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Ok, just thinking out loud here. Let's imagine it's the year 2015. Electronics have passed. Phantom Regiment (let's say, cause it would fit their style) recruits a highly talented college or conservatory piano student, and uses a high quality electric piano in the pit, and they use his talents by performing a piano concerto (or parts) on the field.

What would you think?

What if they choose, for their repertoire, a concerto that uses the piano as only one orchestral tone color among many, so the pianist wouldn't "overtake" the rest of the corps, or at least they blend into one musical idea. Or they could do something with an electric violin (have to experiment with getting the tone right, so it sounds audible but still like a violin). Come to think of it, parts of the Khachaturian violin concerto would work well in an SCV '99-'03 style show. (digression.)

I'm not sure how it would work out, but I think it could potentially amazing. What if it was only one section of the show? Do you think is this different from the Cadets' 2006 ballad featured vocalist, or Cadets '05/Madison '05/Phantom '05/Cap Reg '05/Cadets '87 etc ..... featured visual performers/dancers.

There are no right answers, because I don't know what I would think of it either, though if it was executed at the highest level, I tend to think it would be pretty awesome. Just trying to start a hopefully intelligent discussion about a design concept that could happen .... I don't know when.

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If electronics passed, then...yeah...I could see this.

I think I'd be more receptive to piano tone color on the field than I am to voice or others, simply because of the fact that the piano is techincally a percussion instrument. :P

However, it would be interesting to see what a corps like Phantom could do with something like this.

Any ideas for repertiore? :)

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I don't know nearly as much as I wish I did about piano or orchestra repertoire, but some of the Bartok concertos that use the piano more "percussively" could be good...or not good. More traditionally, the Tschaikovsky 1st piano concerto is a great romantic pience that would be right up PR's alley.

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What about revisiting some of Rachmaninov's Concerto #2 that they did parts of in 1995?

Chopin's "Revolutionary" Etude would be cool...although that might be a neat percussion break just on its own.

I dunno... don't know a heck of a lot of piano rep myself. :)

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Listen to Westfield H.S. (Texas) of 2001. They did some piano music by Vincent Persichetti, and others, and I thought it sounded pretty cool, and the parts this piano player was playing, were some tough licks. If you are interested in actually hearing this, you can go to txbands.org or skramps to find it. It may be titled "Pestachi" which was their show title that year. About 00:01:23 into the show is when the virtuoso piano player comes in. This is one of my favorite shows to listen to. But these piano parts fit in with a band type of accomp. I am not sure if it would feel the same for an all brass setting... But good questions you have.

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You could probably take an upright on tour, but it would sound bad...I think bad is an understatement. (Thinks of how bad the pianos in the music building here are, and they just sit in the basement). I mean, with all those strings, and the mechanisms, and temperatures going from 120+ in the day to 50s or 60s in the truck at night...you think marimbas get beat up getting loaded and unloaded, you ain't seen nothin!

Oh...legality...strings would be illegal, but you could probably get a piano loopholed in as a perc. instrument...I can see it now, the judges consult the Hornbostel-Sachs instrument classification system to determine legality!

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Listen to Westfield H.S. (Texas) of 2001. They did some piano music by Vincent Persichetti, and others, and I thought it sounded pretty cool, and the parts this piano player was playing, were some tough licks.

I remember that one...that was pretty cool, and those kids really sold that show. Only complaint was that it seemed like the piano parts were a little muffled due to the amplification.

I'd post a link to it, but I don't want to get the boot. :)

Great playing, though.

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I remember that one...that was pretty cool, and those kids really sold that show. Only complaint was that it seemed like the piano parts were a little muffled due to the amplification.

I'd post a link to it, but I don't want to get the boot. :)

Great playing, though.

I'm being safe here (I think). But I didn't post a direct link to the file, I just directed those who want to listen to a site that "might" have it. :)

And you are right! Some good playing!

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