I like how your profile picture is the Black Parade (mainly because I'm emo) but also because Welcome to the Black parade is another song inspired by this same Canon.
Probably the funniest part of this to me is that sometimes when I'm listening to the radio, I'll have a moment of hilarity when I realize 'He was right, that song is everywhere'. Always a case for me of 'Once you know, you can't ever unhear it'.
My years as a baritone with High School Concert Choir and the seasonal Choraleers heartily agree with you. Even us guys in the Bass section had a little bit more to do than the altos and contraltos did whenever "Carol of the Bells" came up. Same with "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring"; the Alto section might as well take a mass coffee break whenever _that_ song comes up. Friggin' sopranos and tenors...they get _all_ the love, I swear....
+Dana Seilhan Eeeehhhhhhhh... I liked singing the alto line of Carol of the Bells. It could be better... But it could also be a lot worse. There's more than one note, and we took over the melody at least once in our arrangement.
The funny thing is, Pachelbel only wrote those 8 notes. The rest of the parts were meant to be improvised like Jazz music based on the chord progression noted by Pachelbel and grounded by the instrument playing the basso continuo (which is what those 8 notes are), which could either be a violincello or a viola d'gamba. Eventually people wrote down their favorite improvisations and combined them to create the amalgamation version we have now. But yeah, it's worse than he thinks.
Salamon2 that would be the voicings of the chords yes but not the contrapuntal 3 part canonic melody. you dont improvise a canon (edit: yes you can improvise a canon but no there is no reason to believe that this was improvised). The basso contiuo improvised the vocings of chords. A continuo is an ensamble with for example a harpsichord or a viola de gambo or both the cello part is just the base voice. So no, the melody was very much composed by Pachelbel just like the base part was. The improvisational aspects would be the vocings of the chords that were played by the continuo and that were indicated by the figured base (the numbers) aswell as the ornamemtation.
49jubilee Come again? 1912? Commercial recordings started in the USA in 1889 on brown wax cylinders, then black wax, and during this time Emil Berliner was making early flat disc records at least as early as 1892. By 1900, The Victor Talking Machine Co. had taken over the discs from Berliner, and in 1902 Edison finally started making cylinders that were mass produced by casting ("Gold Moulded"), and then in 1912, the Edison Diamond Discs and Blue Amberol cylinders. Columbia was going since the 1890s, with cylinders, the discs. Most discs were single sided until around 1908 when double sided discs came out. The big three record companies had the US market almost to themselves (via lawsuits), until the mid teens when the patents started running out and more companies sprang up, both for records AND phonos. This was the big phonograph boom. We had commercial electric recording in 1922 with Marsh Laboratories, and GOOD SOUNDING by 1926 with Victor and Columbia. Sound on film was experimental in 1923, and reality about a decade later, and movies with sound on disc (Vitaphone) started around 1926. Hand played piano rolls were commercially introduced in 1903 in the USA by Philip J. Meahl and the New York Music Roll Co. of Bayonne, New Jersey (these rolls nearly extinct today... I offer high prices to anyone who finds them), and on a large scale, in 1912 by QRS, Aeolian and Rythmodik, with other companies quickly following. Reproducing piano rolls started in 1904 with Welte in Germany, followed by Hupfeld in 1906, Philipps in 1908, and others.
*the player piano boom in the USA was roughly 1912 thru 1927, for foot pumped, upright 88 note home players. The push-up piano players were popular about 10 years earlier, and the coin piano era overlapped all of this almost perfectly.
No, he actually wrote the parts above the 8 notes as well. Being a clever musician writing a canon over the chaconne, he only needed to write the violin part and all the other parts the rules to realize their parts.
"Hook" by Blues Traveler was literally a satire song mocking Canon in D's presence in pop music and other tropes of the music industry. A hilariously ironically popular song.
What’s funny is that Basket Case is actually the second time Green Day uses that chord progression in a song. The first time was on a song called One of my Lies on their 1991 album Kerplunk.
The only song he mentions that has a legitimate excuse for being so lazy is Blues Traveler's Hook, because they did it on purpose. Between the note for note copy of Canon In D and the clearly pop-structure-hating lyrics, it's an awesome commentary song. AVClub does a great breakdown of why Hook is awesome. Also John Popper's voice and sick harmonica solos.
Meh I wouldn’t called it lazy. Sometimes you gotta eat something and this is one of the surefire way of making a hit. I would spend my entire life writing songs based around the canon if I know how to actually write music. I just never seem to get sick of it for some reason
I'm a geek who plays Cello & Guitar. Have had a YT accounts for almost a decade now. Never heard of this. What a great performance, hope he still has a career.
Mmm... in art?? Not in music!... a good part of Barrock music has dedicated his work to the Lord and edification. punk is not more than protest and disconformism.
I remember a decade ago when this video was on youtube at first, and someone was like LOL PACO BELL and the rest of the comments were just shitting on the guy "its pachelbel" and it was then i vowed to stay away from youtube comments... But im back... ;_;
My school hosted a winter guard competition that I had to work. One of the guards had this as their song and it was one of the best things I've seen this year
+brainstorm90 LOL i was thinking the SAME damn thing. almost feels like this video should be popular again for the new computer teenage group to enjoy.
+brainstorm90 He has other quirky songs so sure why not? I'm a fan. This guy has more talent though than the 26K subscribers to date, so feel free to subscribe to show some support. :D
As a household that has two cellists and a house full of musicians there are two songs permanently banned from our home and anywhere near us, "Chopsticks"....and.... Pachelbel's Canon in D.
every tuba, bass clarinet, baritone sax, etc. player who's always irritated when they think of this because our parts are legitimately fourteen tied whole notes: I am with you.
I love this so song so much, and his hate is amusing. Really good rant. Honestly I thing Pachabel caught a little piece of heaven, of divine music. Thats why it is so timeless and beautiful.
Lol it's such a catchy chord progression that it's super hard to not accidentally use it. When I'm just improvising on the piano I'll catch myself using the canon progression all the time and it's annoying lol.
My theory is that Pachelbel wanted to educate the masses on what it is like to be a violist. He died before being able to teach the violinists, but that’s why we have Phillip Glass.
As a cellist in school, I can relate to this on so many levels. First off, the boring music! I played a piece once, with two notes (a waltz) it physically hurt me haha, might be the downfall of the cello. And second, there's no way to look cool showing up with a cello....Anyway, i'll see you in hell Pachelbel!
xicristian I have heard of two cellos, they're great. However, as good as I might be for my age, I am not professional like they are. I can't rock out to ACDC and as cool as that may be, it just isnt possible. For now am stuck hauling around a giant case and explaining that no, I don't play the guitar and no, the cello isnt a giant violin.
If you think you have it tough, try tuba. Doors, stair, people, they all become obstacle preventing you from going anywhere without denting the case, the instrument, the wall, or other people. But you know, the amazing and wide variety of notes and structures that we play makes up for, because everyone goes to see orchestras and bands for the tubas right. You know nothing, nothing of our struggles, our suffering.
I think we each have our own struggles, here. don't minimize mine, because constantly having to worry about a fragile piece of wood that costs 1,000 at least isn't easy. TheFredducky
Kels ey Sorry, I was being really melodramatic and over the top on purpose. I know about how hard it is to cello. My brother has one and he says it get annoying. Wasn't trying to belittle, just trying to let the world know. Sorry if you felt I was being rude.
When I took my GCSE music many moons ago and it came to composition, our music teacher actually said to us: “watch out for the inevitable... at some point you’ll come up with something that sounds great at first, only to realise you’ve just rewritten Pachelbel’s Canon”.
SO.TRUE. I took GCSE music and did composition. One of the pieces I wrote was a repeating base line with variations on top. And after scratching my head for months, I realized the base line was VERY similar to Pachelbel’s Canon. Granted, it’s not exactly the same and I took proud of the “plot twist” I wrote. But still.... huge fail lol
I did a composition class for music in high school, and now, many years later, I've realised that one of the compositions I wrote was just another variation on La Folía, and I hadn't even realised at the time.
I'll always remember writing a guitar part for someone, and when I played it for him, he laughed and said matter-of-factly, "That's Journey." He then played "Don't Stop Believin'" for me and I realized my life was a lie.
@@Vanished_Mostly that's because Don't Stop Believin uses the same 4 chord progression as a lot of pop songs. It's ingrained deep in our collective minds.
@@Captain_Hapton It still is, and Green Day isn't punk and has never been. It's pop punk though and that's the closest the general public is ever getting to punk. You can't expect the average person to know Bad Religion, NoFX or Black Flag. And even from the more mainstream punk bands like the Offspring the songs that everyone knows are the slower softer songs.
"There's no way to be cool when your instrument is larger than you." I'm a harpist, I totally understand lol. And as a kid I had that EXACT part in Pachelbel's Canon.
when I was in HS the one tuba/sousaphone player in our band happened to also be the smallest kid in the school. did he get picked on? you bet your ass he got picked on...
You know what my favoritest part of this video is? It's where Rob puts his hand on the guitar plug... *and then waits a second for the sound guy to mute it* before unplugging it. Thanks, Rob.
@@baylinkdashyt I'm happy with it :-) There was a great crowd and the energy can definitely be heard on the album. Some tracks have been getting some nice airplay on SiriusXM radio and some other places, which is nice. Thanks for asking!
It's great for improvising a ritornello as well. Several Paul Manz improvisations use this chord progression or a similar chord progression for for ritornellos between phrases.
HA! I'm a violinist and I HATE Canon in D because I'm constantly playing it: every wedding or event I have ever played requests it, and I have at least one student playing it at any given time, which means I have to play it with them!! My son is in the NICU, and they play the Pandora Christmas radio station there, and there are at least 2 different Pachelbel versions playing every hour. It drives me crazy. I mentioned it to the nurse, and she told me to google this comedian, which is how I got here. I totally agree with everything he says, and I get the good parts!
It reached peak funny when Maroon 5 released Memories. Why come up with some "original" spin of the piece when you can just straight up use a barely modified version of the piece itself.
I was reading a fantasy comic and then Dawey O'rowane says I will just play pachebel canon but faster and then I remember this video that hace 16 years now Dawey no matter what you tried you will play pachebel XD
We have too many real Mexican restaurants to waste time on Taco Hell, and they have beer too. But I haven't heard Pachelbel in any Mariachi music, yet.
I had to laugh when I heard that because I was singing for a wedding once. It was me, another singer, an organist, and a violinist. When I saw a printout of the order, whoever put it together had "Paco Bell's Canon" written as the prelude.
There's a bit of cheating towards the end, when Rob switches from Pachelbel to the 4 Chords of Pop (from I-V-vi-iii to I-V-vi-IV). This is still one of the funniest stand-up bits I've ever seen though, and Rob is a fantastic performer.
Yeah, he cheated with the progression once he got to Green Day. There were a few of the songs listed where he stretched the melody a bit to make it work, for sure. This was still hilarious. I've watched it like 10 times since I saw it yesterday. I wish I had seen it earlier. Think of those stretches as guy putting whatever the artist did to make you think it wasn't Canon in D so they could get away with it. He put them back to what they borrowed from. I'm no trained cellist, I'm just a rhythm guitarist and I sing a little... Even I've had enough learning where I can tell when a melody's been aped, where the chords are switched, etc. I won't know what they are unless they are very simple. I can read music because my grandpa taught me when I was little and we played recorder in school but I only know basic things. Most of the theory i know is because of guitar and bass. I can do blues scales in D in Open D tuning; which is the easiest thing ever. Stay on frets 3,5, 7, 10 and 12 and you literalIy can't hit a bad note. I learned that from Keith Richards; who likes open G for that reason... I just switched it to D because I found out its a lot easier. I wish i had more time to practice. lol
there's probably an argument to be made that the "4 chords" is a cut down version of pachelbel, eliminating iii as a passing chord, and the final I-IV-V as a typical flourish at the end of a phrase that marks time without really affecting the phrase but imo the more important question is: does rob's rant pre-date the Axis bit? this cannot be answered with youtube ... there's a clip of an AoA member doing the bit before the above performance, but i suspect rob was already known for this act, and performed it early enough to have inspired AoA, despite their protestations. i am completely unable to find any information on the history of rob's sketch
I kinda like how his overused classical melody rant became a four chords rant toward the end there. Tip o' the hat to him for an entertaining bout of hatred.
Lord Vivec No they don't. The four chords he played in the end were D-A-Bm-G. The Canon in D is D-A-Bm-F#m-G-D-G-A. Everybody uses I, IV and V chords. They are the most common chords - they are the basis of tonal music. The next most common chords are vi and ii. Pachelbel didn't invent them. The I-V-vi-iii-IV-I-IV (or ii)-V chord progression became popular because of Canon in D but I'm sure Pachelbel didn't "invent" it either. It's just a simple chord progression that works and has a bit more color than just the three basic chords (I, IV and V). It's kind of a sequence if you look at it. There's a fourth jump down, then a second up, then a fourth down, a second up, fourth down and we are on the tonic chord, and to start the chord progression again, we end it with a basic half cadence I-IV-V which leads us back to the start of the progression pretty smoothly. Sequences work (the sequence in this progression was fourth down, second up). They sound "logical". Another really common chord sequence is the circle of fifths progression (usually in a minor key) - i-iv-VII (could also be seen as a secondary dominant for the III chord)-III-VI-ii-V. It is very common because it is logical. It moves down in fifths all the time. Look at jazz standards like Fly Me to the Moon or Autumn Leaves and they are based on this progression. Moving in fifths just sounds good. Nobody invented them, they just feel natural.
MaggaraMarine You know, you're 100% correct. I did word my comment pretty bad. I should have said something along the lines of "Well those four chords are found in Canon in D." The Top Comment didn't seem to get the connection between the melody and the chord progression being used all over the place. You are right, though, and I'm glad to come across another person who knows a bit about music theory. Most of my peers can't even find middle C on a piano....
It’s 2022 and I STILL think of this. Every time I start listening to my favorite recently released songs only to slowly realize it’s Pachelbel, yet again, I consider swerving my car.
+TheAntiParadox except most people stopped using comic sans after the initial "haha funny" -moment, pachelbel's canon just goes on and on in the pop music and you cant escape it.
