Pachelbel’s Canon in D major is a very recognizable theme that is often played at weddings and graduations, usually on violins, violas and cellos. Canon on acoustic guitar sounds very good when the chords are played as arpeggios (one note at a time). This should be an easy acoustic guitar lesson if you can already play some guitar chords:

Canon in D follows a repeating eight chord progression: D major, A major, B minor, F# minor, G major, D major, G major, A major. Most of these chords are played with open strings (open chords) and even if you have trouble with the bar chords (Bm and F#m), you can use a finger roll technique as shown in the video to make them much easier to play.

As was previously mentioned, all of these guitar chords are played as arpeggios, instead of strumming all the notes at the same time. This means we are playing each note of each chord individually, one at a time. The sound of each note is still allowed to ring out once played, however. This pattern should be fairly easy to play using either a pick or your fingers. Below you will find the TAB for Canon in D, arranged for acoustic guitar.

Pachelbel’s Canon Guitar TAB: