Improv entertainment

At one of our recent corporate piano shows, we got a request that was interesting: it had Elvis "Blue Christmas" written on it, but what was funny was that it also had "I Saw The Sign" by Ace of Bass scratched out.

I always think these are hilarious, and even if I don't try to mash them up, I'll usually verbally acknowledge it on the microphone because the audience will usually find it as funny and weird as I do.

What happened next was even more entertaining: I asked my partner to play some instrumental music while I did some "mashup math" (that's mental work as to how I'm going to put them together, sometime it's just a simple medley because it's very complicated).

She asked the audience "Who likes Hans Zimmer?" as she was about to play some of the Interstellar suite.

One audience member yelled out "NO!!!!" The crowd was laughing at this, and I didn't think it was that amusing.

I was totally stunned, and was completely jostled from the mashup calculations I was doing.

Do you ever have thoughts in your head that you REALLY WANT TO SAY OUT LOUD, but have to bite your lip for fear of reprisal?

Yeah, I just went ahead and said it anyway...

"You mean one of the greatest film composers of our time? Yeah, WHO'S HE?"

Crowd laughs.

"The customer's always right folks!"

Crowd laughs harder.

"Those Pirates of the Caribbean movies? They're GARBAGE!!!!"

Crowd laughs even harder than before.

It's at this point where I decide to let off, as I've pushed this about as far as it can go without becoming abrasive.

So, I then start talking about what ELSE Hans Zimmer has done:

We went into a "Name That Tune" game.

I played the intro lick to "Video Killed the Radio Star" to see if anyone could recognize it. (I also demonstrated this at our Piano Entertaining workshop at Long & McQuade in March 2024, which can be watched on our YouTube Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@pianoentertaining

A few people recognized it, as I planned, and I told the story about how a young Hans Zimmer was a member of the Buggles, and this song was the FIRST VIDEO EVER PLAYED ON MTV.

Then the crowd sang along with us "..and you remember the jingles used to go.. OH-A-OHHHH". And THEY LOVED IT.

In a matter of minutes we went from making fun of the weird scratched out request, getting my partner to play some instrumental music, getting rejected, going into a rant about under appreciating film composers, then into one of the most beloved pop songs of the 80s.

I can assure you, none of this was planned before the show started.

At Novus Global one of the key lessons I learned was "How do I get maximum value out of everything?"

I squeezed the living daylights out of the weird request and creating one of my favourite moments of 2024. Really excited about more of this in 2025!!

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176 Keys is committed to creating amazing experiences for audiences everywhere. Our pianists are skilled entertainers, and are focused on keeping crowds engaged longer than other kinds of entertainment like hypnotists, DJs, etc.

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