The Piano Guys do not only play the music

They play pop, hip-hop, rock and of course classical, sometimes with one tune several mashed up together or all of these genres.

The booklet inside the album The Piano Guys carries this quote from the great composer Ludwig van Beethoven. “Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its Secrets, for it and knowledge can raise men to the Divine.”

And I thought how apt those words are to describe the contents of the CD. The Piano Guys do not only play the music. They plumb the depths of its secrets. They shorten and lengthen the melodies.  They twist it in assorted ways. They take pieces from here and there and they then put these together to create something new.

Recent Manila visitors, The Piano Guys, are the latest music success to come out of YouTube. As the cliché goes, the group is an Internet sensation, another one of those artists who did not go through the usual route. You know how they did it in the old days. Get noticed by a talent scout, then get a label deal, record an album and then promote, promote. 

The Piano Guys did not do any of that. They went directly to the music buyers on the web. They recorded some tunes, made videos to match, uploaded these on YouTube and became stars after they got millions and millions of hits. And it was after all these that they got the record deal with Sony.

The Piano Guys is not really a piano group. Only one of them, Jon Schmidt, is a pianist. According to their Wikipedia bio, Schmidt practiced for a concert in the piano store owned by Paul Anderson. On a lark, Anderson and Tel Stewart started making videos of Schmidt. They were later joined by a cellist, Steven Sharp Nelson, and a studio and music technician Al van der Beek.

It was once they were all finally together two years ago that the group started to gel. And gel they really did. They so enjoyed what they were doing that they were uploading one music video a week on YouTube. There was no way anybody could miss The Piano Guys on the Net. Being both artists and skilled technicians, they knew their way around both pop and classical music. And they made everything look and sound like fun.

Now the likes of Bach, Beethoven or Rachmaninoff are not likely to complain but what about One Direction or Adele or David Guetta or even George Lucas on behalf of his much loved Star Wars? All of them, plus many others have gone through The Piano Guys’ wringer. Their music had been covered, rearranged or fused with others in ways only these guys could have thought of and you will never believe how Darth Vader and Chewbacca made it to a Piano Guys video with matching music.

The Piano Guys music is mainly piano with cello or four cellos, a violin or two, more pianos, synthesizers or anything that these guys can get into that will make lots of noise. They play pop, hip-hop, rock and of course classical, sometimes with one tune several mashed up together or all of these genres and assorted instruments in just one cut. The result is an uplifting kind of music that is impossible to categorize but enjoyable to listen to.

The great thing about their output was that because they were unhampered by A&R men, labels or managers and other advisers, they had complete freedom and just followed their instincts. There is always the danger that freedom could be subject to abuse in the hands on the wrong person. But it is this same freedom provided by the Internet that gave birth to something as enjoyable as The Piano Guys.

There are two Piano Guys CDs now available on line and in the local stores. One is The Piano Guys, which includes Guetta’s Titanium mashed up with Pavanne; Peponi with Coldplay’s Paradise; Over The Rainbow; What Makes You Beautiful; Rolling In The Deep; Arwen’s Vigil from The Lord of the Rings; Moonlight inspired by Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata; Michael Meets Mozart, a tribute to Mozart and Michael Jackson; Bring Him Home from Les Miserables and others.

The other album is The Piano Guys 2. This one has Rockelbel’s Canon from Pachelbel’s Canon in D; Mission Impossible featuring dancing violinist Lindsey Stirling; Just The Way You Are; More Than Words; Can’t Help Falling In Love; Waterfall; Me And My Cello (Happy Together); the Twinkle Lullaby, a Charlie Brown Medley and others.

Here now is a look at how well The Piano Guys are selling through Billboard Magazine’s Classical Charts. Here are the Top 10 titles: Mater Eucharistiae by the Dominican Sisters of Mary; Lindsey Stirling by Lindsey Stirling; We Are Love Special Edition by Il Volo; The Piano Guys by The Piano Guys; The Piano Guys 2 by The Piano Guys; Passione by Andrea Bocelli; Bach, Sonatas and Partitas by Chris Thile; Dreamchaser by Sarah Brightman; Mas Que Amor by Il Volo; and Music by violinist David Garrett.