Videos of the Elfman concert

[boingomusic]

Hi,

As I promised Ryan, parts of the “pianistic Hommage” to Danny Elfman concert have been recorded, and they’re now on Youtube.

Richard Elfman had recorded a very nice video introduction, made specially for this concert.

The video is in 3 parts. The first two parts are samples from his film music. The 3rd part are covers of Boingo songs.

The 4th video is a song I wrote, that I played at the very end of the show.

Thanks for the interest.

-Eric

[Ryan Keaveney]

I watched the “highlights” on Facebook. Nice work!

[boingomusic]

Thank You Ryan

[Natrebo]

Thanks for sharing, looks like the evening went smoothly, and I love the setup with the projection! Congrats!

Nat

[Thor]

Hey, boingomusic, congrats on an evening well done! It’s pretty awesome that you get to dedicate an entire concert to Elfman’s music – and to have the crowd for it! What context was this? Some kind of school concert for your fellow music students, perhaps?

If I may, here are a couple of points that I hope are constructive.

First of all, I applaud your selection – great to see some rare stuff like JIMMY CALICUT and LITTLE DEMONS getting performed! I also like the slower or down-tempo parts that you obviously excel at. However, I was a little curious as to why you decided to dwell so much on these in your clips – especially in the film music bits. You seem to cut away just when the more up-tempo or vivacious bits are coming up, like the BEETLEJUICE main theme. Is this because you found these so difficult to play that you are displeased with your performance of them somehow? Or is it something else?

Also, you have fine technical skill, but perhaps a little non-chalant in your playing. It’s not always that the music gets the space to “breathe” and shine. Maybe it’s because you’re holding the pedal down too long (causing the notes to “bleed” into one another, again causing this massive “wall” of sound) or because you’re rushing things a bit. But I would have loved more dynamic there. On the other hand, it may just be because the sound quality of these clips leave something to be desired and that it would sound differently in better sound quality.

Finally, you have a fine singing voice! Some of those songs are quite difficult to sing…but I could hear you lean on Elfman’s particular phrasings here and there.

Anyways, just some comments that came to me while listening. Thanks a lot for sharing these and good luck in your future piano endevours!

TJ

[boingomusic]

Hi TJ,

Thank you so much for taking time to review these videos. I’m always happy to hear opinions, critics and advices. And your comments are really constructive!

About the context of the concert… Well, I’ve been playing concerts of my own music and songs in Geneva for 12 years now (I started when I was 17). I always wanted to do a concert dedicated to the music and songs of Danny Elfman, but I never thought there would be enough people that would be interested. Last year, I did a John Williams concert that really attracted a big audience. With time, more and more people started to come to my concerts, and I realized that a lot of people kept asking me about my inspirations. So, I thought maybe it was time to organize this dream concert I had in mind since I was 12.
Hopefully, a lot of people showed up, and almost all of them left the concert with the decision of buying a few Elfman and Boingo albums, which really made me happy! I take that as a success!

I’m happy you like the selection. I had prepared other pieces, like Sleepy Hollow, Mars Attacks, Dick Tracy and others, but the program was way too long…
You’re totally right, I must admit I cut the BeetleJuice theme, mainly because there were too many wrong notes in my opinion. I made two MAJOR mistakes during the concert : the first one was to hide behind the pedal. As you noticed, I keep it down too long, and it made everything sound a little to heavy, and nonchalent. The second mistake is that I played all the main themes Up Tempo. Everything was too fast, maybe because I was worried the concert would be to long for the audience… I don’t know… But it ended up being too fast, and too hard to keep precise without wrong notes…
It’s always a lot easier to play my own music and songs… But the stress and pressure is higher when you play someone else’s music, specially when you respect that artist that much!

I adapted all the pieces myself for the piano. I refused to use the available piano sheet music, because they’re so simplified that you can’t hear more than two seperate melodic lines.
So, I decided to adapt sometimes 3 to 4 seperate orchestral lines, it ended up being pretty hard to play and maybe I didn’t have enough time to practice it properly.

Anyway, I think a lot of your commentaries are right, maybe the sound quality doesn’t help either… The rehearsals were more precise, with less pedal and better tempos…
Hopefully, I will do this concert again in another hall, and I will have the opportunity to progress, and correct these few issues

Thank You so much for your comments, I really appreciate that.

[elfboy91]

Awesome job. You have an awesome talent! I wish I could play that well. Hope to see more in the future!

…

[boingomusic]

Thanks Elfboy

[SunshineKat]

This is amazing!

[boingomusic]

I’m happy you like it

[Author]

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