The Piano Guys

So Husband Man, his sister and her husband, and I all got to go see the Piano Guys in concert last night. It was one of the best concerts I've ever been to! These four guys get together and create these astounding musical arrangements with amazing videos to go with them. It really reaffirms my love of music, especially watching these men do what they love with joy and smiles and dancing.

When I was learning music in middle and high school, I was sort of a die-hard traditionalist when it came to music. By "traditionalist" I mean that I really didn't like the use of technology in music. I felt like it was cheating. Electronic instruments, whether keyboards or cellos, sounded fake to me. Using electronics to record you playing different parts of music and then looping them together was weird-- I felt that if you couldn't play it live by yourself then it was cheating. Even recording music was hard for me to digest sometimes-- I understand the value of it, by allowing more audiences to hear it and so on, but at the same time being able to record multiple performances and piecing together the good parts or whatever wasn't something I was sure I was fine with.

It's not that I wasn't exposed to electronics and music, either. I'd heard electronic string instruments played in person, but I still didn't like it compared to the real thing. I grew up playing on an electric keyboard when I was first taking piano lessons, because my family didn't have a real piano. I had a friend in high school who looped tracks together to create his own music. Even so, it just didn't seem right to me (or I refused to accept it, I'll honestly say I don't know which it was).

Little by little, however, over the course of my college career, I've really come to appreciate what electronics and media can do for audiences. I knew the value of it when it came to musicals, but that made sense at the time-- you are trying to tell a story, and you can create a better connection with your audience by incorporating music, staging, props, and lighting. But really, how is that any different with any type of music? You are still trying to connect with your audience, to get them to feel the things you created the music for.

I don't think I meant to be close-minded to the use of technology. I definitely think that there are some good things done with it, (and also some pretty weird things...). Take organs, for example-- because of electronics we have our easier-to-use modern organ, so you can have full pipe organs or organs with pipes and electronic "pipes", as well as smaller fully-electronic organs that can be stashed in a tiny practice room (or my future living room, just sayin'). In the Piano Guys concert, Steven Sharp Nelson used his looping electronic doo-dad (I don't remember what it was called, sorry) to create entire tracks on-stage in real time. To me that takes guts, (what if you mess up a layer of your track??) and to hear it done was incredible. I couldn't fathom that he could come up with all those intertwining layers of music and put the together in a way that made sense. Still not convinced? Remember the post I wrote about the experibass?

Even writing music is so much nicer with electronics. I bought the Finale program for my Scoring and Arranging class on campus, and I definitely have plans to put it to good use! Forget writing it out on physical staff paper and trying to play it on a piano and have it make sense-- now I can enter it in electronically, and even hear it played by "instruments" so I can get a better idea of how things will sound. (I'm not going to say the program is perfect, because I think the brass instrument sounds are horrible... but it's incredibly useful.) And when I'm done with it, I can print it off right in my own house, and there's a hard copy of the piece I just put together.

Now, I'm not going to say I'm completely sold on everything. I still think classic cello sounds way better than electronic, and a grand piano will always sound nicer than a keyboard. The point is that electronics can bless our lives in such a way that music can reach out farther and farther in the world, to more people than before. It allows people to take their talents and expand them beyond imagination. I used to think that Beethoven would have rolled over in his grave if he ever heard his music played by electronic instruments. Now I think he looks down from heaven and marvels at what we have, and probably wonders what he could have done if he was in our shoes.

I believe that you can take music and force your way into its secrets, and that there isn't just one way to go about doing that. Technology is one of those ways-- the Piano Guys proved that to me tonight. I'd been considering the use of technology in music over the last year or so, but to see it put into action, live, and how much these men enjoyed what they did and how far their influence reached-- that really solidified my thoughts. I'm so excited that I am involved in such a wonderful part of this world, so grateful that music exists and that I was able to study it in college. I'm going to keep expanding my musical talents in any way I want to. 

Challenge accepted, Piano Guys-- challenge accepted.