Pachelbel Canon, Arranged for Guitar
Arranged for Guitar by Steve Eckels

The Pachelbel Canon is one of the most famous of all classical compositions. A canon is the formal word for a round, like Row, Row, Row, Your Boat. The composer, Johann Pachelbel, was a German organist who lived from 1653-1706, smack in the middle of the Baroque era (1600-1750). The "Canon in D" was his "greatest hit". This tune is popular at Christmas, and is also a favorite for weddings- so I would say it is required repertoire for guitarists! One of the things I like about it is that it consists of a chord progression that repeats over and over providing an enjoyable opportunity for improvisation.

My arrangement of the Pachelbel Canon is found in my book, The Christmas Encyclopedia - Fingerstyle Edition (MB99881). Forgive me, but I have to take a moment to rave about this book. First, the arrangements are written in what I call "skeleton style" which means they include the melody and a bass part and chord symbols. They are perfect for young students - just perfect!

The arrangements are also perfect for professional musicians because you can sight-read them, and embellish them using your own artistic style. To this day, I personally use the book for holiday parties. Secondly, the song list is the best available - second to none. In addition to all of the Christmas standards, the book includes "Jesu", "Joy of Man's Desiring by Bach", "The Christmas Concerto" by Corelli, Selections from The Nutcracker and the Pachelbel Canon. As a bonus the book contains ten songs for Chanukah. I simply love this book.

OK, thank you for bearing with my enthusiasm. Now let's talk about how to practice the Pachelbel Canon. I have placed the song in the key of C to make the fingerings more accessible. The piece is written in basically four variations. The preliminary chords needed to approach the piece are C, G, Amin, Emin, and F. Take a moment to review them with your eyes closed at two beats per chord.

Here is your practice progression, which you will also use to jam on later:

C G Amin Emin F C F G

Since you will be improvising over these chords you might as well memorize them. (You can hear me improvise on this tune on my Holiday Recording Comfort and Joy available at my web site www.guitarmusicman.com).

Once you know the chords by memory, try playing the progression with different fingerpicking patterns. Here are some ideas: pima, pami, paim, apim and others that you can invent (where p = thumb, i= index, m= middle, a= ring finger).

Besides the chords, the other prerequisite to playing this piece is to know the 17 natural notes in open position. If you don't know them yet, this is the perfect time to learn them. Keep practicing them until you can "fly" - as fast as possible. Flying insures that you are playing by feel rather than thought. The mind simply won't function fast enough for our purposes. Practice these 17 notes until you achieve what athletes call playing "in the zone". The frets, starting from the sixth string are 013,023,023,02,013,013.

Instead of telling you which right-hand fingers to use, I suggest that you experiment until you find what works. Try lots of "wrong" fingerings until you find the right one. This process has lots of advantages that I don't have room to discuss here. By running a series of tests or experiments you will find the right-hand fingerings that work best for you.

Back to the piece:

Variation One consists of the half-note melody harmonized with a bass note ten scale steps below. Learning this variation is a fun way to learn the valuable intervals known as tenths. Simply pinch the bass note with the thumb and the melody with the ring finger.

Variation Two is built on the repeating chord progression and uses a finger-picking pattern that includes the same pinching action as variation one. As a preliminary study, review variation one which consists of all pinches. Here's the pattern for variation two: Pinch-i-m-a. Try the pattern as a warm-up using as many chords as possible. The thumb will always pinch the root. (By the way, to find the root remember this handy rule- "The root is always the lowest fretted note, unless you're playing an E, A or D chord).

By learning the first two variations, you will find that Variation Three is self-explanatory. Notice that there is an abundance of open strings in the bass, which simplifies fingerings. If you are reading the notation, try reading the contours rather than trying to figure out (decode) every note. If you know the chords, reading the contours should be quite easy.

Variation Four is the one that needs the most practice since the melody moves in sixteenth notes. Learning passages like this become easier if you have learned the natural-note scale in advance. Notice the fingerings in measure fifteen. This is the only spot that requires special fingering attention. To develop speed for variation four, try two contrasting strategies - a slow one and a fast one.

Slow: Play each eighth note as if it were a half note, and each sixteenth note as if it were a quarter note. This is a good way to ingrain the fingerings.

Fast: Conversely, practice using the "freight train" technique on small segments consisting of only one or two beats. For example in measure thirteen, play only G-E-F-G repeatedly. Start slowly and loop the passage over and over - getting faster like a freight train leaving the station and speeding up to a frenzy. Once you can play this beat up to tempo, learn another beat and attach the two together.

This is probably more information than you need, so simply jump in and enjoy one variation at a time, remembering to invent your own variations. If you don't already own a copy, The Christmas Encyclopedia should be on every guitarist's bookshelf, and is available through your favorite music store.

Wishing you Comfort and Joy all year long!
Steve Eckels

To hear my interpretations of other Christmas songs, check out "Comfort and Joy" at www.guitarmusicman.com