The Pachelbel Canon in D, in the Keys of D and CThe Pachelbel Canon in D is the probably the most popular classical music ever. Download this free sheet music for piano -- your students (and their parents) will love it!To play these arrangements easily, it is best if the student is already acquainted with chord inversions. Root position chords such as c-e-g become easy to spot after some experience, but when a C chord is "in disguise" (such as the combination e-g-c) or "scrambled," kids can find it quite baffling. Here in the beginning of the Canon, almost every RH (right hand) chord is an inversion with
a different shape from the chord before it. Help your student find PATTERNS in each hand.
Download free sheet music for Pachelbel Canon in the key of C Here it is in its original key of D, but otherwise just the same as the C version. What do I mean, look for patterns? Here's the best example: the LH goes down 4 steps from C, then up 1, down 4, up 1, down 4, turn around 4, then up 1, and start over! There's always SOME kind of pattern if you look, some kind of trick to help your memory. The fingering in the tricky but beautiful middle section is really pretty good fingering. It even works in the key of D version with the black notes. Almost certainly, your student will want to ignore this fingering, thus ensuring that they take 10 times longer to learn this section than they would otherwise. Therefore, I suggest spending time playing short sections -- 2 or 3 measures of it -- over and over at
lesson time; little, non-threatening amounts. Don't load it on! Assign them LESS than you
believe they can do -- then it will seem do-able to them.
In much classical music, what makes even simple pieces hard for beginners is exactly the seeming ABSENCE of pattern. Every finger seems to need a brain of its own, because the hands and fingers move independently. That's where your students are headed. In the meantime, playing a beautiful-sounding piece like this motivates them to keep pushing! A classical radio station in Seattle used to have a Top 100 Countdown of the most popular classical pieces just before New Year's Day each year. Invariably, listeners voted the Pachelbel Canon number one!
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Elania:
THANK YOU! This website is a God-send! :D I took piano lessons as a kid, a little music theory, and now I'm a homeschooling mom hoping to pass on anything I can to my kids about music. It is such a gift, for so many reasons!
I have been slowly giving my oldest daughter whatever my memory can dredge up, scouring the internet for free music she can do, but your website with its instructions AND tips on how to teach pieces are going to help me SO much in this endeavor. I just wanted to tell you thank you. Really really! THANK YOU!
Miggy, United Kingdom:
I've just found your website and I think I've died and gone to heaven. I've just taken up the piano again after 35 years absence... buying sheet music was getting expensive/a luxury. The tips are great too. I also live in the middle of nowhere so buying from a shop is not really an option unless I fancy a 120 mile round trip for a piece of sheet music! Thank you for your wonderful site. I look forward to having a thorough look...
Mary:
Hi! Your website is just perfect for me, a beginning piano teacher, and just now responding to a request for guitar lessons...
Rosanne:
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Kim in Washington:
My son is hooked...I've been introducing piano to my son on and off for a year or so, but he's not had much interest. Then I gave him "Monsters Everywhere". He loved playing it with the organ sound on our piano. He memorized it that week and I'm printing off the other Halloween songs to keep him going. I love the detailed instructions on teaching since he is my first student! Thanks so much.
Dana:That is so neat that your son has experienced the magic and mystery of music through this little song. That is so exciting to me. Thanks for writing, Kim!
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Matt:
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Joy:
Thank you. Just wanted to say I found your website by mistake but what a blessing it has been. I am a missionary wife living in Spain (for many, many years) and I teach piano to Spanish children and adults. I have the barrier of very few usable things in Spanish, and can so identify with the need to write things suitable for the student...
California Student:
Hi,I want to thank you for such a wonderful and educational website. I have found all the information you have posted and your comments immensely helpful, and I am grateful for your posting it. I am sure you are an awesome teacher and person. I am a beginner piano student, so many thanks and Happy New Year!
Lori, homeschool mom, songwriter/musician and private music teacher:
Just wanted to say "thank you" for this site and for allof your dedication and hard work! I have literally combed the internet for months on end to find free and "doable" resources for my young students and for my own children, whom I have homeschooled for nine years. I will be returning to this site over and over again from here on out and am excited to presentsome of the tools I found today on here to my voice and piano students later this week! My thirteen-year old son is happily, as I type, working with the guitar chord sheets I just printed for him! Wish I'd found you earlier! Thanks a million, and God bless--
Kelli:
I am so relieved to have found this site!! I have been struggling as a music student, not having any previous instruction in high school. I am starting from scratch and this is a wonderful tool!! Kudos to you!! God Bless you!
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Marta:
Thank you for the free downloads! I'm a private teacher and I teach piano and beginner voice as well. :) I've been running my studio for about a year and I've come across the same issue; I don't want my students to have to purchase an entire supplemental book for only a couple of songs. So thank you for this site...some great downloads!!
Yolanda:
I used to teach piano lessons, and then did not for anumber of years. Now, suddenly, I have 3 beginning students and I am thrilled. I was looking for printable scales and found your wonderful website.
Thank you so much. I know this will be a big help to me and my students.
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Wow! I cannot thank you enough for the free collection of piano sheet music that you created here. My daughter and I are following everything you wrote and we LOVE it. It is super fun!!! She loves to play because of your website. We have a small binder now that is slowly growing! THANK YOU!!!!
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Stasi:
AH!!!!! I am so happy to find a helpful site like this. I started to give piano lessons to one little girl from church and two girls requested voice lessons this spring. Since then, word got out and going into the fall I have 18 students. I am so excited, but I'm running out of materials that they can borrow, and I, like you hate telling the parents to buy morebooks. Because I have such a diverse group of students I spend SO much time making supplemental material and I feel like I have to pick through other websites, to only find one or two useful things. I am so thankful for the wealth of supplement that you have offered here! And it's all SO user friendly!! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!
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Marybeth:
I love your site! It has been an incredible resource forme as a Music teacher. I love your ideas and the music you share...
Rossana:
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Carrie,Voice and Piano Teacher:
This site is FABULOUS. For all the reasons you explain on the site itself--this is exactly what piano teachers need! (I still need to go look at the vocal music). Wow. THANK YOU SO MUCH!