I have been in love with Pachelbel's Canon in D since I remember myself. This is an attempt to recreate it with electronic music.
Perhaps this is on the foot of Wendy Carlos' Switched on Bach. That piece had a big impact on the perception of electronic music, establishing the synthesizer as a musical instrument rather than a souless technological experiment. My music piece has no great ambitions other than make beautiful music and to acknowledge Johann Pachelbel's heritage.
I have the highest respect for the wonderful orchestral, acoustic performances of this baroque piece, same as so many other classical masterpieces. They feature prominently in my playlists. However, lacking an orchestra(!) I am grateful to the electronic means of music creation that are available to contemporary musicians like me and give us the opportunity to express ourselves within our limited space and resources but with unlimited creativity.
I call this an experiment because it started by trying various patches on Pachelbel's classical riff. I enjoyed playing these so much that the idea of integrating them into a piece came to my mind.
I have used three synthesizers to create this piece. Yamaha MODX6 is always the centrepiece of all my work. Various layers of synthesis have been applied. U-he Zebra HZ has been also used on multiple layers. This is a recent addition and find it a fantastic software synthesizer. Finaly, Korg Wavestate has been used to provide an evolving background to the sounds of the MODX and Zebra.I acknowledge that many patches become far too prominent in the arrangement, just like a kids' band that the guitarist, the vocalist and the keyboardist compete to show off! Perhaps I was too fond of the my synth patches and didn't want to let anyone of them down!
I hope Pachelbel won't be twisting in his grave with this performance and Hans Zimmer won't mind me taking his version of Zebra that he used for the Dark Knight and using it within a baroque composition. A seemingly unlikely combination that I really enjoyed creating.
I hope you will enjoy it too.