV there). I couldn't have heard the piece back then. If only I'd published, and could sue!
Oliver, the wheels on the bus go round and r o u n d ! Publish and copy-write everything! I didn’t, and just look what they’ve gone to my song, man. Everywhere I go they’re singing ‘Ode to Joy’ as if they knew. Joy was my girl! Xoxo, Ludwig von B.
@@e.conboy4286 Oh it was a joke
Pachelbel somehow managed to compose a progression that touches all the feel good centers of the soul, if that's not a genius I don't know what is.
Great commentary.
Even though it’s not copying, cause it’s a common enough progression to happen by accident so to speak, I can more or less assure you beethoven and mozart knew pachabel’s canon in d. Those guys knew all the old stuff
AC CD also use the Pachelbel Progression... ;-)
Someone should make a CD titled "Pachelbel: A Bunch of Stuff That's Not the Canon."
I'd buy that for a dollar.