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Player Piano Research Paper

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What happens when you mix an accomplished Writer/Director, a gifted Composer/Pianist, and Youtube? You get Player Piano - a sensational duo made up of Tom Grey and Sonya Belousova. Together these two artists create music videos that put a classical spin on popular songs and soundtrack themes. Their YouTube channel has over 100,000 subscribers and well over 5,000,000 views. I had the chance to talk with them about their success, music, and the production of their music videos.

Together Tom Grey and Sonya Belousova make up Player Piano, could you tell us how this all got started?

Tom: It began a few years ago when I was the head producer for comic book legend Stan Lee's (Marvel) YouTube Channel: World of Heroes. I was looking for a new show …show more content…

Is Player Piano something that you focus on full-time?

Tom: It certainly feels like full-time as my role extends far beyond directing content. I'm also raising money, dealing with taxes/insurance, hiring crew, editing, marketing, etc. So yes, at the moment I spend a huge amount of my time on it, but it isn't a big enough operation that I can dedicate myself fully to it. My other muse is my writing. Currently I'm working on finishing up a middle-grade fantasy adventure novel.

Sonya: Yes and no. A lot of my time is dedicated to Player Piano, especially when we’re in process of releasing videos. A lot of arrangements I write are technically quite challenging and therefore require some time to both write and learn them. Moreover, I like reimagining the concept of the original composition since simply transcribing the music for a different instrument or set of instruments doesn’t appeal to me. Whenever writing a Player Piano arrangement I have to fully dedicate myself to it as there’re a lot of deadlines to be met (recording, mixing, shooting, …show more content…

Most seem to be video game themed. Is this because people want to hear that type of music or do you have a particular interest in it?

Tom: Yes and no. I know I certainly have an interest in video game themes as I grew up in the 8-bit generation and there is a great deal of nostalgia associated with those themes. But in reality most of the themes we've done are based off of movies and TV. At the moment it feels like we focus on videogames because we just released the 8-bit themes album. That particular album was a perk that we offered our supporters during a crowdfund campaign that we wrapped up in January. But going forward, it will be a healthy mix of all kinds of music.

Sonya: So far we have released two albums. The first one was a compilation of various arrangements of Film/TV scores like Doctor Who and Ghost Waltz (main title of Stepford Wives), Anime scores like Akira, classical pieces like Montagues and Capulets from Romeo and Juliet by Sergey Prokofiev, popular songs like Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen and video games like Street Fighter and Tetris. As Tom mentioned, our second 8-bit Themes Piano Album was in fact a perk we offered during our indiegogo campaign. Tom is a huge fan of video games. I belong more to the Film/TV world. However, I had a blast arranging all those 8-bit video game songs for the album. Overall, we’re trying not to focus on any particular genre but to stay as diverse

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