Canon in D sheet music (easy)

How to play Canon in D (Easy)

The bass line here is a loop of eight notes that never changes. Learn it once and you have collected the whole left hand three times over.

Where your hands go

This easy edition is written in C major, so every note is a white key.

Left hand: two half notes a bar, C3, G2 | A2, E3 | F3, C3 | F3, G2. Bars 5 to 8 and 9 to 12 repeat exactly the same eight notes.

Right hand: bars 1 to 8 are half notes that mostly walk down, starting on E5. Start with your little finger on E5 and walk down a finger at a time, moving the hand when you run out of fingers.

The tricky bars

Bar 9

The level-up: the right hand switches from two notes a bar to eight eighth notes, while the left hand keeps its slow loop.

Bar 10

The right hand dips to A3, below middle C, then goes back to C4 and jumps up to G4.

Bars 11–12

A climb from B4 through C5, E5 to G5, then straight down an octave to G4. Bar 12 has another octave jump, C4 to C5.

Your practice plan

1. Left hand alone until you can play the eight-note loop without looking at the page.
2. Right hand alone, bars 1 to 8, then hands together. This half is all slow notes, a great first win.
3. Right hand alone, bars 9 to 12, at half speed with the Speed control.
4. Hands together for bars 9 to 12, one bar at a time, then join them up.
5. Play the whole piece with Listen on and hold the last note for its full four beats.

Watch out for

• Speeding up when the eighth notes arrive in bar 9. The beat stays the same; only the notes get shorter.
• Losing the left-hand loop in bars 9 to 12 because your eyes are on the right hand. That is why the loop is learnt by heart first.
• Missing the octave jumps in bars 11 and 12. Look ahead for the landing note.

Power-up: press Loop, tap the first and last of the tricky bars, and they repeat until they feel easy. Hands in Options lets you practise one hand at a time. New to the notation? Start with how to read keyboard staff, then how to practise piano.