Very nice!
I transcribed this into ABC. Give me a day or two to check it out, and i’ll post it here. You can use the ABC to generate a clean printout.
Ah heck! I checked a few times and i think it’s right. I’ll let you know if i find errors. Please let me know if you have any corrections. It would be nice to credit the arranger. Paul?
I’m putting this up temporarily here:
- [ABC file (text)](http://glauberribeiro.home.comcast.net/abc/pachelbel.abc)
- [PDF version](http://glauberribeiro.home.comcast.net/abc/pachelbel.pdf)
I may have to clean up space in that Web server soon, but these will stay here for a few days, at least. If anyone (Serpent?) has a better place and wants to host them, be my guest.
Here’s the ABC. Hopefully it won’t be mangled too much:
X:1
T:Canon
T:Variations on a Ground Bass
C:Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)
S:Paul Busman (Chiff and Fipple)
G:For 3 tenor recorders.
N:There are 4 voices: bass (optional) and 3 melody voices.
N:Each of the voices starts when the previous one has played
N:two complete measures, to create the canon effect.
N:All voices stop together, at the end. The stopping points of
N:each melody voices are marked with fermatas at the end of the score.
M:C
Q:1/8=60
L:1/4
K:D
"(Bass starts)"z4 | z4 | f e d c | B A B c | d c B A | G F G E |
L:1/8
DF AG FD FE | DB DA GB AG |
FD Ec df aA | BG AF Dd Td>c |
L:1/16
dcdd cAEF DdcB cfab | gfeg fedc BAGF EGFE |
DEFG AEAG FBAG AGFE | DBBc dcBA GFEB ABAG | F2f2 e4 z2d2 f4 | B4 A4 B4 c4 |
d2d2 c4 z2B2 d4 | d6d2 d2g2 e2a2 |
L:1/32
a2fg a2fg aABcdefg f2de f2FG ABAGAFGA |
G2BA G2FE FEDEFGAB G2BA B2cd ABcdefga|f2de f2ed ecdefedc d2Bc d2DE FGFEFdcd|
B2dc B2AG AGFGABcd B2dc d2cB cdedcdBc |
L:1/8
dz cz Bz dz | Dz Dz Dz Ez |
zA zA zF zA | zG zF zG ze |
L:1/16
fFGF Eefe dFDB AAGA |
BBcB AAGA BBAB ccBc | Dded ccdc BBAB ccfe |
ddeg fFAf dgfg eAGA | FAAA AAAA FFFF FFAA |
GGGd dddd ddBB AAec | Afff eeee dddd aaaa |
bbbb aaaa bbbb cccc | dD/E/FD cc/d/ec BB/c/dB cA/G/FE |
DG/F/EG FD/E/FA GB/A/GF EA/G/FE | Fd/c/dF AA/B/cA Fd/e/fd ff/e/dc |
BB/A/Bc df/e/df gd/c/BB AEAA |
L:1/8
A3A D3A | G2 A2 Gd d>c | dd c2 B2 A2 |
D>E F2 B2 E>E | F>f f/g/f/e/ d>d d/e/d/c/ | B2 d2 d/=c/B/c/ A>A |
A>a a/b/a/g/ f>f f/g/f/e/ |
d/=c/B/c/ A>A Gd ^c>c | dd2c B2 A- | AG2F- F>E E2 | Ff2e dd2=c | B2 dA B2 A2 |
A2 A>G F2 f>e | d3d d2 c2 | "stop #3"Hdd cc BB AA | Gg fF EB Ee |
"stop #2"HfF Ee dD cc |
Bg aA G>e AA | "stop #1"HA2 z3 |] x8
K:D clef=bass
|: "Bass"d2 A2 B2 F2 | G2 D2 G2 A2 
Note, this uses several advanced features (bass clef, changing unit, etc). It worked fine with abcm2ps and ABCMus 2.0 (Norbeck). ABCMus doesn’t do the bass clef, but digs all the rest.
Share and enjoy! 
g
Glauber-- just played through the .pdf and it looks perfect. Great job!
Folks-- give this a try, even if you do it all by yourself with a tape recorder. Amazingly good piece which you will appreciate even more once you play it yourself and see how superb the canonic writing is.
Paul, do you have any information you can give on who made the arrangement? Was it you? I’d like to credit him/her before i submit this to JCs.
I need to reword the “starts” too. If i understand right, the 2nd flute starts when the first one is playing it’s 3rd bar of melody, and so on… And you need a very patient bass player to play his schtick thing over and over. Good application for a sequencer.
g
I made minor changes to the PDF version, available from the URL above. Cosmetic changes only.
Great job, Glauber!
Anybody got a nice mp3 of this that I could play along with?
The abc is a bit tinkly 
Brian
I’ve got that “Pachelbel’s Greatest Hit” CD. It’s quite fun. The choral version is very silly.
Usually, anything with even 16th notes makes me shudder, but I guess if I play this reaaaaaaaal slooooow, maybe it’ll be OK and I’ll get over my BIG fear of 32nd notes.
In light of the fact that this is a classical, not ITM piece, what do those of you who can play this well do when you come to the strings of same-note 16th notes?(semi-quavers to you ITM guys.)
Do you cut each note, or forego traditional whistling style and staccato-tongue them?
Yeah, it’s tough if you don’t read them regularly, because they most often “felt” rather than counted (1 ta E ta & ta A ta). Looks to me like the original arranger was saving time and space by using 32nds. IMO, the whole thing should have been better written out using 16ths instead of 32nds, 1/8ths instead of 16ths, etc. The give away is that the bass line is using 1/4 notes here instead of 1/2s (like you find in other arrangements of this music).
I think LimuHead had the right idea in rewriting it and doubling the length of each note. OR (for lazy folks like me) you can take a printout of the pdf and split all the measures (just draw in the extra lines), then count the piece sustituting the next higher note value. For me, it made it much easier, YMMV. Maybe it’s just (to borrow from F.Zappa) that I “can’t appreciate the statistical density” of the arrangement. 
BTW, none of this is meant as criticism towards the folks who posted the music. It’s a great arrangement and my thanks go to brewerpaul and glauber. 
Thanks for putting that on! I just heard a version of this on a classical station the other day and was thinking how beautiful it is. --The announcer said afterwards that it’s 400 years old, although he was rounding out the years I think.- That puts it about 100 years before Bach though which somehow makes it that much more remarkable. -Thanks again for taking the time to put that on guys! -mike
Bach took lessons from Pachelbel at least on one occasion. So i wouldn’t say 100 years, but definitely the previous generation of organ players, before Auld Bach.
That’s true- I was going by what I heard the radio announcer say and I think he was rounding off fairly loosly. -I noticed also from his birth and death dates, 1653-1706, it couldn’t have been quite 400 years.
radio4 listen again to Classical cuts. Discussion of Pachelbel’s canon;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/atoz/index.shtml#c
Brian