Hello! I’m Dan Sindel and welcome to EZGTR our online video guitar lessons. Today is part one, building the foundation of Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major and we definitely have a lot to talk about today.
So, if you have not yet downloaded the e-Book this is a great time to do that. Please go to www.ezgtr.com, sign up for the newsletter, we’ll send you a link to download the e-Book and that is what we’re going to be using and to study today.
Now, today we got so much to do. We’re going to be talking about the key of D Major itself, what it means to be playing inside of that key, a little basic theory along with it. We’re going to be building the foundation with some basic chords and some more advanced chords for intermediate to advance players. We got a few extra surprises so let’s get started.
The first order of business is to do a brief overview of the Major scale itself. Now, the Major scale is a series of eighth notes, eight being the pitch name repetition of one in which the connection between successive notes are built upon a formula of half steps and whole steps. By moving in a simple formula of half steps and whole steps, we can build a Major scale from any note of the musical alphabet. And of course a half-step equals the movement of one fret and a whole step equals the movement of two frets.
Next, I’d like to talk to you about the degree of scale. And this pertains to the position of where the tone in the scale resize, and this helps us build triads in more complex chords such as 7th, 9th, 11th, and 13th chords. And more importantly, we can determine the quality of the chord depending on to what degree of the scale a tone might reside on, we can determine if the chord has a major, minor or diminished sound.
To further illustrate my point of working in the key of D Major, I’d like to introduce you to one of my favorite reference tools, the Guitar Wheel, check it out!
I’d like to talk to you about the key of D Major, a little bit of theory and I’d like to use the guitar wheel to demonstrate this. So, let’s zoom on in and let’s look at the master key area. And this tells us the key of D has two sharps in the key and by moving to the outer edge these numbers here represent the degree of scale. And they work hand in hand with these notes in the Y area and what it means is D would represent the first degree of the scale, E would be the second degree and so on. And these numbers here in the yellow are the frets. Now, by moving to the inner part of the wheel, the green area tells us the major scale degrees and most importantly the quality of the chord. If we look at the numbers that are bold, one, four and five, this tells us our major chords. One is a D major, four is G Major, five is an A Major chord. And by looking at the lower case number, two, three, and six, this tells us our minor chords. Two is an E minor, three is a F# minor, six is a B minor and seven is our diminished.
Now, what I’d like to do is talk about the chords used in the Canon in D. Let’s do some quick analysis and we can tell here in the first bar of the song our chords would be a D Major, A Major, B minor, and F# minor. So, we would have a one, five, six, three progression. The second measure is a G Major, D Major, G Major, A Major which would be a four, one, four, five progression. Okay great! We’ve just learn some basic theory and I think we’re ready to move on.
We’re going to go to the first page of the tab notation part of the manuscript and we’re going to address the first two measures of the song and we’re going to lay down the baseline. And we’re going to play the baseline. I’m going to use my first finger just to make it easier for you guys to see what I’m doing. So, we’re going to join in as soon as the measure repeats. Here we go, D, A, B, F#, G, D, G, A. One more time, D, A, B, F#, G, D, G, A.
There are 56 measures in this song and that phrase of the baseline is two measures, so it repeats itself 28 times. Well let’s move on to playing the basic chord structure. For those of you who have downloaded the e-Book, this is a great time to turn to page two and we’re going to look at the easy chord forms. Now, what we’re going to do is we’re going to strum the chord once per quarter note. Here we go, three, four [Demonstration]. One more time, D, A, B minor, F# minor, G, D, G, A.
Moving on to the alternate chord strings and just so you guys know, it is not a requirement for you to play these chords in order to play the Canon in D Major just does a quick note for you beginning players, this is a great study on actually playing different voice scenes of the chords. So, let’s look at bar one. We’ve got a D with the D in the base.
Our second chord form is an A with a C# in the base or through record form is a B minor with a B in the base. And our last quarter with a first measure is F# minor with an A in the base which of course is our third interval. Now, the first chord of the second measure is a G. It has a D in the base which is the fifth. Now, the second chord form is a D and it’s strictly the type two barre chords that we know with the D in the base. The third chord is a G with the B in the base which of course is our third and the last chord of the second measure is an A with an E in the base which is our fifth.
Now, it gets a little more interesting up here on measure three were going to go up higher. We’ve got a D with the D in the base. Now, our second chord is an A with a C# in the base which is our third. Now, we’re going to play a B minor with a B in the base which is our root of course. Now, our last chord of measure three is an F# minor with A in the base, that is our third.
Now, we move on to measure four, we’re going to play a G, E chord with the G in the base. Our second chord of the fourth measure is a D with an F# in the base which is our third. Now as a pivot point, I’m actually going to hold my second finger in place and form the G chord with an open D and an open G. So, the D of course is our fifth of the chord and last but not the least, our last chord is the A and I’m going to play it with the E in the base which of course is just our A chord as we’d play it and extend the pinky on the fifth fret to the A.
We successfully moved through the alternate chord string. Now, I’m going to play it to the music. Here we go.
[Demonstration]
Well, we sure have learned a lot in today’s lesson and before I get out of here, I just want to share some info with you really quick because every now and then I’m able to save you guys a little bit of money on products that I like and by special arrangement with my good friends over at the guitar wheel, I can get you a little discounted check at amazon.com. So, if you put in this code, ezgtr123 at the check out process you can get a little discount. Hurry you guys! Well practice hard, definitely keep those emails coming and I’ll see you next week.
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