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The Piano Guys

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For The Piano Guy, see Scott Houston.
ThePianoGuys
OriginSt. George, Utah, USA
GenresRock, classical music, Jazz
Years active2011-present
Members
  • Jon Schmidt (Piano Guy)
  • Steven Sharp Nelson (Cello Guy)
  • Tel Stewart (Videographer/Editor)
  • Paul Anderson (Producer/Videographer)
  • Al van der Beek (Music and Studio Guy)
Websitewww.thepianoguys.com

ThePianoGuys are an American musical group consisting of Jon Schmidt, Steven Sharp Nelson, Tel Stewart, Paul Anderson and Al van der Beek. They became famous through YouTube, where they posted videos of renditions and mashups of popular songs accompanied by professional-looking video shots and edited by Paul Anderson and Tel Stewart. In December 2011, they released their first album, titled YouTube Hits Vol. 1. Their second album, The Piano Guys, reached number one on the Billboard New Age Albums and Classical Albums charts in 2012.[1]

History

Paul Anderson owned a piano shop in St. George, Utah. He met musician Jon Schmidt as the latter walked in to ask if he could practice there for an upcoming concert.[2] Months later, Paul Anderson and Tel Stewart (then just for fun) started making videos together of Jon Schmidt. It was not too long after that they did their first collaboration with Jon Schmidt, Steven Sharp Nelson, Joseph Sanns, and Al van der Beek as the studio and music technician. After the five of them started collaborating the group really started to take off, producing a music video each week and posting it to YouTube.

The team also includes Tel Stewart (videography and editing) and Al van der Beek (production and recording).[2][3]

Success

Several of the group's YouTube videos have over 15 million views. As of 5 May 2013, The Piano Guys' YouTube channel has over 224 million total video views and over 1.6 million subscribers.[4]

Music

Jon plays the piano, and Steven plays the cello - both acoustic and electric.

In most songs, they record several audio tracks that are mixed together. Occasionally, they superimpose the videos of the previous audio tracks to give the impression that many identical instrumentalists are all playing at once.

Michael Meets Mozart

In this video,[5] Jon and Steven play an original hip hop/classical mash-up that is recognized by the variety of sound effects they produce. According to the description, all sounds effects were created by them using only the instruments shown in the video (piano, cello, mouth percussion and bass drum), with more than 100 recorded tracks. It was posted to YouTube on May 17, 2011. It was created as a tribute to Mozart and Michael Jackson.

The Cello Song

This video[6] is an original arrangement and adaptation of J.S. Bach's Unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 1: Prelude, by Steven Sharp Nelson. While the original prelude is for solo cello, Steven adapted it for 8 cellos, with the addition of original material. It was posted to YouTube on June 14, 2011. In the description, Steven explains he named it "The Cello Song" because it was what people actually called Bach's original piece since no one could remember its name.

Moonlight

This video[7] shows Steven Sharp Nelson playing Moonlight, a piece he composed for electric cello inspired by Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata and the melody from Beethoven's 7th Symphony, 2nd movement. It was posted to YouTube on July 14, 2011.

Rock meets Rachmaninoff

This video[8] shows Jon Schmidt playing a modern version of Sergei Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C# minor. It was posted to YouTube on July 25, 2011. According to the description, Jon wrote this song when his son started his first band and researched music on YouTube. There are two versions of this song on YouTube; both feature Jon Schmidt and a band consisting of Chris Wormer, Joel Stevenett and Jake Bowen. In the original 'Rockmaninoff' version, the volume of all instruments is well-balanced. In the 'Rock meets Rachmaninoff' version, the piano sounds much louder than the other instruments. The video also shows the sheet music for this song. The sheet music lists the play volume as 'Pretty dang loud'.

Cello Wars

This video[9] is a spoof of the Star Wars soundtrack and films. It was posted to YouTube on December 2, 2011.

Steven plays both a Jedi Master and a Sith Lord who come together to do a musical fight on cellos. The Jedi and the Sith fight using more than just their cellos - they also use The Force and lightsabers. Darth Vader (Al van der Beek) appears in the movie and after creating a force wind, he pulls out an accordion to play the tune from the cantina in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Chewbacca also makes an appearance. In the end of the clip, Darth Vader and Chewbacca are seen dancing together.

The following John Williams Star Wars movie themes are used (in order of appearance):

  • The Imperial March (Empire Strikes Back Theme)
  • Duel of the Fates (From Episode I)
  • May the Force Be With You
  • Star Wars Main Theme
  • Cantina Band (from Episode IV)

Peponi

After deciding to go for an African theme, Alex Boyé joined Steven and Jon for the recording of a cover of Coldplay's Paradise. The associated video clip mostly stands out because it was recorded on top of the local Red Stone mountain near St.George Utah. - requiring helicopters to transport piano and crew to the remote location.[10]

Beethoven's 5 Secrets

In 2012, the American Heritage Lyceum Philharmonic (Youth Orchestra) and its director, Kayson Brown, approached with the idea of a piece based on Beethoven's 5th symphony. The orchestra performed "Beethoven's Secrets" with The Piano Guys on YouTube which had received 2 million hits within 2 months of its release. It was OneRepublic's Secrets with parts from Beethoven's 5th symphony, a cello and orchestral cover.[11] The vocal version features YouTube star Tiffany Alvord.

YouTube's "Most Up and Coming Channel"

In June 2011, the YouTube channel for The Piano Guys won the "On the Rise" contest with two videos — "Pirates of the Caribbean" with Jarrod Radnich and "Michael Meets Mozart" with Jon Schmidt and Steven Sharp Nelson — which launched them into the YouTube spotlight. True to the outcome of the contest, the Pirates of the Caribbean video has been the most popular clip filmed by The Piano Guys. It featured their friend pianist and composer, Jarrod Radnich, showing his performance and compositional skills on piano.[12] The video when last posted by The Piano Guys had over 25 million views from independent viewers, the most of any video on the channel. (Recently The Piano Guys were asked by Sony to remove Jarrod's videos since Jarrod's video performances created confusion about The Piano Guys membership.) Since that time, Jarrod Radnich has uploaded the video and made it listed once again on his YouTube channel.

Pirates of the Caribbean was originally uploaded on June 20, 2010, and featured Radnich's original arrangement using a medley of themes from Klaus Badelt's Pirates of the Caribbean movie soundtrack. This is the same piece that plays at Disneyland's Dream Home of the Future exhibit in Tomorrowland with Radnich's performance replayed on a player piano (and his image on the screen) over 3,000 times a day. The Piano Guys filmed a second video with Radnich and uploaded it on on June 7, 2011, in order to include it on their channel in time for the YouTube contest. It is Radnich's virtuosic arrangement of John Williams' Hedwig's Theme from the Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone soundtrack. It has reached over 9 million views as of December 2012 before being delisted, but has been reuploaded on Jarrod Radnich's channel.

Signing with Sony

In September 2012, it was announced that the Piano Guys had been signed by Sony.[13] This resulted in a world-wide release of the album The Piano Guys.

Discography

YouTube Hits Vol. 1

Album released December 2011.

  1. Michael Meets Mozart
  2. Moonlight
  3. Without You
  4. The Cello Song
  5. Rolling In The Deep
  6. Cello Wars (Radio Edit)
  7. O Fortuna (Carmina Burana)
  8. Bring Him Home (Les Misérables)
  9. Charlie Brown Medley
  10. Rock Meets Rachmaninoff
  11. All Of Me

The following two songs only appear on the Limited Edition version of the album:

  • More Than Words
  • Twinkle Lullaby

The Piano Guys

Album released October 2012.

  1. Titanium / Pavane
  2. Peponi (Paradise)
  3. Code Name Vivaldi
  4. Beethoven's 5 Secrets
  5. Over the Rainbow / Simple Gifts
  6. Cello Wars
  7. Arwen's Vigil
  8. Moonlight
  9. A Thousand Years
  10. Michael Meets Mozart
  11. The Cello Song
  12. Rolling in the Deep
  13. What Makes You Beautiful

The Piano Guys 2

Album releasing May 2013.

  1. Begin Again
  2. Rockelbel's Canon
  3. Mission Impossible
  4. Lord of the Rings
  5. Berlin
  6. All of Me
  7. Just the Way You Are
  8. Nearer My God to Thee
  9. Waterfall
  10. Charlie Brown Medley
  11. Me and My Cello (Happy Together)
  12. Twinkle Lullaby

The Deluxe Version also has a DVD of all of their popular videos.

References

  1. ^ "Billboard New Age Album charts".
  2. ^ a b "The Piano Guys - What's our Story?". Retrieved 11 December 2011.
  3. ^ One Direction - What Makes You Beautiful (5 Piano Guys, 1 piano) - ThePianoGuys on YouTube
  4. ^ ThePianoGuys's channel on YouTube
  5. ^ Jon Schmidt - Michael Meets Mozart - 1 Piano, 2 Guys, 100 Cello Tracks - feat. Steven Sharp Nelson on YouTube
  6. ^ Steven Sharp Nelson - The Cello Song - Bach is back (with 7 more cellos) The Piano Guys on YouTube
  7. ^ Steven Sharp Nelson - Moonlight - Electric Cello (Inspired by Beethoven) on YouTube
  8. ^ Jon Schmidt - Rock meets Rachmaninoff - Piano Remix (BAND MIX link in description) on YouTube
  9. ^ Cello Wars (Star Wars Parody) Lightsaber Duel - Steven Sharp Nelson on YouTube
  10. ^ Coldplay - Paradise (Peponi) African Style (Piano/Cello Cover) - The Piano Guys ft. Alex Boye on YouTube
  11. ^ Beethoven's 5 Secrets - OneRepublic (Cello/Orchestral Cover) - The Piano Guys on YouTube
  12. ^ "See Jarrod Radnich's website for scores and music".
  13. ^ "Web hit Piano Guys sign with Sony". Retrieved 9 September 2012.
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