Memories — Maroon 5 (2019)

Why this song

You probably know the chords of this song already, even if you have never heard Maroon 5. They are played at weddings, in adverts and under background videos. They are the chords of Pachelbel's Canon, a piece of Baroque music.

Try this. Play the Canon, then play "Memories". Listen only to the bass, the lowest notes. It is the same path.

The question on this page is simple: how can music that old hold up a pop song from today?

Historical context

Johann Pachelbel was a German composer and organist. He lived from 1653 to 1706, in the period we call the Baroque. Nobody knows which year he wrote his Canon. The dates experts suggest range from 1680 to 1706.

After his death the piece was forgotten for a long time. It was not published until 1919. It became famous in 1968, when a French orchestra recorded it much more slowly than it had been played until then.

Foto: copia anónima de 1838–1842, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, dominio público, vía Wikimedia Commons

Pachelbel did not write this page. It is a handwritten copy made between 1838 and 1842, the oldest one that has survived. Look at the fourth line down: those are the eight bass notes, written only once, because they repeat.

Now jump to 2019. Maroon 5 is a pop rock band formed in Los Angeles. Its singer is Adam Levine. In December 2017 Jordan Feldstein died. He was the band's manager and Levine's friend since childhood.

"Memories" is a song to remember him. Levine put it like this: "This song is for anyone who has ever experienced loss. In other words, this song is for all of us." The lyrics are a toast to the people who are here and to the ones who are gone. The music video ends with a dedication: "For Jordi", his nickname.

So how did Pachelbel get in? In March 2019 a group of songwriters shut themselves in a basement on Long Island, near New York, to write songs. One of them, Michael Pollack, sat at an electric piano, started playing those chords, and the Canon's melody came out. They tried using the whole melody, but it felt too busy. They kept the chords and a piece of the melody.

Musical characteristics

Listen only to the lowest notes. They follow a path of eight notes and, when they get to the end, start again. They never change in the whole song. A musical idea that repeats over and over is called an ostinato.

At first the electric piano plays that path, with the left hand. The bass guitar does not appear until the first chorus, and then comes back in the second verse.

Above each bass note there is a chord. Eight chords repeating in the same order make a chord progression. The one in "Memories" is exactly the Canon's.

The Canon has something else. The three violins play the same melody, but not together: the first one starts, the second comes in two bars later, and the third two bars after that. It is like singing "Frère Jacques" in groups. That is a canon. "Memories" is not a canon: it has one voice singing. It kept the bass and the chords, not the way the violins come in.

Notice what is almost missing, too: drums. The producers tried several drum parts coming in at the second verse, as in many ballads, and none of them worked. Adam Levine asked them to bring in just the hi-hat there, the double cymbal played with the foot. That is how it stayed. The song rests on the piano and the voice, not on the hit of the drums.

Now a warning for when you play. The record is in B major, which has five sharps. The chart attached here is in C major, which has none. It is the same song, one semitone higher. Moving a whole song to a different pitch, without changing anything else, is called transposing.

Why C? Because it is much easier in class. On the keyboard, everything is on white keys. On ukulele and guitar you get chords you already know: C, G, A minor, E minor and F. And classroom xylophones often have only the natural notes. If you play along with the record, it will not fit: you will sound one semitone higher. To play along with the record you need the original version, or you need to transpose.

This is the bass in C, all eight notes: C, G, A, E, F, C, F, G.

Hard facts: B major on the record and C major on the chart, 4/4, 91 beats per minute, 3:09. The form runs like this: intro, chorus, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, verse, pre-chorus, chorus. Notice that the chorus arrives straight away, right after the intro.

Guided listening

First play Pachelbel's Canon, in the recording under Resources. Listen to the bass at the start: eight slow notes. Count how many times you hear it before the first violin comes in.

Then listen to the violins coming in: one, then another, then another, with the same melody.

Now play "Memories". In the intro, listen to the low notes of the electric piano. It is the same path, faster and at a different pitch. Wait for the chorus: that is where the bass guitar joins.

When the chorus arrives, listen to the melody of the voice. A piece of it will sound like the Canon.

Finally, wait for the second verse. That is where the drums come in. Notice how little they do: just the hi-hat.

Trivia and curiosities

• Pachelbel is not in the credits of "Memories". His music is more than three hundred years old and is in the public domain: anyone can use it without asking or paying.

• Vincent Ford, on the other hand, is in the credits, and he died in 2008. Ford is the credited writer of Bob Marley's "No Woman, No Cry". According to American Songwriter magazine, he is credited because of a resemblance between the two songs. The difference is the age: Pachelbel's music no longer belongs to anyone, and "No Woman, No Cry" still does.

• The Canon is often played at weddings, and at funerals too. The same music works for celebrating and for saying goodbye. "Memories" does both at once: missing someone and celebrating the time you had with them.

• It reached number 2 in the United States and number 22 in Spain. In Spain it went triple platinum.

Classroom activities

• Play the Canon's bass while others sing. One group loops the eight bass notes in C: C, G, A, E, F, C, F, G. Bass guitar, left hand on keyboard or xylophones all work. When the loop is steady, another group sings the chorus of "Memories" on top. If it fits, you have proved with your own hands that it is the same foundation.

• Play the band with the chart. Ukulele, guitar and keyboard: C, G, A minor, E minor, F, C, F, G, two chords per bar. The chord diagrams are in the attached PDF. The drums follow the pattern on the chart, and the bass plays the eight notes above.

• Analyse: one closed question. Listen to the start of the Canon and the start of "Memories". How many notes does the bass play before it starts again? Is it the same number in both? Answer with a number.

• Sing a canon. Sing a song everyone knows, like "Frère Jacques", as a canon in three groups. Then think: what would have to happen for "Memories" to be a real canon?

• Create. At the bottom, the chart gives the C pentatonic scale: C, D, E, G, A. Five notes, and almost nothing sounds wrong with them. While the band plays the loop, each student improvises a four-bar phrase with those five notes. That is the SOLO slot on the chart.

Key vocabulary

• Ostinato — ostinato: una idea que se repite sin cambiar
• Chord progression — progresión de acordes
• Canon — canon: la misma melodía, con las voces entrando una detrás de otra
• Transposing — transportar: pasar la canción entera a otra altura
• Pentatonic — pentatónica: escala de cinco notas

Resources

Official music video — Adam Levine sings alone, very close to the camera, against a dark background. At the end comes the dedication "For Jordi".

Ukulele tutorial — Jonah Ruth. In C, with the same chords as the chart and no barre chords. It is long, but it goes step by step.

Guitar tutorial — Eric Blackmon. Basic chords: C, G, A minor, E minor and F, in the Canon's order.

Keyboard tutorial — Piano by Yosefien. An easy version in C major, with lit-up keys and the score on top.

Bass, the tab on screen — Backwards Bass. Careful: it is in B, the key of the record, so the frets do not match the chart. Use it to hear what the bass does on the recording.

Drum tutorial — Jack Young. The rhythm written on screen, with the drummer playing it underneath.

Pachelbel's Canon, to compare — Voices of Music, on instruments like the ones of Pachelbel's time: three violins, cello, organ and theorbo, which is a large lute. The last three play the bass. Listen to the bass first, then to the violins coming in one after another.

• Tab — the Songsterr button opens it with the tracks separated out: bass, electric piano, piano, violin and drums.