Teaching Canon in D
Found in: Foundation Songs
Ruth P., North Carolina
Does anyone else struggle teaching Canon in D? I feel like we’ve done “all the right things”, and yet it still seems SO hard for some of my students.
Laurie Richards, Nebraska
Neil talks about several possible playing-based strategies throughout the TTMs for Canon. I use them all, add a few of my own ideas, and invite ideas from students (encouraging them to be generative). A few examples he discusses:
Processing certain sections without the sharps
Cross-pollinating (from Honey Dew, from other sections in this song)
Mapping / shapes – coming up with a system
Fingering (AFTER learning the entire piece)
There is more – these TTMs are really rich with playing-based ideas. Another simple thing I noticed in the first section is from chords 1 to 2, and from chords 3 to 4, these are pivots.
Take your time, invite ideas from students, and just do one section/one hand at a time. There are plenty of other projects going on at this point!
Kym N., California
I point out to the students that the RH melody (top notes of each chord) moves down and up in steps of the D major scale, and other notes in the chord hang under it. So, first playing RH notes in blocks of chords may help before breaking it into T – B – M – T.
I actually challenge the students to play it in C after learning the piece in D, and they will see that is somewhat like Honey Dew but adding the 5ths.
Instead of using the terms for inversions, I say “D on top” for D chord, “A in the middle” for A chord, etc, if I need to point that out.