They say two heads are better than one. This is mostly true in the realm of the intellect, however in matters of music, are four hand better than two? A standard piano had 88 keys. Presuming the pianists don’t spend a lot of time hand-feeding piranhas, they have ten fingers each, that’s 20 fingers on keys…That means that nearly a quarter of the keys on a piano can make sweet, sweet music when you’ve got two pianists.
While math may be a truly boring way to interpret music, the proof is in the piano when you see this incredible video of two pianists tickling the same ivories together!
It starts off with one pianist, Arthur Migliazza, showing off his skills in “Boogie Woogie” piano mastery at the NAMM show.
The second pianist, Doña Oxford, faces away, doing some crowd work but pretending (unconvincingly!) that she doesn’t want to join in. This doesn’t last very long however before she yells “I want in on this!” and turns to show what she’s got.
And it turns out… she’s got quite a lot!
Doña is right in with her equally impressive finger skills, and the song steps up a whole notch. Maybe even a notch and a half! She jumps up on the tremble end of the piano offering some of the higher notes to complement our first pianists melodies.
As if playing Twister, these pianists cross over, playing different octaves, and each adding their own pieces to fill out the tune.
They continuously reach over to play different parts of the keyboard. Their fingers are lightning-fast and they don’t even seem to be planning their next moves. It’s as if the music simply flows from their fingertips…and fast!
It’s like watching a 20’s era speakeasy band showing off.
Of course it would be too easy to stay put, so our second pianist reaches around to play the very lowest note son the piano. Calm down guys, you’re making literally every other pianist look bad!
“You know what?” They seem to be thinking “Let’s make this MORE difficult!”
So Arthur stands up and they swap seats! Oh I get it, playing piano at a human level is too boring. They’ve got to take it super-human! As they swap places they also inhabit different parts of the scales they’re playing, deftly swapping parts of the melodies… just unbelievable.
The way they feel the music is just entrancing.
The way they move their bodies while they play just shows how the music is coming straight from them without being overthought or calculated. The music is pouring straight from their hearts to the piano for all to hear. That may sound overly sentimental, but that’s how it sounds!
Although it sounds as if they play together every day, these two pianist don’t get to play together often!
Doña told See It Live:
Arthur and I don’t play together often, but this 4-handed, switching places boogie is a common schtick among all boogie players. We are a small community of players/friends with a common love for this rare style of music, so when we’re together, it’s always an honor to ‘jam’ with each other in the manner.
Who needs sheet music when you seem to have a telepathic connection to your playing partner? They change up and compliment each other’s playing in a way that seems as if they’ve got to be plugged into the same other-worldly music source.
Watch the full video below to see this game of musical Twister!
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