Added: 2 years ago
From: smalin
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  • Canon, Delighting you always

  • There's a chance that this passacaglia (nope, it is not a canon! It has canons, but is not a canon) was actually written by one of Pachelbel's students. Often students in those times would publish their works under their master's name so they could get their compositions out in the public. :P Unfortunately, when I played this... I had the cello part. 8 notes of hell repeating over and over while the violins, violas, etc. expanded upon the main theme in the bass. Yep, definitely a passacaglia! XD

  • @thebrainnugget It's both: the 'cello has the repeating passacaglia bass line, and the three violins all play the same part (in canon).

  • @smalin Yes, they definitely do that at first. However, may I ask: what is your point? :o

  • @thebrainnugget My point is that it is a "canon" --- the three violin parts are identical throughout the entire piece. See Canon_(music) on Wikipedia. So, while it's true that the bass line repeats (which means that the piece is a passacaglia), it's also true that it contains a canon.

  • @smalin So, if it is a passacaglia with canons, then why is it called a Canon if it is ultimately a passacaglia? I'm not trying to start up an argument, I seriously just want to know why. :P

  • @thebrainnugget No particular reason. My guess as to why it ended up being characterized (and named) as a canon is that it's easier to do a passacaglia than a canon (you just riff over the bass line in a passacaglia, but in a canon, you have to make sure things work note-by-note), so the "canon" aspect of it is more significant, more impressive, than the "passacaglia" aspect. Like the difference between writing a generic contrapuntal piece and writing a fugue.

  • @smalin Hmm, that may very well be true. However, I have may an idea why. At least according to wikipedia, it was publish in 1919, the modern era of music. Naturally in that time period, music (along with other things) was starting to become more commercialized (is that a good word?). The title "Canon in D" sounds so much catchier than "Passacaglia in D". See where I am going? :P Nonetheless, I enjoy your vids a lot, especially the moving circle ones (nice way to describe them huh?). XD

  • @smalin Also, Canon in D is so much easier to say! XD

  • @smalin Wow, thank you so much for providing a music link for this piece!!!

    I've been wanting to have a complete score for years. They're pretty expensive at most music stores, but this one is free!

  • @thebrainnugget That's crazy. They say the same thing about Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, and I got into a big fight on Wikipedia just to change one biased sentance that said "Attribution of piece to Bach is doubtful". Never trust the "Experts"!

    They attack dead people who are no longer here to defend either themselves or their works to force attention on themselves at the composer's expense.

  • @AdmRomulus Well, Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor is definitely his. Yeah, the "experts" are normally musical elitists who think they know everything. Heck, sometimes they even try to change what the original composers wrote just because it does not sound appealing. For example, Beethoven's 3rd symphony in e-flat major: the horn comes in on different key from the violins. Sometimes conductors (ex: Beethoven's own friend) try to change it to make it "sound better". :/

  • beautiful; thanks for this.

  • AWESOME :O!

  • Gyönyörű dallamok :)

  • This song is played in every eight grade graduation for walking down the aisle at me school! :D I played it once on French Horn last year in our Orchestra for the graduation!

  • This version is so cool. I listen to this on my earphones all the time to drown the world out. Especially when my girlfriend has the curse )

  • Is it just the people I surround myself with, or is the appreciation for this kind of music fading away with people of younger years? I'm 15 and some months, and when asked what kind of music I liked i responded with "classic", and i was looked at like I was crazy. No mention of it was made afterward, it was just a very awkward scene was made when I said that I enjoyed classic music... I'm not saying they have to listen to it, but sheesh...

  • @666BLeue  It was exactly the same fifty years ago.

  • @666BLeue It was the same when I was your age 12 years ago. If' I'd had mentioned at high school I like classic music I probably would have been beaten to death. I think teenagers would view it as stuffy or something. Not trendy. Don't take offence by it - in ten years you'll still be listening to this and they'll be cursing how moronic their tastes were. And if they don't then they're too stupid to worry about.

  • @666BLeue Yeah I'm 13 and listen to Mozart and other classical composers on a daily basis. I did like how one of my friends who listens to scream-o said "I wouldn't go home and chose to listen to classical music, but I have respect for it and it shouldn't be disregarded as 'bad' music."

  • no viola =(

  • Increible

    

  • I could cry... I desperately want to learn violin... Been a childhood dream.. And I love classical music..

  • @iluvKH4eva ..is there anyone or anything physically or mentally (or spiritually) holding you back? sheesh get a friggin' violin and get learning!

  • Screw the guy who has to play the purple blocks, while everbody else is workin their asses off tryin to keep up :)

  • Poor Cello.

  • As askdubi says: This wonderful work helps me following the music. It stands before me, before it was only floating. Thank you for this unique experience.

  • This music would be great accompanied by an advert for British wool.

  • I LOVE THIS SONG ;..)

  • This is purely beautiful..

  • we had to play this i our music lesson 

  • sounds a smidgen flat

  • I think I know why you'd cry to a piece like this- it is often used as a wedding piece, but couldn't it also fit a funeral? Think about it. It's graceful, consoling. The more I think about it, the more right it feels....

  • Amo esta música, me eleva, me relaja, me inspira a algo mejor... sencillamente no hay palabras para describir lo hermosa que es esta pieza. 

  • Truly beautiful. I have always loved this piece but after I walked up the aisle to it being played on the church organ in 2009 I love it even more and it always reminds me of the happiest day of my life! Thanks for the memories!

  • Why 15 persons don't like this ??

    are they have ear to listen this great music !!

  • my tears dropped :) Love that

    

  • ive played this song many times and love it!

  • I think that the cello player threw up after this.

    She is playing the same 8 notes for 5 minutes =)

  • @Croski1 yeah. i agree

  • @Croski1 have you seen the video "pachelbel rant"? reminds me of that guy

  • @Croski1 This is the joy of the ground bass =P

    The organ plays it as well. This is possibly the simplest piece on Smalin's chanel- 8 chords the whole way through, and really only one violin part, played slightly after one another.

    There's a cellst in my music class. I always tease her by threatening to make her play this =P

  • love this piece.

  • Really nice music!!!!

  • I have a question, that might be quite elementary, but I'd appreciate your response. From the little I know MIDI is a digital protocol, and that the MIDI instrument doesn't really make a sound, but rather has an output that specify the parameters of it (like pitch, intensity etc). How do you take a video and turns it into MIDI? or an MP3? or do you take the video and manually write it in MIDI protocol and then run it through the program?

  • @askdubi There is no good way to convert from audio to MIDI. I make a MIDI file by entering the score into a notation program and exporting a MIDI file version of that. If necessary, I adjust the timings of this MIDI file to match preexisting audio. The video is generated from the MIDI file.

  • @smalin - what I meant was how do you take the video of the live performance (like the one in this video) and enter it into the notation program? do you do it manually or is the notation program able to distinguish between instruments? in any case - thank you for all your hard work! I'm just addicted to your videos. For me, as someone who is not a musician and doesn't really understand how music "works", these videos help me follow the music, so thank you again, and God bless.

  • also - I wish there was a way to turn off an instrument so you'll be able to follow the background music more easily.

  • @askdubi The answer is: I don't. I get a score (like, out of a library) and enter it from that.

  • @askdubi Where are you from? Quite elementary? I thought that that type of speech had long been eclipsed by modern slang terminology...

  • @TranscenDaMental I'm from Israel, and English is not my first language. Still, I use slang often, but I guess that here I wanted to be polite.

  • @askdubi by saying "quite elementary you sound like a complete douche.

  • I think my second favourite piece is Canon, after Minuet in G major

  • see Diminished Seventh Chord, a Love Letter from Beethoven

  • Great video!! I dislike the Dislikers.

  • wundervoll!!!!!

  • I'll see you in Hell Pachelbel!

    you deserve as such for torturing the Cello players so much!

  • @pyrnrd lol spoken like a cellist I feel your pain :-)

  • Nhớ mãi một người mà tôi đã trót yêu !

  • That was great I love your scrolling bar graph and the added visual it gives to this amazing piece. I agree Piranha on the tempo comment too.

  • Beautiful! Absolutely one of my favourite pieces, and performed wondrously!

  • beautiful song

    and great video :D

  • I love the bar graph score over the live performance video. Although I share Rob Paravonian's disaffection for this piece for the countless derivative works (and bad weddings) in which it is used, this video makes those 8 magic bass notes a little more interesting.

  • Harpsichords always add class to a piece.

  • I can play this on the piano :D

    But I must say it's quiet simple.

    Great version! I like video on the background with the lines on the foreground :D

  • Thanks :)

  • i cried. why?

  • @MidnightRedemption If you'd like to understand this aspect of music, I suggest you read David Huron's book Sweet Anticipation.

  • violin jam.... XD amazin

  • Me gusto

    Fabuloso

  • is really fantastic to follow this wonderful music by following this useful aid! thanks

  • Too fast! TOO FAAAAST! ;)

  • @rageagainstthebath  What would you say if you found out that this is the tempo Pachelbel intended?

  • @smalin I would be truly shocked. :) Is that true?

    And does that mean that all the other versions I know are wrong?

    The score I have (for 3 violins, viola, violoncello and contrabass, by Elaine Fine) says: "Moderately, eight = 92". This is obviously slower...

  • @rageagainstthebath Yeah, that's pretty much the consensus of the people who study that sort of thing. The tradition of playing it much slower is a modern one (like, from the last hundred years or so).

  • @smalin Thanks, great to learn something new :) Last question: So what was the tempo intended by the author?

  • @rageagainstthebath  Something like what the people in this video are using.

  • violin jam awesome.

  • i am relaxing and chilling with listening to classic quiet music :)

  • Music of Past times. With no words of hate , love, or justice. Just pure sound Of happiness

  • @Hofsteder "Canon on a ground" is what it's typically called. Passacaglia, chaconne, etc. refer to the fact that the bass (or harmony) is repeated, but this also has a canon (in the top three parts), so while you might say that it's a passacaglia, it's more than that, too.

  • @smalin

    A strict fugue does in fact have exact imitation but a fifth out from the subject. However, often composers get away with fiddling the harmonies; it's a lot easier to write a strict canon than a strict fugue!

  • @xtremerandomness Not necessarily. A fugue subject can have either a real answer (exact interval imitation) or a tonal answer (non-exact). And, of course, after the exposition, it can modulate, and there the subject can be changed a lot (changing major to minor or vice versa, for example).

  • these videos are really addicting

  • @PeteWeathersMusic YOu got that right.......I've seen them all a few times a piece.

  • Wow you guys are some crazy Motherfuckers with all those colors and squareas ^^

  • this is going to be the song in my wedding ♥_♥

  • Gotta love a good fugue

  • @EpicHeros  (However, this isn't a fugue.)

  • @smalin There are definitely fugue-ish elements to it though you cant deny

  • @EpicHeros  Fugues and canons both have imitative counterpoint. In a canon, the imitation is strict (exact); in a fugue, the imitation needn't be strict. So, I'd probably say it the other way around: a fugue has canon-like elements to it.

  • Wonderful! However, I can't believe some people would rather watch someone blather on about the latest celebrity scandal or some other meaningless video rather than listen to this.

  • wow this is awesome!

  • To fast? Nonono, this is the right, or close to right tempo. Most modern performers slow it down to make it sound more "romantic" which wasn't the original intent of the song.

  • i think it´s too fast. At this tempo it does not "feel" so sweet.

  • this is baroque music, and you have to bear that point in mind when judging speed, it's designed to show the instruments off, therefore has to have a decent tempo behind it, if you think about it this tempo isn't particularly fast, looking at the score it's mainly based on quavers, and this tempo isn't alot faster than a classic march.

  • Amazing!!

  • i thought at first they where picture...... damn!!

  • I love it at this tempo, I wish more people played it this fast.

  • I FEEL SO SORRY FOR THE PIANO GUY PLAYING THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER

  • amazing thx

  • @amincom1500 1138

  • @smalin i love thx 1138.

  • I got to say, string Instruments sound amazing but look so akward to play.

  • *sigh* This song brings back memories when I played the violin at the Spring Concert <333

  • This is a beautiful piece. It reminds me of the vocals in the Spiritualized song "Ladies and Gentleman We Are Floating in Space." Who knows, maybe it was deliberate? Either way, my real point is this was a great video.

  • @42guide42 This has surfaced so many times in popular music,

  • We really have no idea how it was played "back then". If you don't like the tempi here, try another version.

  • @rwexelblat Actually, we do have an idea, based on similarities between this piece and other pieces in which we can infer tempi based on lung capacity, bow length, etc. The slow, vibrato-heavy, lugubrious performances that many people are used to are clearly a holdover from late-romantic performance practices. But anybody who's played Sweelinck's music (for example) would know: this is not supposed to be a lot slower than this performance.

  • @rwexelblat thanks for the clue

  • This is what Rob Paravonian sees when he closes his eyes every night.

  • What a waste of a cello, but that's what they did in baroque music, they wasted the most beautiful instrument of all.

  • @lennic95 I know.

  • @lennic95 Um, have you listed to anything by Bach? Or even just the Cello Suites? Or maybe the Vivaldi cello sonatas and concerti? Or have you really listened to anything other than some terrible low price baroque compilation albums? There's a wealth of fantastic Baroque music written for the cello.

  • @HARMONICO101 There's a difference between cellos in music generally and cello in cello music! Of course there is cello in cello suites, but I meant in music generally at the time they just used it as a bass. They never gave the cello even tiny bits of "solo" like they did to all the other instruments...except in cello music, ok?

  • @lennic95 Doesn't matter, you are still wrong. Listen to a trio sonata, or a concerto grosso, or any of the arias for solo voice and continuo, fugues, etc. Again, there is a wealth of music out there.

  • @HARMONICO101 I think there's no point in arguing with people when we obviously won't agree.

  • @lennic95 Well why don't you stop being so stubborn when you obviously don't know what your talking about. I can show you pieces to listen to in order to prove my point if necessary.

  • @HARMONICO101 I'm specializing in music in France and am 2 years away from my Diploma. I do know what I'm talking about and I believe you're just as stubborn as me, probably more.

  • @lennic95 Baroque music wastes the cello? Try it without the cello! ;-) Sure, the cello plays the bass line --- who else? When the viola or second violin in a Baroque ensemble isn't playing primary material, it's just noodling around, filling the texture ("wasted"), but when the bass part isn't featured, it's still providing the harmonic foundation. A cello isn't as agile as a violin, so it's not as virtuosic. I don't see how it could be otherwise --- and still be Baroque music.

  • @lennic95 i know cellists specialized on baroque music. and i played a lot of baroque music myself. and of course a cello is as virtuous as a violin

  • the bassist/cellist (I can't tell which it is) by the end of it was probably like fuck this song, fuck you damn violinists, and fuck my life.

  • @vivtin It's a cello, but they used a good mic that's picking up very resonant bass tones. I know what you mean. In high school and college I must have played this a dozen times. 8 notes. . . repeat ad nauseum.

    Nonetheless, it's an absolutely brilliant composition when taken as a whole.

  • too fast

  • @latini18 If you listen to it every day, it will start to sound right, and the others will start to sound too slow.

  • @smalin without doubts, everything is relative...

  • @smalin I would have to agree. I found a similar case in a song I found (Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony, 4th movement). Apparently the orchestra that played the version I listen to, plays it at twice the normal speed. After listening to that, I couldn't go back to the slow version that other orchestras played (mainly because it sounded better faster).

  • @latini18 keine ahnung hast du...

  • @latini18 agreed

  • by the end I was like: OMG it's starting to look like triple rainbow!!!! Thank you for posting this.

  • I feel so sorry for the cellist everytime I hear this beautiful piece.

  • beautuifull . and touching my hearts

  • My heart feels like dancing , crying , smiling when i watched this video . I feel like im abotu to dieing . Your talendted killed me .. Music in this video is so wonderful ever

  • la canzone del coniglietto che salta sulla neve!

  • all I can say is wow

  • I love it !

  • J'adore !!!

  • Hi, have you ever read Douglas R. Hofstadter's "Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid"? There's much about the connections between math and music (and everything else). It's quite interesting for everyone who loves to see mathematical structures and patterns in everything. So if you haven't already, I think you might want to read (parts of) it.

  • @chriswel What did you do to make your channel "unavailable" to me?

  • @smalin uh, I didn't even know there was a setting for that, but apparently I had set that long time ago in the channel settings. I think it should work now.

  • This looks really cool - starts to look like a heartbeat measuring machine as it gets complicated.

  • This is one of my most favorite peaces. I like how you put the players in the back ground and their bows matched the bars. good job.

  • it`s awesome! a little bit to fast, but awesome through and through!

  • Does anyone know where i can get the sheet music for this?

    

  • @suckmejagon Uh, did you look in the FAQ?

  • I think it's a bit too fast ....

  • @marsarium Of course it's not too fast! Do you really think that these people would practice for months just to preform it of-tempo?

  • i like the black background moree but stilll awesome

  • Smalin, did you line up the bar gaph to the moment the bow was drawn across the strings or to when the actual audible sound was produced from the strings? Because it seems to me like the former.

  • @Caecenno Neither. While listening to the recording, I tapped a "click track" which I recorded; then I aligned the graphics to the click track. So, the graphic notation is aligned with where I *felt* the beats.

  • Funny: it's the Canon in D that's not in D.

  • @Emerael That's because this is a baroque ensemble which (obviously) uses baroque tuning which differs from the standard A=440hz, using rather lower tunings such as A=392hz.

  • @Emerael You're right

  • Why did Pachelbel name it a "Canon" if it is not even in Canon form?

  • @Nibbie13 Oh, but it is: the three violins are all playing the same exact notes. The 'cello is playing something different, a repeating pattern. So, the full description would be "canon on a ground bass."

  • @smalin it seems as though the canons between the violins evolve after awhile though. It is probobaly in canon form for a little like u mentioned (like in the very beginning).

  • @Nibbie13 It's a canon all the way through: they all play from the same (single line of) music; they just start and stop at different times.

  • @smalin did you ever study musicology?

  • @Nibbie13 I don't know ... I studied music history, theory, composition, performance, and stuff like that ... what do you mean by "musicology"?

  • @smalin musicology is generally the study of music that can range from any time period. At my school, we start from Paleolithic Era all the way to Contemporary music by analyzing all the music from those time periods. When we analyze the pieces, we determine what makes the composer and his composition great as well as their strategic plan in the piece ( which I mentioned Beethoven did on his 5th symphony on your other video).

  • thanks so much for answering!

  • what's the ornate box in the background? a piano?

  • @athenalover5903 The instrument in the middle ground (that's being played) is a portative organ; the one in the background (behind the left violins) is a harpsichord.

  • AUUUUUUUUSOME man!!

  • LOL at cello track, it's like 8 notes in the whole song

  • really nice.. :)))

  • ZaraTwilightSaga, it means that the craft of playing classic music takes a long time to master and that life is short.

    Ars Longa, vita brevis = Art ( the craft ) is long or wast, and Life is breef.

  • to fast for me too.

  • i think that song is play too speed. i speak english a little bit so i please understand for me

  • this is EXCELLENT... i knew this melody from different occasions... but never knew what it's called... great melody!!! 10x for posting it

  • Playing cello here sucks

  • idk about everyone else but everytime i hear this song i think of weddings mostly cause this was played in the amazing move father of the bride...great song.

  • brilliant

  • Quien diga que la musica no es COLOR... es que no ha visto esto

  • @codexkali "who says that the music is not color(ful?), has he not seen this?"

    Is the english translation of this comment. thanks to bing translator and my eigth grade spanish knowledge, I will decode spanish comments as a part time job! That will be veinte pesos, por favor!

  • Bellissima  *-*

  • Envuelve mi alma....

  • Now, I'm floating off into space...

  • Search "Pachelbel rant" on youtube. hilarious!