Canon Piano Score
Tom Donahou
I have produced an arrangement of the Canon in D for piano which you can download/print off and have also put together a brief analysis of the work to help inform your learning and performance of the piece.
I have kept this arrangement of the canon in D major for piano quite simple so that piano players of varying levels of ability can all enjoy learning it. I have scored it with the opening bass notes played as half notes (minims) as this makes it easier for piano players to read the later rhythms. Note that the original version notates the opening notes as quarter notes (crotchets).
The opening bars are simple, but as the piece progresses to increasingly complex sixteenth notes (semiquaver patterns) it becomes quite challenging and will be a satisfying task for more experiences players to tackle.
It is impossible to transcribe this aspect of the Canon in D major onto a piano arrangement without making the piece extremely difficult and so I have simply taken one line of melody for most of the right hand part. You could achieve the canon of the 3 violins to varying degrees of success in an organ arrangement as the pedals would play the bass part leaving 2 hands free to play the other parts.
There are literally hundreds of different performances and arrangements of the Canon in D that you will be able to find to have a look/listen to.
Here are just a couple of examples to inspire you.
This is what creates the canon aspect of the piece: when the same melody is repeated shortly after it is played by another instrument while remaining layered on top of each other. If done right, as in Canon in D, this sounds absolutely stunning!
We could simply learn all of these melodies note for note on the piano and then try to limit ourselves to creating that feeling and texture in the same exact way as Pachelbel. However instead, you can create the same idea and feeling in a much more easy and unique way by selecting a few favorite melodies and using musical techniques and patterns to create new layers, texture, and development as you go.
That formula is especially useful on a solo instrument such as the piano, where it may be difficult to continue a true canon through each new melody. As a piano performer at weddings, sometimes this is required since I often have no idea how long it will take exactly for the wedding party to walk down the aisle. It usually requires improvising to make it work just right.
You will probably notice that as the note values get faster and faster, the energy also increases. Since each of these melodies seems to contain one primary note value, we can think of it as a pulse. The first contains a half note pulse, the second a quarter note pulse, and the third a 16th note pulse. As the pulse speed increases, so does the energy.
There are many ways to add embellishments to a melody. One of the easiest and most common is to simply add harmony! To do that you can simply add more notes of the current chord underneath the melody in some way.
To do this, you can repeat the chord progression as many times as you like using each melody as you please. However, on each repeat think of simple ways you can change and develop the music. Think of ways you can take the energy level up or down.
I encourage you to play through each example and really get a sense of it internally. Afterward, try to make it your own by mixing and matching different patterns, altering them, or even adding new ones in the right or left hand.
If you want a much deeper dive into Canon in D and learn many more beautiful possibilities for both the right and left hand to take your playing to a new level, as well as accompaniment and improvisational techniques for Canon in D, then check out our full course Pachelbel Canon in D (Beginner/Intermediate, Intermediate/Advanced).
Courses are comprised of lessons and are based on selected styles of music and learning focus topics. PWJ offers regular courses, workshops which include teacher interaction, and challenges which are divided into a 4 week learning format.
Smartsheets use the Soundslice sheet music player to give students digital access to all arrangements and lesson sheet music. Smartsheets provide audio playback, light-up key notation, transposition, looping, and other learning tools.
Composed by Johann Pachelbel around 1680, this work is composed of two movements: a canon and a gigue, for three violins and continuo. It is one of the most popular pieces of music by Johann Pachelbel.
In this article, the goal is to make you learn Canon in D on the piano in an easy version. You will learn to play the notes of the right hand, then those of the left hand. Each part is accompanied by a tutorial video that shows you the notes to play in an interactive way. Thanks to these videos, you will have a visual support to deepen your learning.
The La Touche Musicale learning app offers more than 2,500 songs to play easily on the piano. Connect your piano to your device and learn to play them at your own pace while having fun.
Before playing the Canon in D, we will first review the basics of piano playing by discussing the names of the notes on a piano keyboard. If you already know this part, we recommend that you go directly to the next part (learning to play the right hand notes of the Canon).
To find your way around the keyboard more easily, you can use the black keys. Indeed, if you look at the picture, you will see that the black keys work in groups of two (in orange) and three (in blue) that follow one another. This alternation makes it easier for you to find your way around the keyboard.
For example, if you are looking for the note A, you first have to look at the groups of three black keys (in blue on the picture). Once you have identified a group of three, press the white key between the second and third black keys in that group: this is your A note.
The following tutorial video shows the different notes that we have listed above. The notes appear interactively and descend on a virtual piano at the bottom of the screen. When the notes arrive on the virtual piano, you must play them on your piano. Take the time to watch this video to learn which notes to play with your right hand and to understand the beats and rhythm of each note.
We have done the same thing as the right hand here: a tutorial video that shows you interactively all the notes of the left hand coming down on a virtual piano. Play the indicated notes as they arrive on the virtual piano.
To save a little time in your learning process, we advise you to work in small sequences of a few seconds. Start slowly with each of these sequences, then gradually increase the pace as you become more comfortable.
We have made a third and final tutorial video here that shows you the notes to play with both hands at the same time. Take the time to observe the time of each note and when they should be played to stay in the rhythm of the song. Above all, focus on the synchronization of your two hands, it is the most important for this part of the tutorial.
Canons featured in the music of the Italian Trecento and the 14th-century ars nova in France. An Italian example is "Tosto che l'alba" by Gherardello da Firenze. In both France and Italy, canons were often featured in hunting songs. The medieval and modern Italian word for hunting is "caccia", while the medieval French word is spelled "chace" (modern spelling: "chasse"). A well-known French chace is the anonymous "Se je chant mains".[7] Richard Taruskin describes "Se je chant mains" as evoking the atmosphere of a falcon hunt: "The middle section is truly a tour de force, but of a wholly new and off-beat type: a riot of hockets set to 'words' mixing French, bird-language, and hound-language in an onomatopoetical mlange."[8] Guillaume de Machaut also used the 3-voice "chace" form in movements from his masterpiece Le Lai de la Fontaine (1361). Referring to the setting of the fourth stanza of this work, Taruskin says "a well-wrought chace can be far more than the sum of its parts; and this particular chace is possibly Machaut's greatest feat of subtilitas."[9]
An example of late 14th century canon which featured some of the rhythmic complexity of the late 14th century ars subtilior school of composers is La harpe de melodie by Jacob de Senleches. According to Richard Hoppin, "This virelai has two canonic voices over a free and textless tenor."[10]
In many pieces in three contrapuntal parts, only two of the voices are in canon, while the remaining voice is a free melodic line. In Dufay's song "Resvelons nous, amoureux", the lower two voices are in canon, but the upper part is what David Fallows describes as a "florid top line":[11]
Both J. S. Bach and Handel featured canons in their works. The final variation of Handel's keyboard Chaconne in G major (HWV 442) is a canon in which the player's right hand is imitated at the distance of one beat, creating rhythmic ambiguity within the prevailing triple time:
An example of a classical strict canon is the Minuet of Haydn's String Quartet in D Minor, Op. 76, No. 2.[12] "Throughout its sinewy length, between upper and lower strings. Here is the superbly logical fulfilment of the two-part octave doubling of Haydn's earliest divertimento minuets":[13]
Antony Hopkins describes the above as "a delightfully nave canon".[14] More sophisticated and varied in its treatment of intervals and harmonic implications is the canonic passage from the second movement of his Piano Sonata 28 in A major, Op. 101:
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