Principles of Music: The Pachelbel Progression
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- Опубликовано: 17 ноя 2020
- In this video I discuss the versatility of the Pachelbel Progression, and how it can lead to a plethora of possibilities.
This is once again a topic that is so much deeper and more complex than I can go into in one short youtube video, so I hope it inspires you to discover more on your own.
A special thanks as always to musopen.org and imslp.org for offering free public domain sheet music and recordings online.
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1:12 My understanding is that in the "pre-Renaissance" period the interval of a third was not thought of as "too lovely sounding" or "salacious" but rather as dissonant. Largely due to using a tuning system that favored perfectly tuened fifths at the expense of less well tuned thirds (Pythagorian tuning). It wasn't untill they started using tuning systems where the thirds were more in tune that they started considering the interval of the third consonant. This is a very simplistic explination that leaves out a lot of nuance, but I think is more accurate than the simplification used in the video.
Not gonna lie, regardless of how many times I hear it, I still get chills from this progression. I have no idea why but it doesn't matter, I hear a pachabel hook and I'm in. Trite but true :) This video has helped me understand it so much more. A literal foundation of my musical life explained brilliantly, thank you. Subbed! 👍
Same! It fills us up!
This progression is widely used in contemporary gospel improvisation, particularly with the chromatically altered bass line mentioned here. Now I can apply some degree of appropriate nomenclatural reference. Thanks!!
Fascinating. It’s everywhere.
The progression is also used in the 3rd movement of Beethoven’s sonata no. 25 (op. 79) in G, same exact progression and bassline as the op. 110 example!
The best music never dies...
Thank you for assembling this instructive and illuminating analysis rich in insights; much appreciated!
Underrated channel! Love your videos
Glad you are back doing videos!
Beautiful and really informative video! My favourite version is a _minor key_ version: Mozart Fantasia in C minor, K396 [which was unfinished by Mozart and then completed, with modifications, by Maximilian Stadler - but the minor Pachelbel progression was already in the original Mozart fragment.]
Love the video, so full of knowledge presented very well.
i missed your videos, please keep uplaoding!!!
I'm here because I'm looking up videos trying to figure out if I'm crazy or not.
As an acoustic guitar player with only the most basic knowledge of music theory, the Canon progression makes most sense to me because you can utilize inversions of the progression so that the bass/bottom note is a very simple climb down then up the scale of whatever the song is. Emotionally, the simple bass climb is orderly, peaceful, calming. Like as a self learned acoustic guitar player, this concept became a fundamental part of my chord formations/inversions regardless of the actual chord progression.
Please continue to make videos, the quality-subcount ratio is outstanding
Love your videos. They are unique. Always look forward to them.
This is very common in European (style) power metal, it just fits perfectly.
We missed you! Great video as always :)
Greatly appreciate the scholarship
The progression is also widely known under the name 'Romanesca', so you know what to look for in most literature on harmony.
Only first 4 chords
Wrong.
@@Whatismusic123 Yes, it is. Look in Gjerdingen's 'Music in the galant style'.
@@user-wn1dd8ls2u The first six, the last two are a cadenza.
Thanks from Argentina!!! Best videos ever, i learn a lot and feel passion for study.
Great content and beautiful editing!
I love how you derived the progression from the stepwise falling third chain ("Terzgymel") and showed which different kind of variations / basses you can do with it, which seems to be the historically most appropriate approach. Is your channel's name a reference to Athanasius Kircher btw? :-)
Splendid eye-opening lesson in 10 min! Thanx!
Thanks for having an explaniation! Im impressed why the canon sounds good so i watch this to see if it helps me compose. Thanks
I don't care what anyone says about Pachelbel's Canon! It is the only song that can grab me at my very soul and tear my heart out! It is every emotion all at once. It is sadness and joy, ugliness and beauty, bittersweet nostalgia; all wrapped up into one!
The Pachelbel Progression sounds really good! With its thirds, 6ths, etc. I am surprised that Beethoven used it too! Well I guess I better stay tuned to Musica Universalis as there are so many musical ideas that can really be handy to people that are involved in music professionally or just love to listen and enjoy it!
Merci beaucoup.
Excellent video. Thank you.
Very well said, thank you.
Really thoughtful video!
Love this interesting video!
awesome material thank you
Great video! Keep going!
Amazing video, you deserve mores views!
A couple of other great uses of the progression are in Haydn's 27th symphony as well as Hinrich Johnsen's concerto for 2 bassoons.
There are too many to count honestly.
@@MusicaUniversalis For sure.
Wonderful
The interval of the inverted 6ths@3:45=👍
Well, the origins of this progressions was not the falling thirds. It was the “down a fourth, up a second” bass motion that created this descending scale pattern. And once harmonized for three voices, you get the Pachebel basic progression.
“I was there, 3000 years ago.”
Is it just me or is there a resemblance between the Pachelbel Progression and the octave bass line of Bach’s Air on the G String? Only every other bass note is harmonized with its own chord in Air on the G string, at least for the first 5 notes, so maybe it’s not a full on Pachelbel Progression, but I still can’t help but notice a resemblance.
Pachelbel Progression: D A Bm F#m G D G A repeat ad infinitum
Bach’s Bass Line: D C# B A G G# A F# E etc.
Particularly the descent to G is what I’m talking about when I say I notice a resemblance here.
Your presentation is inspiring, may i ask what editing software you use?
Seems like it also appears in the Neue Kraft fülend section of Heiliger Dankgesang, even imitating the melody of the canon with the 32nd note run in the second violin
It’s all over the place. Once you become aware of it you begin to hear and see it everywhere.
This progression is also the second theme of Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata.
Yes! I forgot about that one.
Wow i never noticed that before
This progression is called a romanesca. The "syncopation" is technically syncopated but more importantly it's suspended. It's diminution not "dimunition." I appreciate what you're doing with these videos btw! Just some things I noticed
Yes it is called the romanesca if one only uses partimento terminology but it’s more often referred to as the “Pachelbelsequenz” in German (the language I studied theory in). Syncopation is another word I borrowed from my German texts. I am aware it creates suspension, but if you think about the voices individually, the suspensions are but a byproduct of syncopation. As for diminution, you are correct. Iirc I also pronounce versatility, versitaaaality at one point in the video. This is the problem with self research in multiple languages, my pronunciation can be all over the place at times, so thanks for pointing diminution out.
Interesting that with versatility I make the same error as with diminution by reversing the two vowel sounds. Very odd, maybe I have dyslexia lol.
did anyone else sing the last two notes every time he played the progression? It drove me crazy XD
great video, I was wondering if you are going to mention Beethoven's Piano Sonata no 30.
I like Albinoni Op. 2 No. 2 (1700) even better than Pachelbel's canon in D.
What are these numbers under the sheets?
Anybody know where I can find a teacher to learn counterpoint?
I've always known this as "The Romanesca"
In Italian literature yes. In German Books it’s most often called the Pachelbelsequenz. However there are so many patterns and types of voicing movements, that finding and developing names for all of them is somewhat of a frivolous exercise. The point is what you can do with them, and not so much what you call them.
I like simple "primitive" music progressions
Same!
Modern day listener are not accustom to complex music. It’s the reason why Canon in D is so popular these days where music is down to bare minimum. Even as a musician I find many classical music too complex for my ear, much less an average listener.
There is a short segment that appears in Toto’s Africa
It also seems like it appears briefly or something very similar in the Lion King’s Can You Feel The Love Tonight is that true ?
And it also appears in a more recent piece of music called Literally Every Pop Song Ever
@@VanNessy97 Yup
There is a song “Дыхание” (“Breathing”) after popular Russian rock band Nautilus Pompilius, where they add a fourth link to the sequence and thus the verse finishes in B minor when started in D major
ruclips.net/video/joPrHoNQI7M/видео.html
Did composers other than Bach and Beethoven and of course Pachelbel ever use this I - V - vi - iii - IV - I progression or any of it's variants(like the every other chord in first inversion that leads to a stepwise bassline)? Like, did Haydn use it? Or Mozart? Or other Baroque composers like Handel or Vivaldi? Or romantics like Schubert or Brahms?
Just wondering, because you say that this is a common progression, yet I haven't seen it outside of those 3 composers you mentioned in the video, so I don't know if I'm just not looking hard enough or what.
Mozart’s Magic Flute has a very similar chord progression in part of it
@@johnrottler4000 Interesting. Do you know which part the progression appears in?
@@caterscarrots3407 It’s in the first act of Mozart’s Magic Flute
The Romanesca was so common that pretty much any composer in the 1700s would have used it in some form. As shown in the video, it can be varied and even masked in many ways, so you might not always recognize it.
@@kingavenuemusic I see, so it is probably that I'm just not looking hard enough at Handel, Vivaldi, Haydn, Mozart, and Schubert to see it, but it's there.
I did see a variant where every other note was harmonized with it's own chord and the other half was simply passing tones in the bass in Bach's Air on the G String from Orchestral Suite no. 3(or I guess you could view it as 2 chords, at least for the first 2 notes since C# F# A is an F# minor chord, but I prefer to think of it as just passing tones in the bass).
So like I heard a chord progression of D, Bm, G or I, vi, IV in D major, but the stepwise bass clued me in to it being this progression and not just any use of the vi chord before the IV chord.
Do you mind if you look at the harmonic sequence (not chord progression) used by Gaspare Spontini's _La Vestale_ heard from 3:56 - 4:06 and see if you could make a video from it? ruclips.net/video/cAcbCFzYC1o/видео.html
When I first heard the piece last year, I found that sequence fascinating but I had thought that it was a very rare chord progression that I had no idea how it was built. I came to realize that I actually had heard that harmonic sequence many times before, not just in classical music but rarely in video game music as well. It's just I didn't recognize it until I listened to _La Vestale_ . Not only that but unlike other sequences (such as the 5-6 sequence and chord progressions such as the circle of fifths and Pachelbel Progression), that sequence has no name and thus it is almost impossible to research this online.
That sequence can also be found in Handel's _For unto us a Child is born_ from his _Messiah_ , Jean Phillippe Rameau's _Le temple de la Gloire_ , and Beethoven's _Wellington Victory_ at 10:36. I heard it in a few other baroque pieces but I can't remember anymore.
ruclips.net/video/mczvfByofiw/видео.html
I just took a quick look. It‘s actually just a variant of the 5-6-5-6 sequence in my opinion. The bass jumps in fourths, and the middle and the soprano and alto voices move up in thirds, but the seed is still 5-6-5-6 (Just changed to 5/3-6/4-5/3-6/4). I‘m gonna make a 5-6-5-6 video at some point, and I might just use the examples you placed here.
@@MusicaUniversalis According to Robert Gjerdingen in his schema section of Partimenti.org, that sequence in _La Vastal_ is an example of what was known in Naples as an "up a fourth, down a third" and it was also noted - as a _marche harmonique_ - in a few French theoretical treatises that don't have modern editions.
@@1685Violin If we named every progression in music and their subsequent adaptations, you‘d need an innumerable amount of lexicons to contain the names thereof.
I‘m not really into Gjerdingen, I spent a great deal of money on his book because tons of people have been raving about it here in the comments. Unfortunately I haven’t found it compatible with how I write music, so haven’t taken great interest in his writings.
I guess if you want to define it through the bass as Gjerdingen does, or by it‘s seed of 5-6-5-6 is simply a question of preference. For me it‘s just a variation of 5-6-5-6. Neither is wrong. It‘s up to you I guess.
@@MusicaUniversalis Out of interest has there been any books that have impacted how you write or compose generally? I’d love to know and love your channel!
But do you have the time,
To listen to me whine?
About everything and nothing all at once?
Maroon 5 uses this progression
The progression is named the "Romanesca" not the "Pachelbel" progression.
It can be called both, judging from the texts I’ve read in both German and English. But yes Romanesca is the more historically correct terminology.
Why do you keep calling it "the Pachelbel Progression"? It's called the Romanesca. Pachelbel is just one of many who wrote variations on the Romanesca. Pretty much every composer used it.
There are four basic variants of the Romanesca - the leaping Romanesca (the version found in Pachelbel's canon), the stepwise Romanesca (with the descending scale in the bass, alternating 5 and 6 chords), the Galant Romanesca (begins like a stepwise Romanesca, ends as a leaping Romanesca), and the Leo-Romanesca (where the bass descends like a stepwise Romanesca, but the upper voices keep the same chord, so you get spicier and spicier dissonances: 5, 2, 7, 2, 9...).
And no mention of watching over cows, disappointing video. Look up "Guardame las vacas", for the origin of the Romanesca.
In German, the language I learned music theory in, it is more often referred to as the “Pachelbel Sequenz”. This video is meant as an introduction, if you already know everything about all permutations of the Romanesca schema, this video wasn’t meant for you. 🤷🏻♂️
But your comment will be valuable to those who want to learn more!