~~April 29, 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 “Lord of the Rings” from their second CD with a major record label.
~~SOURCES~~
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/
~~Published on Nov 20, 2012~~
~~Story behind the song~~
Since the beginning of The Piano Guys, “Lord of the Rings” has been our most requested work. As we reach one million subscribers we wanted to dedicate this arrangement to our “subs.” This was an intimidating project — encompassing the power and the beauty of the many musical themes throughout the movies; capturing the emotion and the “epic” nature of the story; and all with a few cellos, a piano, and a couple Canon 5D Mark IIs.
We normally write our tunes during intense compositional binges — the bulk of our songs have been written within the period of a few days. This one was different. It was a drawn-out process during which we studied the music of The Lord of Rings, contemplated what themes to incorporate, how they could tell the story by flowing from one to the other. We also spent a lot of time finding new ways to imitate instruments from various sections of the orchestra using Steve’s cellos — from the brass section through the woodwind section to the percussion section.
We love the story of The Lord of the Rings. It is a tale that has spiritual meaning for us. We love its messages — that “even the smallest person can change the course of the future,” that “there’s good in this world and it’s worth fighting for,” “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us” … and that everyone should have a “second breakfast.” We love the poignant depiction of loyalty between the Fellowship of the Ring (we even included the “Fellowship” theme three times – at 0:18, 3:58 and at the end of the arrangement – to feel like a common thread in the music as it is in the story.)
We wanted to paint these messages musically as vividly as possible. Like so many things in the creative realm, and to paraphrase Mr. Bilbo Baggins, the hardest part was the first step. After a brief introduction of the Hobbit Theme and Fellowship Theme (arguably the most relevant musical moments) we felt strongly that we needed to begin with the deeply touching melody that serves as the soundtrack to Arwen’s vision of her future son (in the extended version of Return of the King).
That gave way to a Divinely-led journey from the Shire and Rivendell through Isengard and Rohan to Gondor’s victory over Mordor. We endeavored to represent each of the major allies and opposing forces in the story:
The Elves 0:44
The Ents 1:48
Rohan 2:08
Mordor and Isengard 2:32
Hobbits 3:08
Gondor 4:11
We ALL are connected through MUSIC!!
~~FUTURE PLANS~~
The Piano Guys have the intention of playing their music at the seven wonders of the world. At the time of this writing, they have played at the Great Wall of China and. add to that, Christ the Redeemer in Brazil – Large Statue.
~~Full Read/Posts~~
https://hrexach.wordpress.com/2014/04/09/at-the-end-of-the-day-another-musical-note/
https://hrexach.wordpress.com/2014/04/08/at-the-end-of-the-day-on-a-musical-note/
We ALL are ONE!!
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It Is What It Is 