~~April 30, 2014~~

The Piano Guys are an American musical group consisting of Jon Schmidt, Steven Sharp Nelson, Paul Anderson, and Al van der Beek.

They gained popularity through YouTube, where they posted piano and cello renditions of popular songs and classical music. Schmidt and Nelson’s music is accompanied by professional-quality videos shot and edited by Paul Anderson.

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. Months later, Paul Anderson and Tel Stewart (then just for fun) started making videos together with Jon Schmidt. It was not too long after that they did their first collaboration with Jon Schmidt, Steven Sharp Nelson, 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.

~~Success~~

Several of the group’s YouTube videos have over 20 million views, while all of them have over 750,000. As of February 2014, The Piano Guys’ YouTube channel has over 345 million total video views and about 2,500,000 subscribers.

“OUR VISION IS TO CREATE MUSIC AND VIDEOS THAT INSPIRE & UPLIFT.
WHATEVER WE DO, WE PUT OUR HEART AND SOULS INTO EVERY NOTE AND FRAME.”

The Piano Guys 2 is the third studio album by American musical group The Piano Guys. It was released on May 7, 2013, by Portrait (a division of Sony Masterworks). The album made its chart début at number 38 on the US Billboard 200.

The deluxe version of The Piano Guys 2 comes with a DVD featuring 11 music videos.

Today we are featuring “Berlin” from their second CD with a major record label.

SOURCES

http://thepianoguys.com/

http://www.sacredcello.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Piano_Guys

https://www.facebook.com/PianoGuys

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/the-piano-guys

http://floridatheatre.com/event/piano-guys/

Berlin – Original song for 12 cellos (and a kick drum)

ThePianoGuys

~~Published on Apr 10, 2013~~

ALL THE SOUNDS YOU HEAR WERE CREATED BY 105 CELLO TRACKS

~(and a kick drum)~

Filmed all on location in Berlin, Germany

~~Story behind the music and the video~~

What do Bach, Beethoven, Strauss, Brahms, Schumann and many more of the world’s greatest classical composers have in common?

They are all from Germany!

While we were on tour there we wanted to drink in Germany’s musical genius. It was an amazing experience. We had a chance to tour Europe twice in the same month. Prior to our first trip we had been brewing an original tune.

We wanted to write a cello “hook” that could grab people and that could be looped throughout the tune. We then started building more cello loops and moments with unprecedented sounds from the acoustic (wood) cello, carbon fiber, steel, and electric cellos. When the dust settled we had four minutes of layered, edgy, sort-of dubstep-with-a-U2-influenced goody-bag — on the electric cello loops we used some of the same cool delay effects and chord style of legend guitarists such as The Edge, Ewan Dobson, Buckethead and Yngwie Malmsteen.

We were excited but a little unsettled and we couldn’t figure out why. It was incomplete. We then left to Germany. We had some incredible adventures while we traveled and performed there. Upon return we had a week between our two Europe trips and we were determined to finish the song. Al and Steve were a little discouraged after having put so much work into a song and feeling good about it, and yet not knowing exactly what it needed.

This is a good moment to say again how grateful we are for our supportive families. They are the true “Behind the Scenes” of ThePianoGuys that make everything possible and give us the happiness we draw our inspiration from. If it weren’t for Rachel (Al’s wife) and Julie (Steve’s wife) this song would have failed. They gave us the encouragement and the ideas we needed to sprint the last mile.

We had one day to finish it up.

That morning inspiration struck Al and Steve at the same time in different places — we still have the iPhone voice memo recordings (recorded at less than an hour apart) that we used to sing the capstone melodies that came to us. When we met at the studio we simultaneously announced we had the melody the song needed — only to find out that the song needed BOTH melodies — separately in different places and then together as a duet at the end of the song.

As we listened to the final product we couldn’t help but feel the picturesque classical vibe mixed with a pop/dubstep vibe was an abstract depiction of what we felt as traveled through and performed in Berlin.

We decided just days before we were to board the plane again that the song would be called “Berlin” and that we should film it while we were in the city — a place so richly steeped in classical heritage, history, and vitality. Filming in front of its incredible landmarks was such an unforgettable experience.

(Read rest of the story herehttp://thepianoguys.com/portfolio/ber… )