David Kelley

MUS 511

Canons Blazing:A Study of Pachelbels Greatest Hit

It has been called one of the most overused and abused pieces of insignificant music

ever composed. 1 Originally scored for violin trio and continuo and paired with a gigue, this

piece of music by the German Baroque composer Johann Pachelbel was probably unknown in its

age, heard by few and composed for some minor function forgotten to the ravages of time. Little

did Pachelbel know that it would become his Greatest Hit, 2 and one of the most frequently

played and recognizable pieces of classical music in the world today.

We will focus on three main topics regarding Pachelbels Canon in this essay. The first

topic will be a brief history of Canon in D, including the development of associations between

the Canon and important social events. The second topic will look into the general popularity of

Pachelbels Canon in the world today. The third topic will be an examination of the Canons

influence on popular music of the last half-century. Following this we will briefly look into

criticism of the Canon before proceeding to the conclusion.

Topic I: A Somewhat Brief History of Canon in D

Johann Pachelbel was one of the leading composers of his era, known today for his

church and chamber music. While many of his contemporaries have been forgotten generally,

1 Allen Kozinn, "Fresh Approaches to the Baroque," The New York Times. March 13, 1982. Accessed December 9, 2014.2 This is a reference to the album Pachelbels Greatest Hit, released in 1984 by RCA-Victor.

his name lives on in large part due to the popularity of Canon in D.3 We do not know exactly

when or why Pachelbel composed this work, but most scholars agree that it was likely written

around 1680 during his posting as the organist and choirmaster at the Predigerkirche in Erfurt.4

The Canon was originally paired with a gigue, but the gigue is rarely heard in modern

performances and would not be recognizable to the general public.

The famous ostinato that Pachelbel structured the Canon on was one of many such short

progressions that were popular in the Baroque era, for instance the Folia progression, and he

certainly was not the first one to utilize this harmonic progression. Yet Canon in D is now

intrinsically linked with this progression, like a sort of musical name branding. Just as we may

associate tissue paper withKleenex or plastic wrap with Saran Wrap, when we hear I-V-vi-

iii-IV-I-IV-V we think Canon in D.

As is the case with many of the works of pre-Classical period composers, this piece was

all but forgotten for over 200 years, only to be rediscovered in the early twentieth century. The

Canon was first published in 1919 when Gustav Beckmann included a transcription of the piece

in his article on Pachelbels chamber music in the German periodical Archiv fr

Musikwissenschaft.5 The first known recording was made in 1940 by the Viennese expatriate

Arthur Fiedler, who was the conductor of The Boston Pops Orchestra, which specialized in

popular classical music. However, it was not until the last quarter of the twentieth century that

the Canon started to become widely known amongst the general populous, beginning in 1968

when a recording of the Canon, made by the Jean-Francois Paillard Chamber Orchestra, was

3 Ewald Nolte, "Pachelbel, Johann." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed December 8, 2014.

4 Robert Fink, Prisoners of Pachelbel: An Essay in Post-Canonic Musicology, Hamburger Jahrbuch fr Musikwissenschaft 27 (2011), 91

5 Gustav Beckmann, Johann Pachelbel als Kammerkomponist, Archiv fr Musikwissenschaft (January 1919), 270.

featured on an album of Baroque music provided to members of the Musical Heritage Society.6

It was in this same time period that the first signs of the Canons influence on popular music

began to appear as well.7

The piece achieved even greater notoriety a decade later when two versions of the Canon,

the Paillard recording as well as a new vocal arrangement by Noel Goemanne, were used as

thematic and background music in the 1980 film Ordinary People, which won numerous awards

including the academy award for best picture that year. The Canon saw a surge in popularity

following its inclusion in this film and more recordings began to be released, such as the 1984

album Pachelbels Greatest Hit which featured eight different arrangements of the Canon. By

this point many of the classical radio stations were playing the piece almost hourly.8

Simultaneously there was a steady increase in the Canons impact on popular music, culminating

in the 1990s wave of Canonically influenced rock, grunge and punk songs. Today the piece can

be found in almost any form of media, from racing video games to Korean cinema to Coca-Cola

commercials.9

The Canon has also become closely associated with a number of important social events,

specifically with weddings and the Christmas holiday, although it is not uncommon to hear the

Canon at a graduation ceremony or even a funeral. The association between the Canon and these

emotionally potent social events has turned this piece into something of a cultural icon. Canon

in D has become nearly synonymous with the word wedding and a perusal of online wedding

6 Fink, 91-92.7 A reference to the use of Canon-like passages in the 60s era Baroque-pop music.8 According to Dr. Bryan Johanson, head of the music department at Portland State University, during an informal interview.9 The Canon is featured as part of the soundtrack in the video game Gran Turismo 4 for Playstation 2, in the soundtrack for the Korean movie My Sassie Girl (2002), and in a Coca-Cola commercial aired during the 2006 World Cup.

sights and forums, and most likely personal experiences, will confirm that it is one of the most

frequently used pieces of music for the bridal processional. It has become so popular that it is

often chosen over songs that were intended as wedding songs, such as Wagners Bridal Chorus.

Another trend in recent years has been the proliferation of vocal settings of the Canon with

original wedding-themed lyrics, such as the song Dreams Come True by Rebecca Holden and

Abraham McDonald.

It is hard to say exactly why this piece first became so popular in weddings, but a number

of factors probably played a part. First, there is the elegant simplicity of the piece, with its

memorable melodic lines and easy to follow harmonic progression. There is the fact that when

choosing music for a wedding the couple may wish to pick music that is widely recognized and

easily named. For many couples the selecting and programming of music for their big day can

take a back seat to the often overwhelming amount of planning that must be attended to, and

therefore the couple may not wish to expend a lot of effort thinking about repertoire and just

settle for the first processional-appropriate piece that pops into their heads. Finally, from a

logistical perspective the piece works well for a processional. Since the duration of the

processional can vary from ceremony to ceremony, a repetitious piece like the canon is very

useful in that it can easily be shortened or lengthened to suit the occasion, as long as the music is

live and not recorded.

An even more recent development than the association with weddings is the idea of

Canon in D being a Christmas Canon. This particular association appears to have originated

with the release in 1998 of the song Christmas Canon by the American progressive-rock group

Trans-Siberian Orchestra. This song featured a childrens choir singing original lyrics over a

fairly traditional orchestration of the Canon. Then in 2000 the kids movie Arthurs Perfect

Christmas used the canon in its opening scene, planting the association between Christmas and

the Canon in the youth psyche. I found this relevant quote in a review of the Arthur movie from

a blog called Kid-Mania, which features reviews of popular media written by kids, for kids. This

anonymous youth states, the movie opens with a riff on the magical Pachelbel Canon in D, my

heart-meltingly favorite classical music song! 10

Fourteen years later a browse in the music section of you local Borders Books will reveal

numerous compilations of Christmas music from the last decade that contain traditional, non-

TSO versions of the Canon, yet the titles of these tracks will almost always contain both Canon

in D and Christmas Canon, not necessarily in that order.11 A perfect example of this is the

album Composers Gone Wild (2008) by the group Bach to the Future. The music from this

album is not even Christmas themed, but it does include two arrangements of the Canon. The

first arrangement is titled Christmas Canon and it is simply a traditional recording of the

Canon. The second arrangement, which is titled Canon in D is actually a rock influenced

rendition featuring a distorted electric guitar as the primary melodic instrument. Whoever titled

these tracks seems to be unconsciously propagating the idea that henceforth the traditionally

performed Canon will be associated with lights and decorations and over-crowded shopping

malls while the title Canon in D will suggest some sort of rocking arrangement of this music

with wailing electric guitar solos.

I ask now that I be allowed to indulge in a brief personal tale. The date is Thursday,

November the 27th, Thanksgiving Day. As I sit holed up and typing away in the guest bedroom

of my mother-in laws house, trying to make up for my tendency to procrastinate with writing

10 "Review: Arthur's Perfect Christmas." Kid Mania. Accessed December 9, 2014.

11 For instance the compilations albums Christmas Piano Favorites (2010) and Winter Solstice (2011) .

assignments, I hear the faint wisps of music drifting in from the kitchen where my wife and her

family are cooking away while chatting and listening to Pandoras Christmas music station. I

decide to take a break and socialize a bit, so I step out into the hall when what do I hear? A

traditional recording of Canon in D of course! I also catch a snippet of conversation as mother-

in law remarks, I just love this piece.

Topic II: Popular Pachelbel

Canon in D has a nearly ubiquitous presence in the world today. How does one gauge the

popularity of a piece like the Canon? One way is to look at the frequency with which the work

has been performed. While it would be far beyond the scope of this paper to list all of the

performances of the Canon that have been presented since the rediscovery of this music, we can

look at the astronomical number of recorded performances currently available online two get an

estimate of the frequency. A search on YouTube of Live Performance of Pachelbels Canon in

D comes up with 216,000 results. Many of the results that come up are not actually

performances of the Canon of course. Some are unrelated videos that just have a combination of

the words used in the search engine, others are static videos and slideshows with the Canon

audio embedded in them, and many are not live performances in front of an audience but just

recorded live at home. Still, we are looking at a number of recorded performances of the Canon

ranging in at least the tens of thousands, whether they be performances of the traditional variety

or imaginative new settings for the music.

The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet included a performance of their arrangement Loose

Canon on their 2006 DVD LAGQ Live! In this version they begin the piece in the original

Baroque style and then proceed through a series of variations in popular styles. The first

variation is in the style of reggae, followed by variations in samba, bluegrass, funk, jazz, metal,

and nuevo flamenco styles. Another fascinating interpretation of the piece is a version by the

award-winning South Korean music and dance troupe Last For One, played on traditional

Korean instruments with DJ accompanist and a backing hip-hop beat produced by beat-boxing.

This version is in the form of a music video and features some very impressive break-dancing.

One of the most famous new interpretations of the Canon in D is called Canon Rock.

This version was arranged for electric guitar and backing track in 2007 by Jerry Chang, a young

Taiwanese guitarist. The piece begins with the guitar playing the original melody as written but

builds up to playing blazingly fast melodic riffs using a number of modern electric guitar

shredding techniques, such as tapping and sweep-picking. This version was made popular by

another Taiwanese guitarist, known as Funtwo, after posting his performance of it on YouTube.

Within weeks the video had millions of views, and between Funtwo and Changs versions they

have over seventeen million combined views. Since then dozens of other guitarists from around

the world have recorded and posted their own versions of the Canon Rock and the piece has

become a kind of standard in the shred guitar genre. When asked by Guitar World magazine

what inspired him to make this arrangement, Chang said, I just like the piece very much. 12

There have been a staggering amount of audio recordings made of the Canon as well.

Again it would be a monumental task to catalog all the different recordings ever made of this

piece, but we can get an idea of the volume of recordings by looking at the listings of track

names from digital music retailers such as Amazon.com. A search on their website for digital

musical recordings named Pachelbel Canon In D turns up 9895 results. While at least half of

these results are either duplicate listings of the same track being featured on different albums, the

12 Interview with Jerry Chang, Canon Rock, Guitar World (December 2007), 42.

inclusion of all the tracks from albums titled Canon in D, or non-related tracks that were

included because of search-engine errors, we still have at least several thousand different

recordings of the Canon available for instant download.

While the majority of the available recordings of the Canon are traditional arrangements,

many are cross-genre versions such as Rockelbels Canon by The Piano Guys, which features a

piano and cello duet backed by hand percussion and set to an upbeat rock-like tempo. Or there

are the eleven variations of Canon on the electronic artist Phloides album Pachelbel Ala Mode:

Canon in D in Various Modalities. This album features a version in each of the diatonic modes

as well as a backwards Canon in D. Even more bizarre and musically creative (but not

necessarily successful) is the fusion of sounds attempted on the album Unique Variations and

Inspirations on Pachelbels Canon in D Major. The result of one such attempt is titled Hotel

Pachelbel, which fuses the ostinato and melodic themes of the Canon with the instrumentation

and musical style of The Eagles song Hotel California. This same type of fusion is attempted

throughout the album with such disparate songs as Santa Claus is Coming to Town and

Journeys Dont Stop Believing.

Topic III: Deriving Under the Influence and Going for Baroque

There is nothing new about classical music influencing pop music, yet Pachelbels Canon

presents a unique example of this phenomenon due to the large body of popular music that has

been inspired by it over the last half century. One can readily find at least fifty examples of

popular songs that bear the mark of the Canon, whether the songwriters were conscious of this

influence or not.13 This trend appears to begin with the mid 1960s emergence of Baroque Pop

music. A number of hit songs from this sub-genre contained sections that were possibly derived

from the Canon, such as the instrumental bridge in The Beatles In My Life or the chorus of

The Whos Pictures of Lily.

Then came 1968, the year that the Musical Heritage Society released their Baroque

compilation containing the Paillard recording of the Canon. That same year two songs were

released that were directly influenced by the Canon. The first was a piece called Oh Lord, Why

Lord by the Spanish R&B group Pop Tops, which features a soulful male vocalist singing

original lyrics over a fairly standard arrangement of the Canon. The second song was called

Rain and Tears by the Greek progressive rock group Aphrodites Child. This piece was more

loosely based on the Canon, using only the ostinato as a foundation for the chord progression of

the songs verses. Rain and Tears did well in the charts of several European countries, and was

just recently featured in the Taiwanese movie Three Times (2005).

In 1969 a Canadian pop group called The Original Caste released the first recording of a

song called One Tin Soldier which was written by Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter. This anti-

war themed folk song again uses the basic harmonic progression of the Canon in the verse

sections. This recording was fairly popular in its time, reaching number 34 on the American pop

charts. Subsequent versions of this song were recorded in 1971 by the early metal group Coven,

whose version reached number 26 on the charts and was there only top 40 hit, and in 1972 by

Skeeter Davis, whose version didnt do as well in America, but rose to number 2 on the Canadian

adult contemporary chart.14 The next two decades saw the frequent release of Canon-inspired

13 There are many online sites, such as Listology.com, that have listings of songs with identical or extremely similar harmonic progression to Canon in D. While some of the works listed are questionable, the majority show clear, unambiguous indications of the Canon progression. 14 "One Tin Soldier," Wikipedia. November 29, 2014. Accessed December 9, 2014.

songs. In 1971 David Bowie made use of the ostinato in the chorus of his hit song Changes.

In 1978 the Village People based the verse of Go West on it. In 1980 Ozzy Ozbourne used it

in Goodbye to Romance, then in 1982 there was Fleetwood Macs Eyes of the World and in

1986 Joe Jacksons Hometown.

Then the 1990s arrived, the decade that became a kind of renaissance for Canon-inspired

music. It may have all began in 1991 with three developments related to the Canon. First, a

compact disc version became available of the album Pachelbels Greatest Hit. Second, we have

the first instance of the Canons use in a video game when a 16-bit midi rendition of the piece

was featured in the soundtrack of a popular cross-platform game called Lemmings. Third, the

British pop band The Farm released their song All Together Now which was heavily

influenced by the Canon. Furthermore, the lyrical content of this song seems to lend further

credence to the previously mentioned idea of Pachelbels Canon as a Christmas Canon, since

the lyrics were inspired by the fantastic events that transpired on Christmas Day of 1914 in the

trenches and war-torn fields of the first World War.15

Following this in 1993 were two examples of Canonic influence; the Aerosmith #1 hit

single Cryin and a cover of Go West by the English electronic-pop duo Pet Shop Boys, which

hit #1 in the charts in Germany and Ireland. 1994 saw four examples of the Canonizing trend,

the first being the song Basket Case by American Punk-Rock group Green Day. This song was

one of the singles from their hit album Dookie, and all three singles made it to #1 on the

Billboard top 100. Basket case has gone on to become a punk classic, and in 2006 BBC Radio

One listeners voted it the Greatest Punk Song of All Time. 16 The next example is the track

15 Referring to the Christmas Truce of 1914 where German and British soldiers left the trenches and crossed no-mans land to greet each other in peace on Christmas Eve. These events have inspired a number of songs including All Together Now.16 "Most Punk Top 30 Results." BBC News. Accessed December 9, 2014.

Hook from the Blues traveler album Four. The title of this piece makes reference to the idea

in popular music of the musical hook, 17 which is a fitting match for a Canonic musical

framework. Just as The hook brings you back 18 so are we once again brought back to

Pachelbels seemingly omnipresent canon. The last two examples from this year are the songs

Whatever by the English rock group Oasis and Machine Head by the English grunge group

Bush.

In 1995 Oasis released a second track based on the Canon called Dont Look Back in

Anger. In 1996 the first example of a Canonically influenced gangster rap song is released,

Tupac Shakurs Life Goes On. Also this year is the release of Belle and Sebastians Get Me

Away from Here Im Dying. In 1997 Matchbox 20 used the progression on their song Push

as did the rapper Coolio in his track C U When U Get There, along with Spiritualizeds

Ladies and Gentleman We Are Floating in Space and Natalie Imbruglias cover of Torn. In

1998 there was Save Tonight by Eagle-Eye Cherry and finally, at the turning of the

millennium, was Vitamin Cs Graduation Friends Forever.

This last example from Vitamin C, the stage name of American singer-songwriter Colleen

Ann Fitzpatrick, is a fitting piece with which to end a decade of Hyper-Canonism, 19 as it is a

veritable smorgasbord of musical influences never before experienced together in one song (and

perhaps for good reason). We have a pop style song which is directly based on Pachelbels

Canon both harmonically and melodically, features the opening motives of Beethovens Piano

Sonata no. 30, and has lyrics that are rap-based stylistically and sung by a young female vocalist.

17 A hook is a pop-music term referring to short musical ideas or phrases designed to capture the ear of the listener.18 The hook brings you back is the main lyrical line of the chorus in the Blues Traveler song Hook.19 My own self-created terminology, other examples including Canonic, Canonized, etc. all referring to music which has been influenced heavily by Canon in D, generally by the ostinato.

The song explores the perspectives of soon to be high school graduates as they reminisce about

days past and wonder if they will remain friends after graduation. Here we see another

association between the Canon and important social events, this time with the act of graduating.

While the 90s were an especially prolific time for Canonic influence in popular music,

the trend has continued to this day and will undoubtedly into the future.

A Critical Coda

Nothing is universally loved, and there are certainly those who would jump for joy if they

never had to hear Canon in D again. It has been described as classical muzak and one of the

biggest cliches in classical music. 20 I have met wedding musicians who have performed this

piece so many times that they have nightmares about it. Most cellists could share horror stories

from their youth about the dreaded ostinato, a part so boring and repetitious that it inspired

musician/comedian Rob Paravonian to write his hilarious YouTube hit Pachelbel Rant in which

he comically relates his hatred for the piece and the way the Canon seems to follow him

everywhere he goes. The French economist Jaques Attali even went so far as to suggest that the

rise in popularity of the Canon heralds the establishment of a society of repetition in which

nothing will happen anymore. 21 But as John Steinbeck said, time is the only critic without

ambition, 22 and time seems to be showing us that whether we like it or not, we are in for

another fifty years of Canons blazing.

20 Lawson Taitte, Pachelbel recording is musical delight, Dallas Morning News, 23 July 1995.21 Jacques Attali,Noise: The Political Economy of Music. Minneapolis: Univ. of MN Press, 1985, p. 5.22 From the section On Critics in Steinbecks Writers at Work (1977).

Conclusion

Critiques aside, most everyone seems to agree on the beauty of Canon in D, whether its

Taiwanese shred guitarists or Korean break-dancers, British baroque-poppers or American rock-

punkers. What started as a simple composition founded on a common harmonic progression has

become a cherished cultural icon, emotionally linked with important social events. In a way

Pachelbel is like the worlds first one-hit wonder. His other works are rarely played or known,

and he is considered by much of the academia to be a second-rate composer, deserving of half a

page in the Baroque section of a music textbook at best. Yet through the combination of a

common ostinato and a simple three-part canon he created a work of music that has withstood

the test of time.