10 December 2007 Tonya L Thompson
Enjoy these videos of Electric Guitar playing Classical Music, including renditions of Pachelbel's Canon and Paganini's Caprice No.5
The Electric Guitar is being used more and more often for unique interpretations of Classical Music!
An electric guitar is rarely the first instrument that crosses one’s mind when thinking of classical music, but you can be sure that musicians will always stretch the boundaries of how Classical Music is performed. Showing off electric guitar talent by playing flashy pieces of Classical Music has become all the rage, and a keyword search on YouTube will prove it.
Rock-and-rollers have often attempted to upset the status quo with their performances – it’s no surprise that they would tackle music that has often been considered elitist in order to make it their own. Included in a necessary repertoire of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”, Pachelbel’s Canon in D remains one of the most played electric guitar themes. After the first verse of most renditions, however, Pachelbel’s original score is abandoned for a full-blown power chord jam, reminiscent of the sweeping heavy metal guitar solos of many 1980s movie soundtracks.
While discovering this growing trend, I must admit, I wondered briefly how composers of the past would have responded, hearing their music played (or perhaps ‘butchered’!) to such extremes. Take Pachelbel for instance: His creativity was steeped in Baroque sensibilities and conventions; in the understanding that music should reflect the order and symmetry of the Universe. The Canon (or Kanon) was a type of piece that was composed to allow instruments to imitate and repeat each other, playing the same tones with a time delay. Can you see the irony in the fact that a piece of music, created to represent Universal order, would be adopted by a category of musicians who specialize in anarchy and chaos? Even better, a Canon – a piece fashioned for imitation – is in fact chosen to be imitated, reconceived, and remixed to such an extreme.
Pachelbel might be offended, if he knew what was happening to his music. But then again, Canon in D (in all of its forms) has become popular again with a younger generation, and remains one of the most recognisable Classical songs to the untrained ear. While the initial structure of it might be lost in the interpretation, the haunting tune will indeed remain within the consciousness of an audience that might have otherwise disregarded it as old and irrelevant. I’m quite sure that Pachelbel, even in his Baroque mindset, would appreciate that fact.
Children of Bodom, a Heavy Metal band from Espoo, Finland, are known for their exploration of a genre labeled ‘neo-classical metal’. While their lyrics stay along the common Metal themes of death and the Grim Reaper, their explorations of Classical works remain key to their musicianship.
In this video, Jason Becker, an American neo-classical guitarist, performs his rendition of Paganini’s 5th Caprice. Receiving international attention for his musical ability, he was invited to join David Lee Roth’s band when he was only 20. While recording an album, and touring with the band, he was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease, forcing him to leave the tour.
Jerry Chang (otherwise known as JerryC), a guitarist from Taipei, Taiwan, become a YouTube phenomenon with his Rock rendition of Pachelbel’s Canon in D. Since uploading his performance to the site, the video has become the 6th most viewed video on YouTube, and has had several ‘copycat’ covers to follow.
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