Wedding Music for Violin

It’s wedding season. Our social media feeds are filled with pictures of celebrations. We live at the beach and at this time of year we see multiple weddings taking place every weekend. No piece says “wedding” quite like Pachelbel’s Canon. I was thinking about how many times I’ve played Canon in D for weddings and my love hate relationship with it. I remember learning this as a kid to play with my cousins for my aunt and uncle’s wedding, and I thought I was “hot stuff” because I could play it. Now, I’ve played it more times than I can count, and in more ways and renditions than I can remember. In thinking through what “fun” piece I wanted some students to learn this summer, I decided it was time for my Suzuki Book 4 kids to try it out. 

What’s different about this Canon in D?

Many of the solo violin arrangements I found online were adaptations from the original. Sections were removed or added. I wanted my students to learn the original first before playing an arrangement. Pachelbel wrote the Canon for 3 violins with basso continuo. Since my students would be playing it as a solo, I took the other 2 violin parts and basso continuo created a piano accompaniment that filled out the harmonies. The violin part is directly from the first violin part (stealing the last 2 notes from the 3rd violin). I also added in a fingering that has lots of shifting. (It’s a violin teacher’s way of sneaking in technique practice with a piece they like.) Since most of them have heard it and know what it is supposed to sound like, they are able to navigate the shifting and figure it out mostly on their own. This is great piece to work on vibrating on every long note, legato bowing, shifting, louré stroke, subdivided beat with rhythm reading … so many things! 

So, I will hear a lot of Canon in D for the month of July, but I’m hopeful there will be some happy practicing happening.