The Piano Guys

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 Anderson and formerly by Tel Stewart. Their first five major-label albums The Piano Guys, The Piano Guys 2, A Family Christmas, Wonders, and Uncharted each reached number one on the Billboard Classical Albums chart.^[1][2]

History

Anderson owned a piano shop in St. George, Utah. He met Schmidt when he asked if he could practice in Anderson's store for an upcoming concert.^[3] Months later, Anderson and Stewart (then just for fun) started making videos together with Schmidt. Not too long after that, they did their first collaboration with Schmidt, along with Nelson and Van Der Beek, studio and music technicians. After the five of them started collaborating, the group took 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 each of them has over 750,000. As of October 2016, The Piano Guys' YouTube channel had more than a billion total video views and over five million subscribers.^[4] In June 2011, The Piano Guys won the "Most Up-and-Coming Channel" award in the YouTube "On the Rise" contest with "Michael Meets Mozart" with Schmidt and Nelson.^[5][6] On August 6, 2016, during their concert at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles, YouTube and Sony presented The Piano Guys with a plaque commemorating 1 billion total video views.^[7]

Signing with Sony

In September 2012, it was announced that the Piano Guys had been signed by Sony.^[8] This resulted in a worldwide release of the album The Piano Guys, followed in 2013 by The Piano Guys 2, and Wonders in 2014.

Works

Schmidt plays the piano and Nelson plays the cello - acoustic, electric.

Most songs are composed of 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 playing at once.

They also collaborate with other musical artists on occasion, as seen in a number of their videos.

2010-2011

The first video posted to their YouTube channel is titled "Game Day".^[9] "The Dumb Song" came almost a year later. This has stuck with Schmidt since he was a kid, all inspired by a commercial he saw as a child.^[10] "To the Summit" was inspired from a dream Schmidt had. He is accompanied with Ray Smith on a tenor saxophone.^[11] Among the Top 10 of their most popular videos, "Michael Meets Mozart - 1 Piano, 2 Guys, 100 Cello Tracks" was produced in part by the fans encouraging them to create more mashups of various song styles and artists.^[12] Created by Schmidt's son, Spencer, The Piano Guys and Spencer collaborated on the song "Bittersweet".^[13] With his cello, Steve played one of Bach's Cello Suite 1 with seven layers of cellos being played together on this piece.^[14]

Southern Utah, being where The Piano Guys are from, is showcased in "Desert Symphony", a video produced by Shaye Scott.^[15]

"Moonlight" was filmed predominantly in Salt Flats, Utah. This video^[16] shows 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.

This video^[17] shows 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, Schmidt 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 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'.

Their cover of "Bring Him Home" from the musical version of Les Misérables was dedicated to those in the military and their families.^[18]

Along with Nelson, Schmidt played an arrangement of "Twinkle Lullaby", a version of "Twinkle Little Star".^[19]

Other tracks they've made are:

• Charlie Brown Medley
• Cover of Adele's Rolling in the Deep
  • With vocals (feat Amanda Scott)
• Nearer My God to Thee
• An original work of Jon Schmidt's: All of Me
• More than Words (feat J. Rice)
• Cover of Without You.
• Cello Wars This video^[20] is a spoof of the Star Wars soundtrack and films. The song was produced by van der Beek and Nelson, with special effects by Stewart. The video was posted to YouTube on December 2, 2011. It has more than 34 million views to date. Nelson 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 (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 (Anderson) also makes an appearance. In the end of the clip, Darth Vader and Chewbacca can be 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)
• Where Are You Christmas? (vocals provided by Jon's daughter, Sarah Schmidt)
• Carol of the Bells (played predominantly by Steve on his cellos)

2012-2013

• Peponi After deciding to go for an African theme, Alex Boyé joined Schmidt and Nelson 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 both piano and crew to the remote location.^[21]
• Cover of "Just the Way You Are" by Bruno Mars
• 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.^[22] The orchestra performed "Beethoven's Secrets" with The Piano Guys on YouTube, which had received two million hits within two months of its release. It was OneRepublic's "Secrets" with parts from Beethoven's 5th symphony, a cello and orchestral cover.^[23] The vocal version features YouTube star Tiffany Alvord.
• Over the Rainbow/Simple Gifts (Piano/Cello Cover)
• Cover of Can't Help Falling in Love, by Elvis
• Me and My Cello - Happy Together Cello Cover
• Code Name Vivaldi (Bourne Soundtrack/Vivaldi Double Cello Concerto) [Based on the Bourne Identity movies]
• Cover of Christina Perri's A Thousand Years
• Cover of Rockelbel's Canon in D
• Waterfall (Jon Schmidt)
• Cover of One Direction's What Makes You Beautiful
• Piano/Cello Cover of Titanium (David Guetta) / Pavane (Faure)
• Piano/Cello Cover Lord of The Rings - The Hobbit
• O come, O come, Emmanuel
• Cover of We Three Kings
• Cover of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
• Cover of Taylor Swift's Begin Again
• Berlin
• Mission Impossible Cover^[24] (Violin played by Lindsey Stirling)
• Cover of Home by Phillip Phillips
• Cover of Swedish House Mafia's Don't You Worry Child (With Shweta Subram)
• Kung Fu Piano: Cello Ascends This video^[25] shows Schmidt and Nelson performing on the Great Wall of China. This was always a dream of Anderson, along with the other Seven Wonders of the World, to place a piano (and now cellos) on the Great Wall of China.
• Arwen's Vigil (Inspired from the Lord of the Rings)
• Angels We Have Heard on High

2014-2015

• Cover of Let It Go (Disney's "Frozen") Vivaldi's Winter
• The Mission / How Great Thou Art
• Cover of One Direction's Story of My Life
• Cover/Mix of Ants Marching/Ode To Joy
• "Angels We Have Heard On High", performed ^[26] by The Piano Guys, Peter Hollens, David Archuleta, and The Mormon Tabernacle Choir
• "I Want You Bach" (inspired by the Jackson Five's song "I Want You Back")
• Cover ^[27] of What Are Words by Peter & Evynne Hollens
• Cover of Jurrassic Park's Theme
• "When Stars and Salt collide^[28]" (Cover of Coldplay's A Sky Full of Stars)
• Cover ^[29] of "This is Your Fight Song" by Rachel Platten (performed with members of the Wasatch & District Pipe Band)
• Cover ^[30] of "Silent Night" ft. Plácido Domingo

2016

• Cover ^[31] of Adele's Hello / Lacrimosa (Mozart)
• Cover ^[32] of Disney's The Jungle Book / Sarabande (Mayan Style)
• Cover of "Okay" Written by Andy Grammar and Dave Bassett

Discography

Studio albums

Live albums

Awards

YouTube Music Awards

References

External links

• Official website