Pachelbel's Curse

Okay, so it's gauche to admit it in classical music circles, but I'm a fan of Pachelbel's Canon in D. I love it, first time I heard it, it called to me, and it has ever since.

So I determined to learn how to play it, sort of, on the guitar. (You can't really play a canon with only one instrument because, like a round, you need at least two voices, and more are better. There are some guitarists who can use electric instruments, and by tapping, get both a bass and melody line echoing at the same time. That's not ever gonna happen here.)

I found a couple of versions, extracted what I could from them, added in my own flourishes, and have been, for the last several years, fiddling with it, adding in bits here, taking them out there.

On a good day, I can play it through from start to finish as clean as anything else I can manage. But every time I have turned on a microphone or a camera, I have developed a case of Red Light Fever (though in my case the go light on my mic is green) and, Lordy, Lordy somebody has to call the SPCA 'cause of all those clams I start hitting ...

Me and the dogs, I can play it clean, no sweat. Turn on the recorder, clunk! Every time I try to lay it down.

This is about as close as I have come lately. It is my current musical goal to be able to play the piece all the way through without a mistake, so this is the baseline ...