Canyon
Posted by virt on October 19th, 2004 filed in Other ArrangementsRemember? It has been included in every Windows from 3.1 (maybe earlier?) up to WinME. In case you’ve somehow never heard it, here. Its full title is “Trip Through the Grand Canyon”, and it was written by George Stone of Passport Designs.
**UPDATE 7/26/08: OH MY GOD!!!! LOOK IN THE COMMENTS!! The actual composer of the song commented on it!! This is, as you may imagine, an incredible dream come true for me — a fan arrangement being noticed by the original artist. ROCK ON, MR. STONE, you’ve influenced me in ways you probably never expected.
Download file:
October 19th, 2004 at 5:48 pm
OMG tis the nostalgia of my childhood.
/me burns
October 19th, 2004 at 9:23 pm
Now I can die a happy man. I saw It’s a Wonderful Life for the first time last night, and now I’ve heard canyon.mid as it should be (besides on an sbpro)! Thank you virt for giving me my wings.
October 20th, 2004 at 4:31 am
heh, pretty sweet, though personally I’ve always preferred JAZZ.MID :)
October 20th, 2004 at 5:13 am
The canyon.mid is down.
Good arrangement though, sounds straight out of the late 80s, like it could be the theme for a TV show, like MacGyver or Quantum Leap (even though I love both of those themes). (1:45-1:49) sounds like a Castlevania song
October 20th, 2004 at 7:07 am
Smooth, very smooth.
Yeeesss…
October 20th, 2004 at 1:53 pm
That’s awesome.
Now you need to do a version of the Chip’s Challenge music.
October 21st, 2004 at 3:46 pm
Haha, this is brilliant. Canyon.mid is one of the best parts about Win3.1. Nice job.
October 23rd, 2004 at 12:14 pm
I remember canyon midi too.. Wow it’s weird hearing it again. Now that I know a lot more about music than when I was like (7 or 8) I can appreciate how sweeetly embelished the chord progression in Canyon is. Also your guitar playing is pretty competent but I think you could cut back a bit on the “EXTReMe!” factor of the playing and give your tone some more body.
October 24th, 2004 at 3:58 am
Nice work. Definitely a surprise that someone was crazy enough to cover this, of all songs, and do a great job. Now, if only passport.mid would get the same treatment…
October 29th, 2004 at 3:49 pm
OMG pollard r badman!
October 29th, 2004 at 5:30 pm
umm, zappa-ish?
October 30th, 2004 at 11:03 pm
the canyon.mid file is not down, but it’s in the directory with the other songs, so try putting /music/arrange into the url, like this: http://virt.vgmix.com/music/arrange/canyon.mid
November 4th, 2004 at 2:15 am
I prefer the original
November 4th, 2004 at 7:51 pm
I fucking love it.
November 19th, 2004 at 4:01 pm
Ohhh… This is so good!
December 10th, 2004 at 3:23 pm
pearl jam did a better version.
December 13th, 2004 at 9:33 pm
It is really fine.. do you know any other version of it? And btw.. which is the pearl jam’s version name??
March 21st, 2005 at 3:38 pm
Hahaha!! That is neat! Now go do CLOUDS.MID >:)
April 20th, 2005 at 4:32 am
Yes, you’ve go to do Clouds.midi, and chips challenge for the heck of it. Know of any other redone versions of those midis, somewhere out on the web? Nostalgia central here…
April 30th, 2005 at 8:52 pm
OH MY GOD childhood memories!!!!!!! this is SO getting a link from my site!!!! i hope you don’t mind!
May 26th, 2005 at 11:21 am
Pretty please do passport.mid!
July 3rd, 2005 at 10:27 pm
Pleeeaaase do PASSPORT.MID it reminds me of those lovely says back in ‘99 were I actually stepped outside the door!
September 13th, 2005 at 6:36 pm
PASSPORT.MID !!!
October 18th, 2005 at 4:58 pm
Used to listen to this a lot, back before I lost Win 3.1 9 months ago…now I can listen again on XP. Thanks :)
November 17th, 2005 at 11:49 pm
HOLY MOTHER OF GOD.
Whenever I think I’m the only one who remembers some retarded thing from a decade ago, the internet proves me wrong.
Im gonna go re-think me entire life now
November 18th, 2005 at 1:07 am
What are you talking about? I found both canyon.mid and passport.mid on my win98 install! Fell in love with both of them! I think I found them on WinXP too…
Do passport.mid now! now! now!
BTW, what was the sound that plays on startup? I always turn it off whenever I can, it’s so damn annoying!
December 29th, 2005 at 11:30 pm
When I first heard this file in the “3.1″ days I thought it deserved better. And finally someone has done this. I thought the guitar and drum work was fantastic.
January 1st, 2006 at 8:09 am
This is simply the greatest thing I have ever heard. Ever. You are a god among men, and if this song isn’t the very epitomy of 80s/90s cheese, then I will personally build a goddamn time machine and go back and live all through the 1980s and 1990s with the sole purpose of amassing all the cheese produced during those decades so that I can return to the present day and give you all the cheese I have collected.
Simply put, you have succeeded in every possible way by creating this most excellent rendition.
January 11th, 2006 at 8:29 pm
Sounds waaaaaaay cool. I have a computer with Windows 98 and CANYON.MID and PASSPORT.MID on it. I think your next project should be PASSPORT.MID because you obviously succeeded on Canyon. Congratulations!!
April 16th, 2006 at 12:36 am
I remember playing SimCity on Win 3.1 and I replaced the normal background music with this file. Does anyone know why this file was included with Win 3.1 in the first place?
May 2nd, 2006 at 12:54 am
Very nice! I just found this in a canyon.mid Google search, and I must say I’m very impressed. Good job!
May 11th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
You, sir, are a genius. This is going in my DJ set. No, I am going to build a DJ set around it. Hell, I am going to buy some records just so I can play them either side of Canyon.mid and call myself a DJ. This defines everything I find utterly hilarious. I, too, thought I was the only one who remembered Canyon.mid and fantasised about using it as the over-histrionic theme music for a spoof news report.
May 12th, 2006 at 6:37 pm
After a moment’s reflection, I have now come to understand the mixed emotions your rendering of Canyon.mid provoked in me. Firstly, hilarity (manifested in my falling off my chair). Next, a period of depression: I’ve been trying to find this level of in-joke for the last two years, and you probably haven’t earned it like what I have. And then a final, triumphant realisation, as I realise there are people who feel the things I feel and I’m not just making art for myself.
You really need to do Passport.mid now.
May 14th, 2006 at 11:31 pm
dude, seriously. you’ve got to do passport. you gotta. seriously, i don’t ever even post anything on the internet ever, but a cover of passport.mid is enough to make me come out of hiding. after hearing your canyon cover, i have total faith in you.
June 16th, 2006 at 4:30 pm
That is fargin’ redonkulous! YOU ROK!
August 31st, 2006 at 2:14 pm
Wow! This brings it all back. Thank you!!!
Just great….great..
September 3rd, 2006 at 7:26 pm
Holy carp! Amazing remake! I love it!
Do passport!
September 9th, 2006 at 10:33 am
That made my day!
September 15th, 2006 at 12:27 pm
I always liked that midi file and wondered if someone would ever do what you did with it. Way cool!
October 9th, 2006 at 4:00 pm
lol. This song is great. I googled “canyon.mid”
January 14th, 2007 at 10:04 am
A nice work. By the way, I am listening at both canyon.mid and passport.mid on my freshly bought (from eBay :-P) Toshiba Libretto 70, with true OPL3 FM Synthesys. These sounds brings me back when I was 12 years old! These midi files are simply fantastic :-D. So, when can I listen to a remix of passport.mid? :-P
February 16th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
Dang I love this song — took me back to the 1990s with the days of Windows 3.1! I remembered the days of using Audio Galaxy sound card, now the Sound Bravo 16, Voyetra Turtle Beach sound card, etc. And the OPL3 FM Synthesis!!!!!!!! Ahh…I LOVE to create music with those…
Ahh man…took me back to the days of Windows 3.1 when I was a child… I remeber the MIDI control panel in Windows 3.1 where I could assign MIDI channel 16 as a drum channel and I remembered that the canyon.mid has drums playing both in channel 10 and 16! Sometimes when I setup the MIDI control panel to make Channel 16 to act as any other channels except channel 10, the drum sounds sounded like a piano (LOL)!
Speaking of OPL3 FM Synthesis, I’d be using it with other wavetable synthesizers, especially the Creative SoundFont-capable sound cards like SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS Notebook that I have in my laptop.
What can I say? I’m an old-time folk! Heh! :)
February 20th, 2007 at 3:46 am
Cute! I made an arrangement of Canyon for concert band (wind ensemble) in 2005, but so far my orchestra hasn’t had time to test play it. I substitute electric guitars with trombones, piano with trumpets and the solo in the last half as a doubled solo on trumpet and tenor sax. Maybe one day it will be performed (recorded?). From what I understand, canyon.mid and passport.mid were more or less placed in the public domain by Passport Designs, thus can be recorded without seeking a license? Or maybe it only applies to the original MIDI files, not any renderings of the music itself.
March 20th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Man it’s been so long since I last heard that, makes me want to bust out one of my Trackers and do a remix myself. Nice remix it rocks!
April 4th, 2007 at 2:47 am
Rox my sox. The only other operating system worth a damn, and this is a perfect tribute to it.
Thank you, Virt. Thank you very much. ^_^
June 30th, 2007 at 8:58 am
WOOAAAAH! YEAH! DAMN NICE WORK! Thougt Canyon.mid couldn’t be better, now i know the truth.
v-Canyon for teh Windoze Bootup-melody!
August 11th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Here is passport! not as good as canyon tho http://www.midicenter.com/midi/midi_files/misc/passport.mid
August 13th, 2007 at 12:53 am
awesome-sounds like Toto
August 19th, 2007 at 11:09 am
This is an excellent rendition of an old Windows (95, for me) favorite. Congratulations on your success.
September 26th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
George Stone
November 26th, 2007 at 1:35 am
There was also a sort of jazzy groovy tune I loved that went along with Passport and Canyon. Anybody know?
January 12th, 2008 at 3:26 am
Found this on a Google search…wow…brings back memories of the early 90s and Win31. BTW, the new arrangement is just…epic. Great work. I’m going to sound dumb for asking this, but is that live? Or a tracker?
January 23rd, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Really nice arrangement! Made me remember playing Space Quest IV, Sim City and the likes while listening… I came here looking for the “original” for CANYON.MID, but now I’m sure this is as good as it gets, plus I get the Toto vibe, too! If I ever join a band again, this is gonna be on the setlist.
P.S: Pearl Jam comment must have been a troll’s evil deed!
January 30th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
Wow.. that sounds really good.. my fav was passport. first time i herd it i was in the 1st grade.. Gateway Performance 450. whopping 8gb hdd and a pentium III.. wow old days… you really gotta do passport
February 16th, 2008 at 3:14 am
Oh my!! Thank you so much! Incredible to hear canyon.mid redone that nicely! good old days…
April 14th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
You sir, are a god amongst men. I managed to get this song in my head after listening to demo tracks on my old keyboard, and your version of this song totally rocks! The drums and guitar are second to none – I do think that the piano could use a little sprucing up though, but honestly I can’t complain!
April 26th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Im even tempted to make this the ringtone on my mobile phone!
Great work – well done!
May 13th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
This is so cool, really good work, i wonder if i could play this new version in win3.1?
May 13th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
oh, by the way, i use the old win3.1 version AS my ringtone :)
June 6th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
This is so amazing!!!!
June 12th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Dear People,
I am consistently amazed by the pathways life chooses to follow. Reading everyone’s comments has been a poignant but bittersweet moment that has brought me to tears.
I was the chief MIDI Producer for Passport Designs in 1990, during which time I composed “Trip Through the Grand Canyon.” While I have observed my name mentioned once in this posting (though without reference), in almost 20 years I have never been given credit for this composition that has apparently delighted so many.
So I would like to just say thank you for your kind words about my music. My best—George Stone (geostone@att.net)
June 12th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
amazing…..
it definitely delighted me ten years ago, i did’t have a music collection save 15 odd mp3’s…canyon was always in the playlist…it honours me posting just hours after the original composer…i simply loved that tune…woke up this morning and there it was>>hey is canyon on google???…and found Jakes’ … beautiful instrumental work…it gave me goosebumps…listened well…took the time to appreciate…and sped off looking for the original .mid track…i found it one link up on davesway. and it gave me super goosebumps…seems that has more effect for me…the chunkier sound does it…for recreational gaming i still play pokemon rby on gameboy…(vision fades)
July 12th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
1995/96, at 13/14 years old, my life was defined by the music I listened to and the TV I watched. Along with “The X Files”, “Due South”, Nirvana”, “Alanis Morrisette” and a host of other 90s era classics, “Canyon.mid” was something that I could listen to again and again. Mr George Stone, you are a genius! What happened to the days where music was inspirational?
August 11th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
I searched the web for a copy of canyon.mid to be posted on my blog. I wonder why they stopped including it since WIN XP. Luckily I came to your site and discovered the best sequence of canyon.mid I’ve ever heard. Thanks!
August 21st, 2008 at 11:07 pm
good piece of music, really! i put it in my morning wake-up program.
September 1st, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Wow.
I remember when I was REALLY young, finding the original canyon.mid on a school computer one day. The file’s icon was music notes, so obviously I opened it and listening to it immediately became my favorite thing to do on a computer. I had probably hunkered down next to that beige IBM box, straining to hear the amazing sounds being emitted from the machine over the noise of my naive classmates every day for years. I probably listened to the piece a couple hundred times by the time win98 came out and schools figured out how to limit access to the C: drive, and I was cut off from my daily Trip[s] Through the Grand Canyon.
A LONG time passed (cerca nine years) and I lived without ever hearing canyon.mid even _once_. I had forgotten the filename of the piece, and could not recall it, even as I sang the entire work to myself, harmonies, bridges and all. Now, about a month ago, I stumble across a program called MAMplayer, which creates visualizations to MIDI files. Soon after I inadVIRTantly am searching for VG musics, and find VGMix.com. Virt is obviously quickly found and I immediately love his music. After a quick search, I find Kwakfest, and Virt’s profile on vimeo.com, where I am intrigued by the title: “Nugget is a Very Thirsty Puppy.” I’m blown away to hear nothing but the most awesome version of canyon.mid ever. I can’t help but marvel at how things have come full circle; and even more so at how the composer himself found this page!
I must thank you, Jake, this arrangement is fantastic, and I will be hunkering down by my computer speakers (or headbanging to my iPod) for many years to come. You’ve made one musician very happy.
~Taylor S.
October 2nd, 2008 at 11:55 am
This is awsome! look forward to more thanks!
October 7th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
@George Stone: Canyon.mid is great and you should achieve more official recognition on that composition! Thank you, Mr. Stone.
October 9th, 2008 at 2:42 am
I cannot begin to explain how happy I am to find this online and see that so many people enjoy this great song. I believe I was about 11 years old when I first listened to the midi version on Windows 95. I distinctly remember playing it time and time again until Windows XP came along. I was very disappointed when I discovered that the midi file was missing from this version of Windows. I like the new rendition of Canyon.mid very much. I’m going to be copying it to a CD-R immediately, and it will be copied to my ipod as well. Many thanks to George Stone for creating this inspirational and memorable piece.
November 4th, 2008 at 12:37 am
First came over this in Win98. (For some reason my Win95 had only one MIDI file (Pinball.mid))
I liked the MIDIs a lot – more than the WMAs included in later Windows. Like many others, CANYON.MID is among my top favs!
I hope to see more midis included in later versions instead of WMAs from an existing album. One evidence to show how people get lazier!
November 13th, 2008 at 12:46 am
I was blown away many years back by Canyon & Passport and was searching thro XP for them, and thats how I got to this site…long story short, are there any Mid or Wav files that can be used on a non-commercial site without trampleing on someones copyright???
November 16th, 2008 at 2:37 am
Wow!!! Thank you so much! I’m back in 1994…I should get Yamaha OPL3 FM
again!!! This is awesome!
November 16th, 2008 at 2:39 am
George Stone, Thank you!!!
February 8th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Wow, great rendition!
I actually didn’t recognize Canyon.mid by name (I was redirected here from a Wiki article about Brian Eno’s Windows 95 opening jingle, of all things!), but after about 5 seconds, I completely remembered this track from way back in the day and was laughing my ass off (in a good way that is). Wow, this rendition (and the original midi) were just so carefree and listening to it brings back memories of less complicated times. Thanks again!
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:19 pm
What can I say; an amazing song and your cover of it kicks ass! Can you post it up as a FLAC file by any chance?
All the best
And George, thankyou! :)
April 26th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
I remember in the mid 90s on our first pc, discovering this track along with passport. the sound cards back then, on cheapo machines, made these sounds way different than the versions most people are aware of, and sounded way cooler. items like this, along with many others,helped shape my life and define who i am. I have a love for what I, and many others who have similar feelings about life, call ‘box’ music (simple yet obviously magical keyboard music, as oppossed to flashy,over produced, underthought ‘bubble’ music) of any genre, although i sadly cannot play my 3 keyboards well at all
April 28th, 2009 at 9:15 am
YES YES YES
This is the legendary 3rd song that played in Chip’s Challenge.
YOU ARE A GOD AMONG MEN.
May 19th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
WOW!! Just loaded Win 3.1 inside DOSBox and saw CANYON.MID (ah memories of the Program Manager)
Thanks for the MP3 so I can load it onto my iPhone!!!
June 3rd, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Ha, I remember this.
First heard it when I finally got a Win95 comp in 2002. I’ve always preferred Passport myself, but this one was pretty nice as well.
…Then I bumped into Zelda Classic and smirked when I found this MIDI occasionally, though my collection grew a ton since then.
Very nice remix, sounds very much like the original.
August 13th, 2009 at 5:04 am
[...] Trip Through the Grand Canyon http://www.biglionmusic.com/music/arrangements/other-arrangements/canyon#comment-1041 [...]
September 11th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
It was the summer of 1998. I was eight years old, and my dad just bought our first computer, an IBM Aptiva with Windows 95. (Still works like a charm. XD) And I remember one of my first memories of that computer was opening up Voyetra Audiostation, and playing the midi player, and hearing Canyon.mid and Passport.mid for the first time. Wow… It feels like just yesterday. LOL This is such a catchy tune, now and then. I’ve listened to it a lot in the past 11 years. I must say, this is a VERY impressive rendition. I really like it!
Wow… George Stone posted? Epic! For those of you who don’t know about the company, Passport; not only where they a major force in the world of midi music in PCs, but they were also a driving force in the music notation software industry. Something that I REALLY appreciate, having a major in Music Composition. lol I remember when I was 8, my grandmother bought Music Time Deluxe, by Passport, for me to use. I use Sibelius now, but I will never forget just playing around and having fun making music with Music Time as a kid. So, thank you George Stone and the rest of the Passport team! :D
Now that I totally feel like a geek, I’ll just conclude by saying… Canyon.mid is EPIC!
:D
October 17th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
I remember it all to well, 7 years old on an old IBM box playing this song over and over again in the early/mid 90s. Suddenly I remembered it, and all I remembered was the letters CANYON.MID. Thank you George Stone for this work of art!
October 29th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
pyrogen bacteria subtance [url=http://rxdrugs24x7.com/product/diamox.html]Order Diamox[/url] caution celebrex dictionary medical vioxx [url=http://rxdrugs24x7.com/category/anti-viral.html]lowcountry and medical and transport and hampton and county[/url] carbohydrates important in diet
http://rxdrugs24×7.com/product/herbal-viagra.html
November 26th, 2009 at 10:00 am
Dang, grats! :D
I’ve known and loved this arrangement since it came out, I just went to link it to a forum where people are talking about related things, and noticed the composer’s comment. That is, indeed, more than a little bit awesome (and yes, I, like everyone else, had never actually thought about who composed it. I guess that’s what happens when you work at a place like Microsoft :p).
December 2nd, 2009 at 8:53 pm
Wow, I remember this from my dad’s old Windows 2000 laptop. Too bad it crashed and was never able to boot up again. By the way, I can’t download this.