name	Piano
image capt	Bösendorfer grand piano
background	keyboard
hornbostel sachs	314.122-4-8
hornbostel sachs desc	Simple chordophone with keyboard sounded by hammers
inventors	Bartolomeo Cristofori
developed	Early 18th century
range	}}

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal. Although not portable and often expensive, the piano's versatility and ubiquity have made it one of the world's most familiar musical instruments.

Pressing a key on the piano's keyboard causes a felt-covered hammer to strike steel strings. The hammers rebound, allowing the strings to continue vibrating at their resonant frequency. These vibrations are transmitted through a bridge to a sounding board that more efficiently couples the acoustic energy to the air. The sound would otherwise be no louder than that directly produced by the strings. When the key is released, a damper stops the string's vibration. See the article on Piano key frequencies for a picture of the piano keyboard and the location of middle-C. In the Hornbostel-Sachs system of instrument classification, pianos are considered chordophones.

The word ''piano'' is a shortened form of ''pianoforte'', the Italian word for the instrument (which in turn derives from the previous terms "gravicembalo col piano e forte" and fortepiano). The musical terms "piano" and "forte" mean "quiet" and "loud," and in this context refers to the variations in volume of sound the instrument produces in response to a pianist's touch on the keys: the greater a key press's velocity, the greater the force of the hammer hitting the string(s), and the louder the note produced.

History

Early history

The piano is founded on earlier technological innovations. The first string instruments with struck strings were the hammered dulcimers. During the Middle Ages, there were several attempts at creating stringed keyboard instruments with struck strings. By the 17th century, the mechanisms of keyboard instruments such as the clavichord and the harpsichord were well known. In a clavichord the strings are struck by tangents, while in a harpsichord they are plucked by quills. Centuries of work on the mechanism of the harpsichord in particular had shown the most effective ways to construct the case, soundboard, bridge, and keyboard.

The invention of the modern piano is credited to Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655–1731) of Padua, Italy, who was employed by Ferdinando de' Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany, as the Keeper of the Instruments. He was an expert harpsichord maker, and was well acquainted with the body of knowledge on stringed keyboard instruments. It is not known exactly when Cristofori first built a piano. An inventory made by his employers, the Medici family, indicates the existence of a piano by the year 1700; another document of doubtful authenticity indicates a date of 1698. A friend of the family by the name of Sebastian LeBlanc suggested the idea to switch the black and white keys The three Cristofori pianos that survive today date from the 1720s.

While the clavichord allowed expressive control of volume and sustain, it was too quiet for large performances. The harpsichord produced a sufficiently loud sound, but had little expressive control over each note. The piano was likely formed as an attempt to combine loudness with control, avoiding the trade-offs of available instruments.

Cristofori's great success was solving, with no prior example, the fundamental mechanical problem of piano design: the hammer must strike the string, but not remain in contact with it (as a tangent remains in contact with a clavichord string) because this would dampen the sound. Moreover, the hammer must return to its rest position without bouncing violently, and it must be possible to repeat a note rapidly. Cristofori's piano action was a model for the many different approaches to piano actions that followed. Cristofori's early instruments were made with thin strings, and were much quieter than the modern piano—but compared to the clavichord (the only previous keyboard instrument capable of dynamic nuance via the keyboard) they were much louder and had more sustain.

Cristofori's new instrument remained relatively unknown until an Italian writer, Scipione Maffei, wrote an enthusiastic article about it (1711), including a diagram of the mechanism. This article was widely distributed, and most of the next generation of piano builders started their work due to reading it. One of these builders was Gottfried Silbermann, better known as an organ builder. Silbermann's pianos were virtually direct copies of Cristofori's, with one important addition: Silbermann invented the forerunner of the modern damper pedal, which lifts all the dampers from the strings simultaneously.

Silbermann showed Johann Sebastian Bach one of his early instruments in the 1730s, but Bach did not like it at that time, claiming that the higher notes were too soft to allow a full dynamic range. Although this earned him some animosity from Silbermann, the criticism was apparently heeded. Bach did approve of a later instrument he saw in 1747, and even served as an agent in selling Silbermann's pianos.

Piano-making flourished during the late 18th century in the Viennese school, which included Johann Andreas Stein (who worked in Augsburg, Germany) and the Viennese makers Nannette Streicher (daughter of Stein) and Anton Walter. Viennese-style pianos were built with wood frames, two strings per note, and had leather-covered hammers. Some of these Viennese pianos had the opposite coloring of modern-day pianos; the natural keys were black and the accidental keys white. It was for such instruments that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed his concertos and sonatas, and replicas of them are built today for use in authentic-instrument performance of his music. The pianos of Mozart's day had a softer, more ethereal tone than today's pianos or English pianos, with less sustaining power. The term ''fortepiano'' is nowadays often used to distinguish the 18th-century instrument from later pianos.

In the period lasting from about 1790 to 1860, the Mozart-era piano underwent tremendous changes that led to the modern form of the instrument. This revolution was in response to a preference by composers and pianists for a more powerful, sustained piano sound, and made possible by the ongoing Industrial Revolution with resources such as high-quality piano wire for strings, and precision casting for the production of iron frames. Over time, the tonal range of the piano was also increased from the five octaves of Mozart's day to the 7⅓ or more octaves found on modern pianos.

Early technological progress owed much to the firm of Broadwood. John Broadwood joined with another Scot, Robert Stodart, and a Dutchman, Americus Backers, to design a piano in the harpsichord case—the origin of the "grand". They achieved this in about 1777. They quickly gained a reputation for the splendour and powerful tone of their instruments, with Broadwood constructing ones that were progressively larger, louder, and more robustly constructed. They sent pianos to both Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven, and were the first firm to build pianos with a range of more than five octaves: five octaves and a fifth during the 1790s, six octaves by 1810 (Beethoven used the extra notes in his later works), and seven octaves by 1820. The Viennese makers similarly followed these trends, however the two schools used different piano actions: Broadwoods were more robust, Viennese instruments were more sensitive.

By the 1820s, the center of innovation had shifted to Paris, where the Pleyel firm manufactured pianos used by Frédéric Chopin and the Érard firm manufactured those used by Franz Liszt. In 1821, Sébastien Érard invented the double escapement action, which incorporated a ''repetition lever'' (also called the ''balancier'') that permitted a note to be repeated even if the key had not yet risen to its maximum vertical position. This facilitated rapid playing of repeated notes, and this musical device was pioneered by Liszt. When the invention became public, as revised by Henri Herz, the double escapement action gradually became standard in grand pianos, and is still incorporated into all grand pianos currently produced.

Other improvements of the mechanism included the use of felt hammer coverings instead of layered leather or cotton. Felt, which was first introduced by Henri Pape in 1826, was a more consistent material, permitting wider dynamic ranges as hammer weights and string tension increased. The sostenuto pedal (see below), invented in 1844 by Jean Louis Boisselot and improved by the Steinway firm in 1874, allowed a wider range of effects.

One of the major technical innovations that helped to create the sound of the modern piano was the use of a strong iron frame. Also called the "plate", the iron frame sits atop the soundboard, and serves as the primary bulwark against the force of string tension. The increased structural integrity of the iron frame allowed the use of thicker, tenser, and more numerous strings. In a modern grand the total string tension can exceed 20 tons. The single piece cast iron frame was patented in 1825 in Boston by Alpheus Babcock, combining the metal hitch pin plate (1821, claimed by Broadwood on behalf of Samuel Hervé) and resisting bars (Thom and Allen, 1820, but also claimed by Broadwood and Érard). Babcock later worked for the Chickering & Mackays firm who patented the first full iron frame for grand pianos in 1843. Composite forged metal frames were preferred by many European makers until the American system was fully adopted by the early 20th century.

Other important advances included changes to the way the piano was strung, such as the use of a "choir" of three strings rather than two for all but the lowest notes, and the implementation of an over-strung scale in which the strings are placed in two separate planes, each with its own bridge height. (This is also called "cross-stringing". Whereas earlier instruments' bass strings were a mere continuation of a single string plane, over-stringing placed the bass bridge behind and to the treble side of the tenor bridge area. This ''crossed'' the strings, with the bass strings in the higher plane.) This permitted a much narrower cabinet at the "nose" end of the piano, and optimized the transition from unwound tenor strings to the iron or copper-wrapped bass strings. Over-stringing was invented by Jean-Henri Pape during the 1820s, and first patented for use in grand pianos in the United States by Henry Steinway, Jr. in 1859.

Duplex scaling, patented in 1872 by Theodore Steinway, enhanced the voice of each note by using sympathetic vibration. Short lengths of non-speaking wire were bridged by the aliquot throughout much of upper range of the piano, always in locations that caused them to vibrate in conformity with their respective overtones—typically in doubled octaves and twelfths. Somewhat similar systems were developed by Blüthner (Aliquot stringing, 1873), as well as Taskin (1788), and Collard (1821). Each used more distinctly ringing, undamped vibrations to modify tone.

Some early pianos had shapes and designs that are no longer in use. The square piano (not truly square, but rectangular) was cross strung at an extremely acute angle above the hammers, with the keyboard set along the long side. This design is attributed to Gottfried Silbermann or Christian Ernst Friderici on the continent, and Johannes Zumpe or Harman Vietor in England, and it was improved by changes first introduced by Guillaume-Lebrecht Petzold in France and Alpheus Babcock in the United States. Square pianos were built in great numbers through the 1840s in Europe and the 1890s in America, and saw the most visible change of any type of piano: the iron-framed, over-strung squares manufactured by Steinway & Sons were more than two-and-a-half times the size of Zumpe's wood-framed instruments from a century before. Their overwhelming popularity was due to inexpensive construction and price, although their tone and performance were limited by narrow soundboards, simple actions and string spacing that made proper hammer alignment difficult.

The tall, vertically strung upright grand was arranged like a grand set on end, with the soundboard and bridges above the keys, and tuning pins below them. The term was later revived by many manufacturers for advertising purposes. Giraffe, pyramid and lyre pianos were arranged in a somewhat similar fashion in evocatively shaped cases.

The very tall cabinet piano was introduced about 1805 and was built through the 1840s. It had strings arranged vertically on a continuous frame with bridges extended nearly to the floor, behind the keyboard and very large ''sticker action''. The short cottage upright or ''pianino'' with vertical stringing, made popular by Robert Wornum around 1815, was built into the 20th century. They are informally called ''birdcage pianos'' because of their prominent damper mechanism. Pianinos were distinguished from the oblique, or diagonally strung upright made popular in France by Roller & Blanchet during the late 1820s. The tiny spinet upright was manufactured from the mid-1930s until recent times. The low position of the hammers required the use of a "drop action" to preserve a reasonable keyboard height.

Modern upright and grand pianos attained their present forms by the end of the 19th century. Improvements have been made in manufacturing processes, and many individual details of the instrument continue to receive attention.

History and musical performance

Much of the most widely admired piano repertoire, for example, that of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, was composed for a type of instrument (the pianoforte) that is rather different from the modern instruments on which this music is normally performed today. Even the music of the Romantics, including Liszt, Chopin, Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn and Johannes Brahms, was written for pianos substantially different from modern pianos.

Modern piano

Types

Modern pianos have two basic configurations (with subcategories): the grand piano and the upright piano.

Grand

In grand pianos, the frame and strings are horizontal, with the strings extending away from the keyboard. The action lies beneath the strings, and uses gravity as its means of return to a state of rest.

There are many sizes of grand piano. A rough generalization distinguishes the ''concert grand'' (between about 2.2 m and 3 m/9.84 feet long) from the ''parlor grand'' or ''boudoir grand'' (about 1.7 m to 2.2 m) and the smaller ''baby grand'' (around 1.5 m).

All else being equal, longer pianos with longer strings have larger, richer sound and lower inharmonicity of the strings. Inharmonicity is the degree to which the frequencies of overtones (known as partials or harmonics) sound sharp relative to whole multiples of the fundamental frequency. This results from the piano's considerable string stiffness; as a struck string decays its harmonics vibrate, not from their termination, but from a point very slightly toward the center (or more flexible part) of the string. The higher the partial, the further sharp it runs. Pianos with shorter and thicker strings, i.e. small pianos with short string scales, have more inharmonicity. The greater the inharmonicity, the more the ear perceives it as harshness of tone.

Inharmonicity requires octaves to be "stretched", or tuned to a lower octave's corresponding sharp overtone rather than to a theoretically correct octave. If octaves are not stretched, single octaves sound in tune, but double—and notably triple—octaves are unacceptably narrow. Stretching a small piano's octaves to match its inherent inharmonicity level creates an imbalance among all the instrument's intervallic relationships, not just its octaves. In a concert grand, however, the octave "stretch" retains harmonic balance, even when aligning treble notes to a harmonic produced from three octaves below. This lets close and widespread octaves sound pure, and produces virtually beatless perfect fifths. This gives the concert grand a brilliant, singing and sustaining tone quality—one of the principal reasons that full-size grands are used in the concert hall. Smaller grands satisfy the space and cost needs of domestic use.

Upright/vertical

Upright pianos, also called vertical pianos, are more compact because the frame and strings are vertical. The hammers move horizontally, and return to their resting position via springs, which are susceptible to degradation. Upright pianos with unusually tall frames and long strings are sometimes called ''upright grand'' pianos. Some authors classify modern pianos according to their height and to modifications of the action that are necessary to accommodate the height.

''Studio'' pianos are around 42 to 45 inches tall. This is the shortest cabinet that can accommodate a full-sized action located above the keyboard.

''Console'' pianos have a compact action (shorter hammers), and are a few inches shorter than studio models.

The top of a ''spinet'' model barely rises above the keyboard. The action is located below, operated by vertical wires that are attached to the backs of the keys.

Anything taller than a studio piano is called an ''upright''.

Other types

The 19th century saw the introduction of the toy piano.

In 1863, Henri Fourneaux invented the player piano, which plays itself from a piano roll. A machine perforates a performance recording into rolls of paper, and the player piano replays the performance using pneumatic devices. Modern equivalents of the player piano include the Bösendorfer CEUS and the Yamaha disklavier, using solenoids and MIDI rather than pneumatics and rolls.

A silent piano is an acoustic piano having an option to silence the strings by means of an interposing hammer bar. They are designed for private silent practice.

Edward Ryley invented the transposing piano in 1801. It has a lever under the keyboard as to move the keyboard relative to the strings so a pianist can play in a familiar key while the music sounds in a different key.

The prepared piano, present in some contemporary art music, is a piano with objects placed inside it to alter its sound, or has had its mechanism changed in some other way. The scores for music for prepared piano specify the modifications, for example instructing the pianist to insert pieces of rubber, paper, metal screws, or washers in between the strings. These either mute the strings or alter their timbre. A harpsichord-like sound can be produced by placing or dangling small metal buttons in front of the hammer.

Electric pianos use electromagnetic pickups to amplify the sound of the strings. Playing a note loudly causes the electric signal to clip, and the player can incorporate the distortion into his or her expressive range.

Digital pianos use digital sampling technology to reproduce the sound of each piano note. Digital pianos can be sophisticated, with features including working pedals, weighted keys, multiple voices, and MIDI interfaces. However, when one depresses the damper pedal (see below) on such an instrument, there are no strings to vibrate sympathetically. The synthesis software of some higher end digital pianos, such as the Yamaha Clavinova series, or the KAWAI MP8 series, incorporates physical models of sympathetic vibration.

With the advent of powerful desktop computers, highly realistic pianos have become available as affordable software modules. Some of these modules, such as the 2004 Synthogy's Ivory, use multi-gigabyte piano sample sets with as many as 90 recordings, each lasting many seconds, for each of the 88 (some have 81) keys under different conditions. Additional samples emulate sympathetic resonance, key release, the drop of the dampers, and simulations of piano techniques like re-pedaling to augment these conditions. Some other software modules, such as Modartt's 2006 Pianoteq, use no samples whatsoever and are a pure synthesis of all aspects of the physicalities that go into the creation of a real piano's sound.

Today, piano manufactures take advantage of innovative pianos that play themselves via a CD or MP3 player. Similar in concept to a player piano, the PianoDisc or iQ systems allow pianos to "play themselves" when the software interprets a certain file format. Such additions are quite expensive, often doubling the cost of a piano. These pianos are available in both upright and grand.

Keyboard

Almost every modern piano has 36 black keys and 52 white keys for a total of 88 keys (seven octaves plus a minor third, from A₀ to C₈). Many older pianos only have 85 keys (seven octaves from A₀ to A₇), while some manufacturers extend the range further in one or both directions.

Some Bösendorfer pianos, for example, extend the normal range down to F₀, with one other model going as far as a bottom C₀, making a full eight octave range. These extra keys are sometimes hidden under a small hinged lid that can cover the keys to prevent visual disorientation for pianists unfamiliar with the extra keys. On others, the colors of the extra white keys are reversed (black instead of white).

The extra keys are added primarily for increased resonance from the associated strings; that is, they vibrate sympathetically with other strings whenever the damper pedal is depressed and thus give a fuller tone. Only a very small number of works composed for piano actually use these notes. More recently, the Stuart and Sons company has also manufactured extended-range pianos, with the first 102 key piano. On their instruments, the frequency range extends from C₀ to F₈, which is the widest practical range for the acoustic piano. The extra keys are the same as the other keys in appearance.

Small studio upright acoustical pianos with only 65 keys have been manufactured for use by roving pianists. Known as ''gig'' pianos and still containing a cast iron harp, these are comparatively lightweight and can be easily transported to and from engagements by only two people. As their harp is longer than that of a spinet or console piano, they have a stronger bass sound that to some pianists is well worth the trade-off in range that a reduced key-set offers.

The toy piano manufacturer Schoenhut started manufacturing both grands and uprights with only 44 or 49 keys, and shorter distance between the keyboard and the pedals. These pianos are true pianos with action and strings. The pianos were introduced to their product line in response to numerous requests in favor of it.

Pianos have been built with alternative keyboard systems, e.g., the Jankó keyboard.

Pedals

Standard pedals

Pianos have had pedals, or some close equivalent, since the earliest days. (In the 18th century, some pianos used levers pressed upward by the player's knee instead of pedals.) Most grand pianos in the US have three pedals: the soft pedal (una corda), sostenuto, and sustain pedal (from left to right, respectively), while in Europe, the standard is two pedals: the soft pedal and the sustain pedal. Most modern upright pianos also have three pedals: soft pedal, practice pedal and sustain pedal, though older or cheaper models may lack the practice pedal. In Europe the standard for upright pianos is two pedals: the soft and the sustain pedals.

The sustain pedal (or, damper pedal) is often simply called "the pedal", since it is the most frequently used. It is placed as the rightmost pedal in the group. It lifts the dampers from all keys, sustaining all played notes. In addition, it alters the overall tone by allowing all strings, including those not directly played, to reverberate.

The soft pedal or ''una corda'' pedal is placed leftmost in the row of pedals. In grand pianos it shifts the entire action/keyboard assembly to the right (a very few instruments have shifted left) so that the hammers hit two of the three strings for each note. In the earliest pianos whose unisons were bichords rather than trichords, the action shifted so that hammers hit a single string, hence the name ''una corda'', or 'one string'. The effect is to soften the note as well as change the tone. In uprights this action is not possible; instead the pedal moves the hammers closer to the strings, allowing the hammers to strike with less kinetic energy. This produces a slightly softer sound, but no change in timbre.

On grand pianos, the middle pedal is a sostenuto pedal. This pedal keeps raised any damper already raised at the moment the pedal is depressed. This makes it possible to sustain selected notes (by depressing the sostenuto pedal before those notes are released) while the player's hands are free to play additional notes (which aren't sustained). This can be useful for musical passages with pedal points and other otherwise tricky or impossible situations.

On many upright pianos, the middle pedal is called the "practice" or ''celeste'' pedal. This drops a piece of felt between the hammers and strings, greatly muting the sounds. Often this pedal can be shifted while depressed, into a "locking" position.

There are also non-standard variants. On some pianos (grands and verticals), the middle pedal can be a bass sustain pedal: that is, when it is depressed, the dampers lift off the strings only in the bass section. Players use this pedal to sustain a single bass note or chord over many measures, while playing the melody in the treble section. On the Stuart and Sons piano as well as the largest Fazioli piano, there is a fourth pedal to the left of the principal three. This fourth pedal works in the same way as the soft pedal of an upright piano, moving the hammers closer to the strings.

Unusual pedals

The rare transposing piano (such as owned by Irving Berlin) has a middle pedal that functions as a clutch that disengages the keyboard from the mechanism, enabling the keyboard to be moved to the left or right with a lever. The entire action of the piano is thus shifted to allow the pianist to play music written in one key so that it sounds in a different key.

There were three piano companies to include extra pedals other than the standard two or three. Two of these companies offered a piano with four pedals (Crown and Schubert Piano Co.), and Wing and Son of New York offered a five-pedal piano from approximately 1893 through the 1920s. There is no mention of the company past the 1930s. Labeled left to right the pedals are Mandolin, Orchestra, Expression, Soft, and Forte (Sustain). The Mandolin pedal produces a sound similar to a vibrato feel by bouncing a set of small hammers against the strings, enabling the piano to mimic a mandolin, guitar, banjo, zither and harp. The Orchestra (Orch) pedal used a similar approach, lowering a set of metal-tipped felt strips in between the hammers and the strings. This extended the life of the hammers when the Orch pedal was used, a good idea for practicing, and created an echo-like sound that mimicked playing in an orchestral hall.

The ''pedalier'' piano, or pedal piano, is a rare type of piano that includes a pedalboard, enabling bass register notes to be played with the feet, as is standard on the organ. There are two types of pedal piano: the pedal board may be an integral part of the instrument, using the same strings and mechanism as the manual keyboard, or, less frequently, it may consist of two independent pianos (each with its separate mechanics and strings), which are placed one above the other, a regular piano played by the hands and a bass-register piano played by the feet. This was developed primarily as a practice instrument for organists, although there is a small repotoire written specifically for the instrument.

Construction

Many parts of a piano are made of materials selected for strength and longevity. This is especially true of the outer rim. It is most commonly made of hardwood, typically maple or beech, and its massiveness serves as an essentially immobile object from which the flexible soundboard can best vibrate. According to Harold A. Conklin, the purpose of a sturdy rim is so that "the vibrational energy will stay as much as possible in the soundboard instead of dissipating uselessly in the case parts, which are inefficient radiators of sound."

Yet Bösendorfer, the Austrian manufacturer of high quality pianos, constructs their rim from spruce, the very same wood that the soundboard is made from. Their idea is to concertedly involve the cabinet in the projection and coloration of sound. The ''loss'' of energy into the Bösendorfer case alters the instrument's tone, giving it perhaps less power but a complex and unusually resonant sound.

The finest hardwood rims are made by laminating thin (hence flexible) strips of hardwood, bending them to the desired shape immediately after the application of glue. This system was developed by Theodore Steinway in 1880. The thick wooden posts on the underside (grands) or back (uprights) of the piano stabilize the rim structure, and are made of softwood for stability. The requirement of structural strength, fulfilled by stout hardwood and thick metal, makes a piano heavy; even a small upright can weigh 136 kg (300 lb), and the Steinway concert grand (Model D) weighs 480 kg (990 lb). The largest piano built, the Fazioli F308, weighs 691 kg (1520 lb).

The pinblock, which holds the tuning pins in place, is another area where toughness is important. It is made of hardwood, (typically hard maple or beech), and is laminated for strength, stability and longevity. Piano strings (also called piano wire), which must endure years of extreme tension and hard blows, are made of high carbon steel. They are manufactured to vary as little as possible in diameter, since all deviations from uniformity introduce tonal distortion. The bass strings of a piano are made of a steel core wrapped with copper wire, to increase their mass whilst retaining flexibility. If all strings throughout the piano's compass were individual (monochord), the massive bass strings would overpower the upper ranges. Makers compensate for this with the use of double (bichord) strings in the tenor and triple (trichord) strings throughout the treble.

The plate, or metal frame, of a piano is usually made of cast iron. It is advantageous for the plate to be very massive. Since the strings vibrate from the plate at both ends, vibrations absorbed by the plate result in energy loss to the desired (efficient) sound transmission channel, namely the bridge and the soundboard. While some manufacturers use cast steel in their plates, most prefer cast iron. Cast iron is easy to cast and machine, has flexibility sufficient for piano use, is much more resistant to deformation than steel, and is especially tolerant of compression. Plate casting is an art, since dimensions are crucial and the iron shrinks about one percent during cooling.

Including an extremely large piece of metal in a piano is potentially an aesthetic handicap. Piano makers overcome this by polishing, painting, and decorating the plate. Plates often include the manufacturer's ornamental medallion. In an effort to make pianos lighter, Alcoa worked with Winter and Company piano manufacturers to make pianos using an aluminum plate during the 1940s. Aluminum piano plates were not widely accepted, and were discontinued.

The numerous grand parts and upright parts of a piano action are generally hardwood, e.g., maple, beech, or hornbeam. However, since WWII, makers have used some plastics. Early plastics were incorporated into some pianos in the late 1940s and 1950s, but proved disastrous because they lost strength after a few decades of use. The Steinway firm once incorporated Teflon, a synthetic material developed by DuPont, for some grand action parts in place of cloth, but abandoned the experiment due to excessive friction and a "clicking" that developed over time. (Teflon is "humidity stable" whereas the wood adjacent to the Teflon swells and shrinks with humidity changes, causing problems.) More recently, the Kawai firm built pianos with action parts made of more modern materials such as carbon fiber reinforced plastic, and the piano parts manufacturer Wessell, Nickel and Gross has launched a new line of carefully engineered composite parts. Thus far these parts have performed reasonably, but it will take decades to know if they equal the longevity of wood.

In all but the poorest pianos the soundboard is made of solid spruce (that is, spruce boards glued together along the side grain). Spruce's high ratio of strength to weight minimizes acoustic impedance while offering strength sufficient to withstand the downward force of the strings. The best piano makers use quarter-sawn, defect-free spruce of close annular grain, carefully seasoning it over a long period before fabricating the soundboards. Cheap pianos often have plywood soundboards.

In the early years of piano construction, keys were commonly made from sugar pine. Today they are likely to be made of spruce or basswood. Spruce is typically used in high-quality pianos. The black keys were traditionally made from ebony and the white keys were covered with strips of ivory, but since ivory-yielding species are now endangered and protected by treaty, plastics are now almost exclusively used. Also, ivory tends to chip more easily than plastic. Legal ivory can still be obtained in limited quantities. The Yamaha firm invented a plastic called "Ivorite" that they claim mimics the look and feel of ivory; it has since been imitated by other makers.

Care and maintenance

thumb|The piano at the social center in the 19th century (Moritz von Schwind, 1868). The man at the piano is Franz Schubert.Pianos need regular tuning to keep them on pitch, which is usually the internationally recognized standard concert pitch of A4 = 440 Hz. The hammers of pianos are voiced to compensate for gradual hardening, and other parts also need periodic regulation. Aged and worn pianos can be rebuilt or reconditioned. Often, by replacing a great number of their parts, they can perform as well as new pianos. Older pianos are often more settled and produce a warmer tone.

Piano moving should be done by trained piano movers using adequate manpower and the correct equipment for any particular piano's size and weight. Pianos are heavy yet delicate instruments. Over the years, professional piano movers have developed special techniques for transporting both grands and uprights, which prevent damage to the case and to the piano's mechanics.

Tuning

thumb|left|A [[piano tuning|piano tuner]]The relationship between two pitches, called an interval, is the ratio of their absolute frequencies. Two different intervals are perceived as the same when the pairs of pitches involved share the same frequency ratio. The easiest intervals to identify, and the easiest intervals to tune, are those that are just, meaning they have a simple whole-number ratio. The term ''temperament'' refers to a tuning system that tempers the just intervals (usually the perfect fifth, which has the ratio 3:2) to satisfy another mathematical property; in equal temperament, a fifth is tempered by narrowing it slightly, achieved by flattening its upper pitch slightly, or raising its lower pitch slightly. A temperament system is also known as a set of bearings.

Tempering an interval causes it to beat, which is a fluctuation in perceived sound intensity due to interference between close (but unequal) pitches. The rate of beating is equal to the frequency differences of any harmonics that are present for both pitches and that coincide or nearly coincide.

Piano tuning is the act of adjusting the tensions of the piano's strings, thereby aligning the intervals among their tones so that the instrument is in tune. The meaning of the term ''in tune'' in the context of piano tuning is not simply a particular fixed set of pitches. Fine piano tuning carefully assesses the interaction among all notes of the chromatic scale, different for every piano, and thus requires slightly different pitches from any theoretical standard. Pianos are usually tuned to a modified version of the system called equal temperament (''see Piano key frequencies for the theoretical piano tuning''). In all systems of tuning, each pitch is derived from its relationship to a chosen fixed pitch, usually A440.

Physics

When the key is struck, a chain reaction occurs to produce the sound. First, the key raises the wippen, which forces the jack against the hammer roller (or "knuckle"). The hammer roller then lifts the lever carrying the hammer. The key also raises the damper; and immediately after the hammer strikes the wire it falls back, allowing the wire to resonate. When the key is released the damper falls back onto the strings, stopping the wire from vibrating. The vibrating piano strings themselves are not very loud, but their vibrations are transmitted to a large soundboard that moves air and thus converts the energy to sound. The irregular shape and off-center placement of the bridge ensures that the soundboard vibrates strongly at all frequencies. (See Piano action for a diagram and detailed description of piano parts.)

There are three factors that influence the pitch of a vibrating wire.

Length: All other factors the same, the shorter the wire, the higher the pitch.

Mass per unit length: All other factors the same, the thinner the wire, the higher the pitch.

Tension: All other factors the same, the tighter the wire, the higher the pitch.

A vibrating wire subdivides itself into many parts vibrating at the same time. Each part produces a pitch of its own, called a partial. A vibrating string has one fundamental and a series of partials. The most pure combination of two pitches is when one is double the frequency of the other.

For a repeating wave, the velocity, ''v'', equals the wavelength, ''λ'', times the frequency, ''f''.

''v = λf''

On the piano string, waves reflect from both ends. The superposition of reflecting waves results in a standing wave pattern, but only for wavelengths λ = 2L, L, L/2, … = 2L/n, where L is the length of the string. Therefore the only frequencies produced on a single string are ''f'' = n''v''/(2L). Timbre is largely determined by the content of these harmonics. Different instruments have different harmonic content for the same pitch. A real string vibrates at harmonics that are not perfect multiples of the fundamental. This results in a little inharmonicity, which gives richness to the tone but causes significant tuning challenges throughout the compass of the instrument.

Striking the piano key with greater force increases the amplitude of the waves and therefore the volume. From ''pianissimo'' (''pp'') to ''fortissimo'' (''ff'') the hammer velocity changes by almost a factor of a hundred. The hammer contact time with the string shortens from 4 ms at ''pp'' to less than 2 ms at ''ff''. If two wires adjusted to the same pitch are struck at the same time, the sound produced by one reinforces the other, and a louder combined sound of shorter duration is produced. If one wire vibrates out of synchronization with the other, they subtract from each other and produce a softer tone of longer duration.

Well-known piano makers

Some well-known piano makers are (in alphabetical order): Baldwin, Bechstein, Behr Brothers Piano Company, Blüthner, Bösendorfer, Broadwood, Fazioli, Feurich, Förster, Heintzman, Kawai, Mason & Hamlin, Overs, Pearl River, Petrof, Pleyel, Schimmel, Steingraeber & Söhne, Steinway & Sons, Stuart & Sons, Wm. Knabe & Co., Yamaha.

Role

The piano is a crucial instrument in Western classical music, jazz, film, television, and most other complex western musical genres. A large number of composers are proficient pianists—and because the piano keyboard offers an easy means of complex melodic and harmonic interplay—the piano is often used as a tool for composition.

Pianos were, and still are, popular instruments for private household ownership.

Pianos sometimes referred to by nicknames including: "the ivories", "the joanna", "the eighty-eight", "the black(s) and white(s)", and "the little joe(s)". Playing the piano is sometimes referred to as "tickling the ivories".

See also

;General

Jazz piano

Musica Obscura

Piano extended technique

Piano transcription

Piano trio

PianoForte Foundation

Street piano

String piano

;Technical

Agraffe

Aliquot stringing

Piano acoustics

Sounding board

;Related lists

List of classical pianists (recorded)

List of films about pianists

List of piano brand names

List of piano makers

Piano compositions category

;Related instruments

Electric piano

Electronic keyboard

Electronic piano

Harmonichord

Keyboard instruments

Keytar

Organ and Pipe organ

;Other

Pianos

Pianist

Notes

References

The authoritative ''New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (available online by subscription), contains a wealth of information. Main article: "Pianoforte".

The ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' (available online by subscription) also includes much information on the piano. In the 1988 edition, the primary article can be found in "Musical Instruments".

The Piano Book by Larry Fine (4th ed. Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts: Brookside Press, 2001; ISBN 1-929145-01-2) gives the basics of how pianos work, and a thorough evaluative survey of current pianos and their manufacturers. It also includes advice on buying and owning pianos.

''Giraffes, black dragons, and other pianos: a technological history from Cristofori to the modern concert grand'' by Edwin M. Good (1982, second ed., 2001, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press) is a standard reference on the history of the piano.

''The Early Pianoforte'' by Stewart Pollens (1995, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) is an authoritative work covering the ancestry of the piano, its invention by Cristofori, and the early stages of its subsequent evolution.

Further reading

External links

The Piano Page

History of the Piano Forte, Association of Blind Piano Tuners, UK

The Frederick Historical Piano Collection

The Pianofortes of Bartolomeo Cristofori, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Piano Reviews

Category:Composite chordophones Category:Italian inventions Category:Keyboard instruments Category:Percussion instruments

af:Klavier am:ፒያኖ ar:بيانو an:Piano az:Pianino bn:পিয়ানো zh-min-nan:Kǹg-khîm be:Фартэпіяна be-x-old:Фартэпіяна bo:རྣོ་སྦྲེང་། bs:Klavir br:Piano bg:Пиано ca:Piano ceb:Pyano cs:Klavír cy:Piano da:Klaver de:Klavier et:Klaver el:Πιάνο es:Piano eo:Piano eu:Piano fa:پیانو hif:Piano fr:Piano fy:Piano ga:Pianó gl:Piano ko:피아노 hi:पियानो hr:Glasovir io:Piano id:Piano ia:Piano zu:Ipiyano is:Píanó it:Pianoforte he:פסנתר jv:Piano kn:ಪಿಯಾನೋ ka:ფორტეპიანო sw:Piano la:Clavile lv:Klavieres lb:Piano lt:Pianinas jbo:pipno hu:Zongora mk:Клавир ml:പിയാനോ mr:पियानो ms:Piano my:စန္ဒရား nah:Pianotli nl:Piano (instrument) nds-nl:Tengeltangel ja:ピアノ no:Piano nn:Piano oc:Piano pnb:پیانو tpi:Piano pl:Fortepian pt:Piano ro:Pian qu:Yatana qallwa rue:Клавір ru:Фортепиано stq:Klavier sq:Pianoja scn:Chianuforti simple:Piano sk:Klavír sl:Klavir sr:Клавир sh:Klavir fi:Piano sv:Piano tl:Piyano ta:பியானோ th:เปียโน chr:ᎤᏔᏅ ᏗᎧᏃᎩᏍᏗ tr:Piyano uk:Фортепіано ug:پىئانىنو vi:Dương cầm war:Pyano zh-yue:鋼琴 bat-smg:Pianėns zh:钢琴

Name	Yann Tiersen
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Yann Pierre Tiersen
Born	June 23, 1970
Origin	Brest, Brittany, France
Instrument	Piano, Violin, Accordion, Guitar, Toy piano, Voice and various others.
Genre	Minimalist, Avant-Garde,
Occupation	Musician, Songwriter
Years active	1995–present
Label	VirginANTI-Mute Records
Website	Official website }}

Yann Tiersen (born 23 June 1970) is a musician from France. His musical career is split between studio albums, collaborations and film soundtracks with a distinctive sound that is ever evolving. It can be recognized by its use of a large variety of instruments; primarily the guitar, synthesizer or violin together with instruments like the melodica, xylophone, toy piano, harpsichord, accordion and typewriter. Tiersen is often mistaken as a composer of soundtracks, himself saying "I'm not a composer and I really don't have a classical background," but his real focus is on touring and studio albums which just happen to often be suitable for film; his most famous soundtrack for the film Amélie was primarily made up of tracks taken from his first studio albums.

Biography

Tiersen was born in Brittany, France, in 1970 and received classical training at several musical academies, including those in Rennes, Nantes, and Boulogne. In the early 1980s as a teenager he was influenced by the post-punk culture of bands like The Stooges and Joy Division. He has Belgian and Norwegian origins.

Before releasing scores under his own name, Tiersen recorded background music for a number of plays and short films, such as ''La Vie Rêvée des Anges'' (1998, Erick Zonca), ''Alice et Martin'' (1998, André Téchiné), ''Qui Plume la Lune?'' (Christine Carrière, 1999).

He rose to domestic fame upon the release of his third album, ''Le Phare'', but remained relatively unknown outside France until the release of his score for the film ''Amélie'' in 2001, which was a mixture of both new and previously released material.

Tiersen favors the piano, accordion, and violin, but is also known for his experimentation and use of obscure and found instruments like the ondes martenot and the typewriter.

Yann Tiersen's list of collaborators continues to grow album after album (see discography below for details). While composing his fifth album, ''L'absente'', Tiersen lent his musical talent to Françoiz Breut and Les Têtes Raides for their own albums. His 2005 album, ''Les Retrouvailles'', featured vocals from Stuart Staples of Tindersticks, Jane Birkin, and Elizabeth Fraser, formerly of Cocteau Twins. Tiersen also played piano on Staples' solo album, ''Lucky Dog Recordings 03-04''. In 2004 he also released a collaborative CD with American singer-songwriter Shannon Wright.

His live performances vary greatly. Sometimes he is accompanied by an orchestra and many guest collaborators, like Dominique A. Other times, he offers the more frequent minimalistic sessions, usually accompanied only by a drummer/bassist and a guitarist, with Tiersen switching seamlessly between piano, accordion, and violin for his lighter songs, and electric guitar for his louder pieces (where his Avant-Garde Music meet some rock sonorities). Lately, however, he has almost banished piano, accordion and violin and focused more on his electric guitar instead, as visible in his 2009-2010 Live Tours.

Yann Tiersen was married to Belgian actress Natacha Régnier, but they have since been divorced. They have a daughter, Lise born in 2002.

''Dust Lane'' 2010

October 2010 saw the release of Tiersen’s sixth studio album titled ''Dust Lane''. The album was two years in the making and was largely recorded in Ushant, France. Further parts were recorded in the Philippines. The album is preoccupied with mortality; during the recording sessions Tiersen lost his mother and a close friend. The recordings started out as simple song based tracks with Tiersen playing acoustic guitar, mandolin and bouzouki. New layers were added to the recordings creating a more complex sound. Then an array of vintage synthesisers and electric guitars were added to create further textures. The album was released by Mute Records in Europe and Anti- Records in the US. The record was promoted in a tour beginning in October 2010, starting in New York. Tiersen has been chosen by Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel to perform at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival that he will curate in December 2011 in Minehead, England.

Discography

Studio albums

''La Valse des Monstres'' (1995)

''Rue des Cascades'' (1996)

*featured performer: Claire Pichet.

''Le Phare'' (1998)

*featured performers: Claire Pichet, Dominique A.

''L'Absente'' (2001)

*featured performers: orchestral group Synaxis, Lisa Germano, Sacha Toorop, Dominique A, Neil Hannon, Natacha Régnier, Têtes Raides

''Les Retrouvailles'' (2005)

*featured performers: Stuart Staples of Tindersticks, Jane Birkin, Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins, Christophe Miossec, Dominique A.

''Dust Lane'' (2010)

''Skyline (album)'' (TBA)

Soundtracks

''Amélie Original Soundtrack'' (2001)

''Good Bye Lenin! Original Soundtrack'' (2003)

*featured performer: Claire Pichet.

''Tabarly'' (2008)

Live albums

''Black Session: Yann Tiersen'' (1999)

*Black Session radio performance

*featured performers: Neil Hannon (of The Divine Comedy), Bertrand Cantat (of Noir Désir), Françoiz Breut, The Married Monk, Têtes Raides and a string quartet.

''C’était ici'' (2002)

*live compilation album

*featured performers: 35-member orchestral group Synaxis, conducted by Guillaume Bourgogne. Claire Pichet, Christine Ott, Christian Quermalet, Marc Sens, Nicholas Stevens, Jean-François Assy, Renaud Lhoest, Oliver Tilkin, Ronan le bars, Têtes Raides, Dominique A, Lisa Germano.

''On Tour'' (2006)

*featured performers: Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins , Diam's , Katel, DD la Fleur

Singles and EPs

''Tout est Calme'' (1999)

*collaboration with The Married Monk

*other featured performers: the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Lisa Germano, Neil Hannon (of The Divine Comedy), Dominique A, Françoiz Breut, Têtes Raides, Sacha Toorop (of Zop Hopop), the actress Natacha Regnier, Christian Quermalet (of The Married Monk), Marc Sens (a Serge Tessot-Gay collaborator), Christine Ott and a string quartet.

''3 titres inédits au profit de la FIDH'' (part of the ''On Aime, On Aide'' collection, composed to raise funds for the FIDH, sold exclusively at Fnac) (2003)

''PALESTINE'' (vinyl EP) (2010)

Collaborations

''Bästard'' (EP) (1999)

*collaboration with Bästard

''Yann Tiersen & Shannon Wright'' (2004)

*collaboration with Shannon Wright.

''This Immortal Coil'' (2010)

Contributions

''One Trip, One Noise'' (by Noir Désir) (1997)

*"A ton étoile" (arrangements, strings, vibraphone, bell, mandolin, electric guitar and bass)

''Vingt à Trente Mille Jours'' (by Françoiz Breut) (2000)

*"Porsmouth" (vibraphone), "Vingt à trente mille jours" (vibraphone), "L'heure bleue" (violin), "Le verre pilé" (vibraphone); arrangements

''Gratte-poil'' (by Têtes Raides) (2001)

*"Cabaret des nues" (violin)

''The Married Monk'' (by The Married Monk) (2001)

*"Roma Amor" (strings, vibraphone), "Holidays" (strings) and "Cyro's Request" (vibraphone)

''Les oiseaux de passage (tribute to Georges Brassens)

*cover of "Le parapluie" with Natacha Régnier

''Absent Friends'' (by The Divine Comedy) (2004)

*"Sticks & Stones" (accordion); "Anthem for Bored Youth" (accordion), a track appearing only on the French limited edition

''The Endless Rise of the Sun'' (by Smooth) (2006)

*"The Endless Rise of the Sun" (keyboards)

''Raides à la ville'' (by Katel) (2006)

*"La Vielle" (violin)

''13m²'' (by David Delabrosse) (2006)

*production and arrangements

''Solitude Nomade'' (by Christine Ott) (2009)

*"Pensées sauvages" (violin)

''Finistérien'' (by Miossec) (2009)

*music and arrangements

''Li(f)e'' (by Sage Francis) (2010)

*production and arrangements on "The Best Of Times"

DVDs

''La Traversée'' (2005) (by Aurélie du Boys, about the recording and composition of ''Les Retrouvailles'' in Ouessant)

''On Tour'' (2006) (by Aurélie du Boys, about the tour)

References

External links

Yann Tiersen's official homepage

Yann Tiersen Sheet Music Archive compiled by Vladimir Yatsina

Concert photos by Laurent Orseau (Black Session)

Concert photos by Laurent Orseau (La Route du Rock 1998)

Music Video for La Noyée from the ''Amelie'' soundtrack

Music Video for Comptine d'un autre été: l'après midi from the ''Amelie'' soundtrack

Article on Yann Tiersen at Everything2.com

Article on Yann Tiersen and piano at Scribd

Yann Tiersen in Lebanon Event Review

Red Alert - Live Review

Category:1970 births Category:Living people Category:French musicians Category:Breton musicians Category:French film score composers Category:Anti-Zionism Category:Antisemitism in France Category:French people of Belgian descent Category:French people of Dutch descent Category:French people of Norwegian descent Category:People from Brest, France

bar:Yann Tiersen br:Yann Tiersen bg:Ян Тиерсен ca:Yann Tiersen cs:Yann Tiersen de:Yann Tiersen et:Yann Tiersen el:Γιαν Τιρσέν es:Yann Tiersen ext:Yann Tiersen fa:یان تیرسن fr:Yann Tiersen gl:Yann Tiersen hsb:Yann Tiersen it:Yann Tiersen he:יאן טירסן hu:Yann Tiersen ms:Yann Tiersen nl:Yann Tiersen ja:ヤン・ティルセン no:Yann Tiersen nn:Yann Tiersen pl:Yann Tiersen pt:Yann Tiersen ro:Yann Tiersen ru:Тьерсен, Ян simple:Yann Tiersen sk:Yann Tiersen sr:Јан Тјерсен fi:Yann Tiersen sv:Yann Tiersen tr:Yann Tiersen uk:Ян Тьєрсен zh:扬·提尔森

Michael Laurence Nyman, CBE (born in Stratford, London 23 March 1944) is an English composer of minimalist music, pianist, librettist and musicologist, known for the many film scores he wrote during his lengthy collaboration with the filmmaker Peter Greenaway, and his multi-platinum soundtrack album to Jane Campion's ''The Piano''. His operas include ''The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat'', ''Letters, Riddles and Writs'', ''Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs'', ''Facing Goya'', ''Man and Boy: Dada'', ''Love Counts'', and ''Sparkie: Cage and Beyond'', and he has written six concerti, four string quartets, and many other chamber works, many for his Michael Nyman Band, with and without whom he tours as a performing pianist. Nyman has stated his preference for writing opera to other sorts of music.

Biography

Nyman was born in Stratford, London into a Jewish family, and was educated at the Sir George Monoux Grammar School, Walthamstow. He studied at King's College, London under Alan Bush., and was accepted at the Royal Academy of Music in September, 1961, and studied with Bush and Thurston Dart, focusing on piano and seventeenth-century baroque music. He won the Howard Carr Memorial Prize for composition in July 1964.

In 1969, he provided the libretto for Harrison Birtwistle's opera, ''Down by the Greenwood Side'' and directed the short film ''Love Love Love'' (based on, and identical length to, The Beatles' "All You Need Is Love") before settling into music criticism, where he is generally acknowledged to have been the first to apply the term "minimalism" to music (in a 1968 article in ''The Spectator'' magazine about the English composer Cornelius Cardew). He wrote introductions for George Frideric Handel's Concerti Grossi, Op. 6 and conducted the most important interview with George Brecht in 1976.

Nyman drew frequently on early music sources in his scores for Greenaway's films: Henry Purcell in ''The Draughtsman's Contract'' and ''The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover'' (which included Memorial and Miserere Paraphrase), Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber in ''A Zed and Two Noughts'', Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in ''Drowning by Numbers'', and John Dowland in ''Prospero's Books'', largely at the request of the director.

Nyman says he discovered his aesthetic playing the aria, "Madamina, il catalogo è questo" from Mozart's ''Don Giovanni'' on his piano in the style of Jerry Lee Lewis, which "dictated the dynamic, articulation and texture of everything I've subsequently done." He has scored numerous films, the majority of them European art films, including several of those directed by Peter Greenaway. His few forays into Hollywood have been ''Gattaca'', ''Ravenous'' (with musician Damon Albarn), and ''The End of the Affair''. He wrote settings to various texts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for "Letters, Riddles and Writs", part of ''Not Mozart''. He has also produced a soundtrack for the silent film ''Man with the Movie Camera''. Nyman's popularity increased after he wrote the score to Jane Campion's award-winning 1993 film ''The Piano''. The album became a classical music best-seller. He was nominated for both a British Academy Award and a Golden Globe.

Among Nyman's other works are the opera ''Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs'' (1987), for soprano, alto, tenor and instrumental ensemble (based on Nyman's score for the ballet ''La Princesse de Milan''); ''Ariel Songs'' (1990) for soprano and band; MGV (Musique à Grande Vitesse) (1993) for band and orchestra; concertos for saxophone, piano (based on ''The Piano'' score), violin, harpsichord, trombone, and saxophone & cello recorded by John Harle and Julian Lloyd Webber; the opera ''The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat'' (1986), based on a case-study by Oliver Sacks; and four string quartets. In 2000, he produced a new opera on the subject of cloning on a libretto by Victoria Hardie titled ''Facing Goya'', an expansion of their one-act opera ''Vital Statistics''. The lead, a widowed art banker, is written for contralto and the role was first created by Hilary Summers. His newest operas are ''Man and Boy: Dada'' (2003) and ''Love Counts'' (2005), both on libretti by Michael Hastings.

He has also composed the music for the children's television series ''Titch'' which is based on the books written and illustrated by Pat Hutchins.

Many of Nyman's works are written for his own ensemble, the Michael Nyman Band, a group formed for a 1976 production of Carlo Goldoni's ''Il Campiello''. Originally made up of old instruments such as rebecs and shawms alongside more modern instruments like the saxophone in order to produce as loud a sound as possible without amplification, it later switched to a fully amplified line-up of string quartet, three saxophones, trumpet, horn, bass trombone, bass guitar and piano. This line up has been variously altered and augmented for some works.

Nyman also published an influential book in 1974 on experimental music called ''Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond'' (Catalan, Spanish and French translations), which explored the influence of John Cage on classical composers.

In the 1970s, Nyman was a member of the Portsmouth Sinfonia – the self-described World's Worst Orchestra – playing on their recordings and in their concerts. He was the featured pianist on the orchestra's recording of ''Bridge Over Troubled Water'' on the Martin Lewis-produced ''20 Classic Rock Classics'' album on which the Sinfonia gave their unique interpretations of the pop and rock repertoire of the 1950s–1970s. Nyman created a similar group called Foster's Social Orchestra, which specialised in the work of Stephen Foster. One of their pieces appeared in the film ''Ravenous'' and an additional work, not used in the film, appeared on the soundtrack album.

He has also recorded pop music with the Flying Lizards; a version of his ''Bird List'' from the soundtrack to Peter Greenaway's ''The Falls'' (1980) appears on their album ''Fourth Wall'' as "Hands 2 Take."

On 7 July 2007 Nyman performed at Live Earth in Japan. On 2008 Nyman realised, in collaboration with the cultural association Volumina, Sublime, an artist's book that unified his music with his passion for photography.

In a collaboration with friends Max Pugh and Marc Silver, Nyman is now beginning to exhibit his films and photography. Nyman’s video works are filmed with a hand-held camera, often before and after concerts and as part of his international travels, featuring everyday moments. Some works are left relatively unedited whilst others undergo split screens and visual repetition. Soundtracks to some of the video works use location sounds, whilst others recycle existing scores from his archive or a combination of both.

In October 2009, Nyman released The Glare, a collaborative collection of songs with David McAlmont, which cast his work in a new light. The album – recorded with the Michael Nyman Band – finds McAlmont putting lyrics based on contemporary news stories to 11 pieces of Nyman music drawn from different phases of his career.

"David did the research and chose most of the musical pieces," Nyman explains. "I suggested a few pieces,too but I really didn't do very much, although I think it's a true collaboration. You can identify who was responsible for what, but both aspects create a perfect synergy in which neither element can exist without the other."

Although the album was recorded in just two days, there was a huge amount of preparation and rewriting before they entered the studio. "They're third generation songs and when you listen to them, you ask 'Is it Nyman?' 'Is it soul?' 'Is it rock'n'roll?' It's all and none of them," the composer says. "I think we've created a new musical language. I'm no good at writing pop cliché – when I try, it invariably comes out sounding quite different."

The project has a long gestation for the pair first met in 2004 at a exhibition opening and talked about working together. Nothing came of it for almost five years until they got together again via Facebook, met up for lunch – and the idea for The Glare was born.

"I was surprised and delighted by what we've came up with," Nyman says. "So much so, that when I now play these pieces solo, it sounds like something's missing and the music needs David's voice and approach. That's a remarkable thing, because I've been playing these pieces for years. Of all the many collaborations I've been involved in, none has ever given me more pleasure and I'm desperate to take it on the road and play these."

Personal life

He was married to Aet Nyman and has two daughters, Molly and Martha. His first string quartet quotes "Unchained Melody" in homage to Aet, who appears in Greenaway's ''The Falls'', for which he also composed music. Molly is a composer in her own right; in collaboration with Harry Escott she has written several film scores including for ''The Road to Guantanamo'' by her father's frequent collaborator, Michael Winterbottom. Martha is a development researcher for the BBC.

Career highlights

1961–67 – Studies at the Royal Academy of Music and King's College London.

1968–78 – Works as music critic (becoming first person to apply the word "minimalist" to music).

1976 – Founds the Campiello Band (now the Michael Nyman Band) and embarks on eleven-film collaboration with Peter Greenaway.

1981 – Releases first Michael Nyman Band album.

1993 – Soundtrack for ''The Piano'' wins an Ivor Novello Award, Golden Globe, BAFTA and American Film Institute award and goes on to sell over three million copies.

2002–2005 – Composer-in-Residence at Badisches Staatstheater in Karlsruhe, Germany, who performed three Nyman operas and more tunes for his daughters.

2007 – Performed on 7 July from Kyoto, Japan as part of the Live Earth global environmental awareness musical event.

Honours

Nyman was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours.

Nyman was awarded an honorary doctorate (DLitt) from The University of Warwick on 30 January 2007. At the ceremony The University of Warwick Brass Society and Chamber Choir, conducted by Paul McGrath, premiered a specially composed procession and recession fanfare composed by Nyman.

Works

1963 – ''Introduction and Allegro Concertato for Wind Quartet'' (lost)

1963 – ''Divertimento for Flute, Oboe and Clarinet''

1965 – ''Canzona for Flute''

1974 – ''Bell Set No. 1'' (multiple metal percussion)

1976 – ''1–100'' (4–6 pianos)

1976 – (First) ''Waltz in D'' (variable)

1976 – (Second) ''Waltz in F'' (variable)

1977 – ''In Re Don Giovanni'' (ensemble)

1978 – ''The Otherwise Very Beautiful Blue Danube Waltz'' (multiple pianos)

1979 – ''"The Masterwork" Award Winning Fish-Knife'' (ensemble)

1980 – ''A Neat Slice of Time'' (choir)

1981 – ''Think Slow, Act Fast'' (ensemble)

1981 – ''Five Orchestral Pieces for Opus Tree'' (band*) (based on Anton Webern's Five Orchestral Pieces, Op. 10)

1981 – ''M-Work'' (band)

1981 – ''2 Violins''

1982 – ''Four Saxes (Real Slow Drag)'' (saxophone quartet)

1983 – ''A Handsome, Smooth, Sweet, Smart, Clear Stroke: Or Else Play Not At All''

(orchestra)

1983 – ''Time's Up'' (chamber ensemble)

1983 – ''I'll Stake My Cremona to a Jew's Trump'' (electric violin and viola, both players also simultaneously singing)

1983 – ''Love is Certainly, at Least Alphabetically Speaking'' (soprano and band)

1984 – ''The Abbess of Andouillets'' (choir)

1985 – ''Nose-List Song'' (soprano and orchestra) [this and the above three works are from an unfinished opera setting of Laurence Sterne's ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'', which Nyman has repeatedly cited as his all-time favourite book]

1985 – ''Childs Play'' (2 violins; harpsichord)

1985 – ''String Quartet No. 1''

1986 – ''Taking a Line for a Second Walk'' (for orchestra (''Basic Black'') or piano duet)

1986 – ''The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat'' (opera; libretto by Christopher Rawlence; adapted from the Oliver Sacks case study by Nyman, Rawlence, and Michael Morris)

1986 – ''And Do They Do'' (modern dance, 1986)

1987 – ''Vital Statistics'' (opera; libretto by Victoria Hardie)

1988 – ''String Quartet No. 2''

1989 – ''Out of the Ruins'' (choir)

1989 – ''La Traversée de Paris'' (soprano and band)

1989 – ''The Fall of Icarus'' (band)

1989 – ''L'Orgie Parisienne'' Arthur Rimbaud setting (soprano or mezzo soprano and orchestra)

1989 – ''La Sept'' (band)

1990 – ''Shaping the Curve'' (soprano saxophone, string quartet or piano)

1990 – ''Six Celan Songs'' (contralto and orchestra)

1990 – ''Polish Love Song'' (soprano and piano)

1990 – ''String Quartet No. 3''

1990 – ''The Kiss and Other Movements''

1991 – ''The Michael Nyman Songbook'' A collection of songs based on texts by Paul Celan, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, William Shakespeare, and Arthur Rimbaud and recorded with vocalist Ute Lemper.

1991 – ''Where the Bee Dances'' (soprano saxophone and orchestra)

1991 – ''Fluegelhorn and Piano''

1992 – ''Time Will Pronounce'' (violin, cello, and piano)

1992 – ''For John Cage'' (brass ensemble)

1992 – ''Self-Laudatory Hymn of Inanna and Her Omnipotence'' (alto and string orchestra or countertenor and viol consort)

1992 – ''The Convertibility of Lute Strings'' (solo harpsichord)

1992 – ''Anne de Lucy Songs'' (soprano and piano)

1992 – ''Le Mari de la Coiffeuse (The Hairdresser's Husband)''

1992 – ''The Upside-Down Violin'' (orchestra/ensemble)

1993 – ''MGV: Musique à grande vitesse'' (band and orchestra)

1993 – ''The Piano Concerto'' (piano and orchestra)

1993 – ''Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs'' (1993; opera-ballet setting William Shakespeare's ''The Tempest'')

1993 – ''Yamamoto Perpetuo'' (violin solo)

1993 – ''Songs for Tony'' (saxophone quartet)

1994 – ''To Morrow'' (soprano or soprano saxophone, organ)

1994 – ''3 Quartets'' (ensemble)

1994 – ''Concerto for Trombone'' (trombone, orchestra, and steel filing cabinets)

1995 – ''String Quartet No. 4''

1995 – ''Tango for Tim (In memoriam Tim Suster)'' (harpsichord)

1995 – ''The Waltz Song'' (unison voices)

1995 – ''Viola and Piano''

1995 – ''Grounded'' (mezzo-soprano, saxophones, violin, piano)

1995 – ''HRT [High Rise Terminal]'' (chamber ensemble)

1995 – ''Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings''

1995 – ''Double Concerto for Saxophone and Cello'' (saxophone, cello, and orchestra)

1996 – ''After Extra Time'' (ensemble)

1996 – ''Enemy Zero'' (game music)

1997 – ''Enemy Zero – Original Soundtrack''

1997 – ''Strong on Oaks, Strong on the Causes of Oaks'' (orchestra)

1997 – ''The Promise'' (piano)

1997 – ''Gattaca''

1998 – ''Titch'' (worked on the main opening/closing piano theme).

1998 – ''Cycle of Disquietude (Coisas, Vozes, Lettras)'' (soprano, mezzo-soprano, and band)

1998 – ''Orfeu'' (band)

1998 – ''De Granada A La Luna'' (band)

1999 – ''The Commissar Vanishes'' (band)

1999 – ''The End of the Affair''

2000 – ''Facing Goya'' (opera; libretto by Victoria Hardie)

2001 – ''a dance he little thinks of'' (orchestra)

2003 – ''Violin Concerto'' (violin and orchestra)

2003 – ''Man and Boy: Dada'' (opera; libretto by Michael Hastings)

2005 – ''Love Counts'' (opera; libretto by Michael Hastings)

2006 – ''gdm for Marimba and Orchestra'' (concerto)

2006 – ''Acts of Beauty''' (song cycle)

2007 – ''A Handshake in the Dark'' (choral piece with orchestra; text by Jamal Jumá [world premiere 8 March 2007, Barbican, London, performed by the BBC Symphony Chorus and Orchestra, John Storgards conducting])

2007 – ''Interlude in C'' (expansion of a theme from ''The Libertine'' for Accent07 touring ensemble)

2007 – ''Eight Lust Songs'' song cycle

2008 – ''Yamamoto Perpetuo for Solo Flute'' (arranged by Andy Findon)

2009 – ''Sparkie: Cage and Beyond'' opera with Carsten Nicolai

2009 – ''The Musicologist Scores'' (band)

2010 – ''2Graves''

2010 – ''Vertov Sounds''

*originally recorded by Nyman, Ned Sublette, Susan Krongold, Barbara Benary, Jon Gibson, Richard Cohen, Virgil Blackwell, Peter Zummo, and Peter Gordon at The Kitchen, and intended for Peter Greenaway's short film, ''The Tree''.

Nyman's music re-used

Nyman's "The Heart Asks Pleasure First" (from ''The Piano'') is the music on which Italian rock noir band Belladonna's song "Let There Be Light" is based. Released in December 2010, the track features Michael Nyman himself on piano.

Nyman's "The Heart Asks Pleasure First" (from ''The Piano'') was used as backing music for one of the bank advertisements for Lloyds TSB broadcast on television. It has also been featured in episodes of ''20/20''.

Music from ''Ravenous'' has been used at least once on WFYI's ''Across Indiana'', in a segment titled "On the Trail of John Hunt Morgan", produced by Scott Andrew Hutchins.

Nyman's soundtrack for ''Carrington'' is mostly based on his own ''String Quartet No. 3''.

''A Cock and Bull Story'' contains music from ''The Draughtsman's Contract'', as well as Nyman's arrangements of classical music used in Stanley Kubrick's ''Barry Lyndon'' (it does not use any music from Nyman's ''Tristram Shandy'' opera).

Nyman's music for Peter Greenaway's films has been used in the Japanese television program ''Iron Chef''.

Popular "Chasing Sheep is Best Left to Shepherds" (from ''The Draughtsman's Contract'') constituted the main theme of Spanish TV program ''Queremos Saber'', presented by Mercedes Milà in the nineties.

Nyman features in '9 Songs' (Michael Winterbottom, 2004) playing at the Hackney Empire on his 60th birthday.

Nyman's MGV: Musique à grande vitesse was used in November 2006 for a new one-act ballet for the Royal Ballet in London, DGV (danse à grande vitesse) by Christopher Wheeldon.

Nyman's "The Heart Asks Pleasure First" was covered by the Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish. Nyman had refused to release the song initially; he later authorised its use.

Time Lapse was used in Sky's 2008 'Heroes' advert

Selections from Nyman's catalogue formed part of the soundtrack for James Marsh's 2008 documentary, ''Man on Wire'', a film about Philippe Petit, a Frenchman, who in 1974 illegally strung a tightrope between the top of the WTC buildings and danced between them for 45 minutes, thus committing the "artistic crime of the 20th century".

Nyman's piece "Car Crash" from Zed & Two Thoughts movie intro was used for once on the final episode of a Greek series called 'To Kafe Tis Xaras'

Recordings

''Man and Boy: Dada'' – MN Records 102

''The Very Best of Michael Nyman: Film Music 1980-2001'' – Virgin EMI CDVED957

''String Quartets 1–3'' – Decca 4730912

''Decay Music'' EMI CVE964 2004

References

External links

Michael Nyman official site

Michael Nyman's homepage at Chester Music

The Power of the Cadence: Michael Nyman in conversation with Robert Davidson

'The Case Against Nyman Revisited' Recent article on Michael Nyman's use of pre-existing music

Nyman à grande vitesse'', review article in ''The Oxonian Review''

Michael Nyman judged The Film of the Month competition in June 2009 on the independent filmmakers networking site Shooting People

An Evening with Michael Nyman, BAFTA event video

Listening

Michael Nyman audio at Internet Archive

Category:20th-century classical composers Category:21st-century classical composers Category:Alumni of King's College London Category:Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Category:Contemporary classical music performers Category:English classical pianists Category:English composers Category:English film score composers Category:English musicologists Category:Ivor Novello Award winners Category:Minimalist composers Category:People from Stratford, London Category:Postmodern composers Category:1944 births Category:Living people Category:Jewish classical musicians

ca:Michael Nyman cs:Michael Nyman da:Michael Nyman de:Michael Nyman es:Michael Nyman fr:Michael Nyman gl:Michael Nyman it:Michael Nyman lt:Michael Nyman hu:Michael Nyman nl:Michael Nyman ja:マイケル・ナイマン pl:Michael Nyman pt:Michael Nyman ro:Michael Nyman ru:Найман, Майкл Лоуренс sk:Michael Nyman fi:Michael Nyman sv:Michael Nyman uk:Майкл Лоуренс Наймен

name	The Basics
background	group_or_band
origin	Melbourne, Australia
genre	Rock
years active	2002 – (present)
label	Independent, Albert Records
associated acts	Gotye, Down Hills Home, Dog With Wheels, Blood Red Bird
website	The Basics Official Website
current members	Wally De BackerTim HeathKris Schroeder
past members	Michael Hubbard
notable instruments	Lead guitar, drums, bass guitar. }}

The Basics ( ) are a three-piece band from Melbourne, Australia, formed by Wally De Backer and Kris Schroeder in 2002. Their style has been described as anything from 'indie-pop' to 'rock'n'roll' to 'pop-rock', though their records show them span a wide range of genres including reggae, ska, country, and electro-pop. They are "recognised as one of Australia's hardest-working bands".

With close to 1000 shows in their nine-year career, their live performances are well-known for their sense of humour and energy.

Formation

The Basics were formed after Kris met Wally at a party in Melbourne. The event was to see off the young aspiring producer, who was about to depart for Los Angeles, and together with a number of musician friends, the two jammed on some blues-rock standards. Later that night, they bonded over a mutual love of The Beatles, 70s & 80s cartoon theme songs and old Sierra adventure games.

Initially they played around Melbourne as an acoustic guitar/drums combo, starting at The Opposition in Frankston and the House of Fools in Footscray, where in late 2002 they met and later invited Michael Hubbard to join them on electric guitar. Though lacking any real experience with the instrument, Kris willingly purchased his first bass guitar and the trio was born. During this time the group start performing songs with more complicated three-part harmony.

During late 2002 and early 2003 The Basics recorded and released an album called ''Get Back'' through MGM Distribution. They began what was to become regular tours of the East and West coasts of Australia.

2004-2005: Current lineup

Tim Heath joined the group in June 2004, after Michael decided to pursue his solo career, which has included being one half of Down Hills Home. Tim was reportedly the only person to reply to an advertisement in Melbourne's Beat Magazine looking for a new guitarist. Tim apparently answered the advertisement - which said the applicant "must have a love of 50s and 60s rock'n'roll" - thinking that he would be meeting "a couple of old guys to play with on the weekends over some beers". They soon recorded ''For Girls Like You''.

The Basics in 2005 continued to tour and play small festivals, and after releasing ''For Girls Like You'' through MGM Distribution they departed for a national tour of Australia, which lasted for two months and took them to every Australian state and territory. Stuart Padbury, a young Melbourne sound engineer, joined them on much of this tour. On returning, the band began demoing songs for a new album.

2006-2009: Touring and soundtracks

In 2006, The Basics began recording what is to become known as ''Stand Out/Fit In''. This took several months and was not completed until the end of the year, despite intentions to have it released in June. Instead, they held a successful 'album preview' where each of the tracks was demonstrated in 'rough form' accompanied by a music video for each (produced by Melbourne photographic artist James Bryans). The band also talked about the origins of the songs. This event brought a lot of attention to the band for the idea's originality. They pre-released a radio single 'Just Hold On' from the album. The band were invited to play the hugely popular Homebake Festival in Sydney, where they received a great response ("one of the highlights" wrote ''The Daily Telegraph'').

In 2007, the band departed on a tri-state residency which saw them play Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane every week for the month of April - a bold move which brought further attention to the band for its original idea. Riding on the wave of this tour, Schroeder, De Backer and Heath departed on their first overseas tour which saw them performing 26 shows around Japan, Norway and the United Kingdom. They also toured twice more up the East Coast, one of which was with popular Japanese band The Bawdies. Their song 'Rattle My Chain' was used in a series of commercials for Volvo Australia. The song 'Hey There!' featured in the British film ''The Bank Job'' - starring Jason Statham - and was used as the backing for a February 2007 short film directed by Tim Longhurst called The Rip. Their song 'Better' was featured in a surfing documentary about the invention of the shortboard in 1967.

In 2008, the band appeared on Australia's Channel 9 for Australia Day celebrations, performing two of their songs - 'Just Hold On' and 'Hey There!' - to an estimated audience of 2 million. Securing an Australian Government grant, they embarked on a two-month tour of Australia, specifically targeting "culturally underprivileged groups" in rural and regional schoolchildren and Indigenous communities. The programme had them holding masterclasses and performing alongside Indigenous groups in the remote Northern Territory and Queensland. Their initiative also had them raising money for the charity Lifeline, their contribution to which was recognised with a plaque at the end of the tour. Season two of ''Californication'' starring David Duchovny featured their cover of the classic 'Have Love, Will Travel', most famously covered by 'The Sonics'.

In 2009, The Basics for the first time enjoyed the support of Australian radio network Triple J, which had reportedly snubbed the band's previous material. The singles 'With This Ship' and 'Like A Brother' were added to the station's playlist, and momentum carried The Basics overseas for a second tour of the United Kingdom and Norway, and also a series of shows in Dublin, Ireland. They were joined by the longtime front-of-house engineer Stuart Padbury who had been mixing them since 2005. The band was often seen in the Grafton Street Mall in Dublin busking to promote their concerts there. Their second show in Oslo, Norway saw the band perform with Hot Tub, one of the members of the Norwegian boy band "Boyzvoice", in his first performance for several years. Season Eight of ''Scrubs'' featured the song 'Lookin' Over My Shoulder'.

Despite all this promise, the band's album ''Keep Your Friends Close'' - produced and part-recorded by Peter Cobbin at London's Abbey Road Studios - though enjoying many favourable reviews, failed to impress Richard Kingsmill, music director of Triple J. This effectively ended the band's apparent upward spiral and the resulting album launch tour was reportedly "trying".

2010: Hiatus and live album

In 2010, following the band's fourth stint at the Tamworth Country Music Festival, and the recording of a yet-unreleased live album, an indefinite hiatus was announced on the band's websites. This was in part due to the impending release of a new album produced by Wally for his Gotye project, and also to reported tensions within the band following the previous year's disappointments.

However, this hiatus was soon broken with a two-month residency at the Northcote Social Club in Melbourne, which saw an apparent return to form. The band's EP "Wait For You" enjoys airplay on Triple J. The Basics also played a one-off show at Sydney's Oxford Art Factory.

On 20 August 2010, The Basics released their fourth LP , available free online and exclusively from *[www.FreeBasicsAlbum.com]. The band had reportedly moved to expand their listenership through this free giveaway, though 300 "Deluxe" CD/Vinyl versions have been printed. was recorded at the Northcote Social Club on 6 February, "in front of a live studio audience", and like the previous record was mixed by Peter Cobbin at Abbey Road Studios. Technically a self-titled album, the phonetics spell out the accurate pronunciation of the band’s name. Kris Schroeder: "For years we’ve worked at bringing our live energy into the studio and thus far it’s been a bit hit-and-miss. Our trick this time was to pull a switcheroo and bring the studio to us instead; the result is the best and closest to us we’ve sounded yet."

Melbourne thespian and Dog With Wheels bassist David Bramble - friends with Heath from university days - has occasionally joined the band on tour, playing keys, often while sporting a large moustache. Other guests have included Jake Mason (saxophone), also of Cookin' on 3 Burners and The Bamboos, Gideon Brazil (saxophone, flute), Simon Imrei (guitar and vocals) and Monty MacKenzie (saxophone).

Covers have often made an appearance from various sources: to date, some of the bands covered have been Cream, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, The Police, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, New Kids on the Block, Richard Berry, Sonny Curtis and The Crickets, JJ Cale, Harry Nilsson, Bill Scott, Ryan Adams and The Coasters (via The Beatles for their cover of Three Cool Cats).

Members

Kris Schroeder: Bass, Vocals

Wally De Backer: Drums, Vocals

Tim Heath: Guitar, Vocals

Discography

Albums

Get Back (15 January 2004)

Stand Out/Fit In (5 May 2007)

Keep Your Friends Close (25 September 2009)

(20 August 2010)

EP

For Girls Like You (11 July 2005)

Lookin' Over My Shoulder (10 February 2007)

Like A Brother (5 June 2009)

Wait For You (21 May 2010)

Singles

Call It Rhythm & Blues (20 August 2004)

Just Hold On

With This Ship (22 February 2009)

Upcoming projects

The band are taking a two year hiatus, set to return to the stage together in early 2012. Wally De Backer will be launching a new album under his Gotye act in August 2011, Tim Heath will be touring and recording with Blood Red Bird, and Kris Schroeder is currently recording a solo album.

References

External links

Official Website

Myspace Website

Category:Victoria (Australia) musical groups

name	Billy Joel
background	solo_singer
birth name	William Martin Joel
alias	Bill Joel,Bill Martin
birth date	May 09, 1949
birth place	The Bronx, New York City,
origin	Hicksville, New York,
instrument	Vocals, piano, guitar, harmonica, keyboard, accordion, organ, melodica, clavinet, percussion, harpsichord
genre	Rock, pop, jazz, classical
occupation	Singer-songwriter, pianist
years active	1964–present
label	Columbia,Family Productions,Famous Music,Sony Classical
associated acts	Echoes,The Hassles,Attila,Elton John,Bruce Springsteen
website
notable instruments	Piano }}

William Martin "Billy" Joel (born May 9, 1949) is an American musician and pianist, singer-songwriter, and classical composer. Since releasing his first hit song, "Piano Man," in 1973, Joel has become the sixth best-selling recording artist and the third best-selling solo artist in the United States, according to the RIAA.

Joel had Top 40 hits in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s; achieving 33 Top 40 hits in the United States, all of which he wrote himself. He is also a six-time Grammy Award winner, a 23-time Grammy nominee and has sold over 150 million records worldwide. He was inducted into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame (1992), the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1999), the Long Island Music Hall of Fame (2006) and the Hit Parade Hall of Fame (2009). In 2008, ''Billboard'' magazine released a list of the Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists to celebrate the US singles chart's 50th anniversary, with Joel at No. 23. With the exception of the 2007 single "All My Life," Joel discontinued recording new material after 1993's ''River of Dreams'' but continues to tour.

Early life

Joel was born in The Bronx and raised in Hicksville, New York. His father, Howard (born Helmuth), was born in Germany, the son of German merchant and manufacturer Karl Amson Joel who, after the advent of the Nazi regime, emigrated to Switzerland and later to the United States. Billy Joel's mother, Rosalind Nyman, was born in England to Philip and Rebecca Nyman. Both Joel's parents were Jewish. They divorced in 1960, and his father moved to Vienna, Austria. Billy has a sister, Judith Joel, and a half-brother, Alexander Joel, who is an acclaimed classical conductor in Europe, currently chief musical director of the Staatstheater Braunschweig.

Joel's father was an accomplished classical pianist. Billy reluctantly began piano lessons at an early age, at his mother's insistence; his teachers included the noted American pianist Morton Estrin and musician/songwriter Timothy Ford. His interest in music, rather than sports, was a source of teasing and bullying in his early years. (He has said in interviews that his piano instructor also taught ballet. Her name was Frances Neiman, and she was a Juilliard trained musician. She gave both classic piano and ballet lessons in the studio attached to the rear of her house, leading neighborhood bullies to mistakenly think he was learning to dance.) As a teenager, Joel took up boxing so that he would be able to defend himself. He boxed successfully on the amateur Golden Gloves circuit for a short time, winning twenty-two bouts, but abandoned the sport shortly after having his nose broken in his twenty-fourth boxing match.

Joel attended Hicksville High School, class of 1967. However, he did not graduate from Hicksville. Due to playing at a piano bar, he was one English credit short of the graduation requirement; he overslept on the day of an important exam, owing to his late-night musician's lifestyle. He left high school without a diploma to begin a career in music. "I told them, 'to hell with it. If I'm not going to Columbia University, I'm going to Columbia Records and you don't need a high school diploma over there'." Columbia did, in fact, become the label that eventually signed him. In 1992, he submitted essays to the school board and was awarded his diploma at Hicksville High's annual graduation ceremony—25 years after he had left.

Music career

Early career

Upon seeing The Beatles on ''The Ed Sullivan Show'' in 1964, Joel decided to pursue a full-time musical career, and set about finding a local Long Island band to join. Eventually he found the Echoes, a group that specialized in British Invasion covers. The Echoes became a popular New York attraction, which convinced him to leave high school to become a professional musician. He began playing for the Echoes when he was 14 years old.

Joel began playing recording sessions with the Echoes in 1965, when he was 16 years old. Joel played piano on several recordings produced by Shadow Morton, including (as claimed by Joel, but denied by songwriter Ellie Greenwich) the Shangri-Las' ''Leader of the Pack'', as well as several records released through Kama Sutra Productions. During this time, the Echoes started to play numerous late-night shows.

Later, in 1965, the Echoes changed their name to the Emeralds and then to the Lost Souls. For two years, Joel played sessions and performed with the Lost Souls. In 1967, he left that band to join the Hassles, a Long Island band that had signed a contract with United Artists Records. Over the next year and a half, they released ''The Hassles'' in 1967, ''Hour of the Wolf'' in 1968, and four singles, all of which failed commercially. Following The Hassles' demise in 1969, he formed the duo Attila with Hassles drummer Jon Small. Attila released their eponymous debut album in July 1970, and disbanded the following October. The reason for the group's break-up has been attributed to Joel's affair with Small's wife, Elizabeth, whom Joel eventually married.

''Cold Spring Harbor''

Joel signed his first solo record contract with Artie Ripp's Family Productions, and subsequently recorded his first solo album. ''Cold Spring Harbor'' (a reference to the Long Island town of the same name), was released in 1971. However, Ripp mastered and released the album at the wrong speed, resulting in Joel's voice sounding a semitone too high. In addition, the onerous terms of Ripp's Family Productions contract also guaranteed Joel very little money from the sales of his albums.

Popular cuts such as "She's Got a Way" and "Everybody Loves You Now" were originally released on this album, although they did not gain much attention until released as live performances in 1981 on ''Songs in the Attic''. Since then, they have become favorite concert numbers. ''Cold Spring Harbor'' gained a second chance on the charts in 1984, when Columbia reissued the album after slowing it down to the correct speed. The album reached #158 in the US and #95 in the UK nearly a year later. ''Cold Spring Harbor'' caught the attention of Merrilee Rush ("Angel of the Morning") and she recorded a femme version of "She’s Got a Way (He’s Got a Way)" for Scepter Records in 1971.

Joel gigged locally in New York City in the fall of 1971 and moved out to Los Angeles early in 1972, adopting the stage name ''Bill Martin''. While in California he did a six month gig in The Executive Room piano bar on Wilshire Boulevard. It was there he composed his signature hit "Piano Man" about the various patrons of the lounge. Subsequently he toured with his band members (Rhys Clark on drums, Al Hertzberg on guitar, and Larry Russell on bass) until the end of June 1972 throughout the US and Puerto Rico, opening for headliners such as J. Geils Band, The Beach Boys and Taj Mahal. At the Mar y sol festival in Puerto Rico, he electrified the crowd and got a big boost for his career.

In addition Philadelphia radio station WMMR-FM started playing a tape of a new song of Joel's, "Captain Jack", taken from a live concert. It became an underground hit on the East Coast. Herb Gordon, an executive of Columbia Records, heard Joel's music and made his company aware of Joel's talent. Joel signed a recording contract with Columbia in 1972 and moved to Los Angeles. He lived there for three years (and has since declared that those three years were a big mistake), returning to New York City in 1975.

Early Columbia years: 1973–1976

Joel's experiences in Los Angeles connected him with record company executives, who bought out his contract with Ripp under the condition that the Family Productions logo be displayed alongside the Columbia logo for the next ten albums. There was a stipulation that Family Productions would receive a 25-cent royalty for every album Joel sold. The stand-out track for ''Piano Man'' was the title track, which, despite only making it to #25 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, stands as Joel's signature song (he ends nearly all of his concerts with it).

The touring band changed as well in 1973. Don Evans replaced Al Hertzberg on guitar, and Patrick McDonald took over the bass position previously held by Larry Russell, and was then replaced in late 1974 by Doug Stegmeyer, who remained with Billy until 1989. Rhys Clark returned as drummer, Tom Whitehorse on banjo and pedal steel and then Johnny Almond on sax and keyboards rounded out the band. Billy's infectious spirit and talent galvanized the band into a tight performing unit, touring the U.S. and Canada extensively and appearing on the popular music shows of the day. Joel's songwriting was now attracting more attention; Helen Reddy recorded "You're My Home" (from ''Piano Man'') in 1974.

Joel remained in Los Angeles to write ''Streetlife Serenade'', his second album on the Columbia label. It was around this time that Jon Troy, an old friend from the New York neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, acted as Joel's manager although he would soon be replaced by Joel's wife Elizabeth. References to both suburbia and the inner city pepper the album.

The stand-out track on the album is "The Entertainer", a #34 hit in the U.S. which picks up thematically where "Piano Man" left off. Joel was upset that "Piano Man" had been significantly edited down to make it more radio-friendly, and in "The Entertainer," he refers to the edit with sarcastic lines such as "If you're gonna have a hit, you gotta make it fit, so they cut it down to 3:05", alluding to shortening of singles for radio play, as compared with the longer versions that appear on albums. Although ''Streetlife Serenade'' is often considered one of Joel's weaker albums (Joel has confirmed his distaste for the album), it nevertheless contains some notable tracks, including the title track, "Los Angelenos" and the instrumental "Root Beer Rag", which was a staple of his live set in the '70s and was resurrected frequently in 2007 and 2008. ''Streetlife Serenade'' also marks the beginning of a more confident vocal style on Joel's part.

In late 1975, he played piano and organ on several tracks on Bo Diddley's ''The 20th Anniversary of Rock 'n' Roll'' all-star album.

Disenchanted with the L.A. music scene, Joel returned to New York in 1976. There he recorded ''Turnstiles'', for which he used his own hand-picked musicians in the studio for the first time, and also adopted a more hands-on role. Songs were initially recorded at Caribou Ranch with members of Elton John's band, and produced by famed Chicago producer James William Guercio, but Joel was dissatisfied with the results. The songs were re-recorded in New York, and Joel took over, producing the album himself.

The minor hit "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" echoed the Phil Spector sound, and was covered by Ronnie Spector (in a 2008 radio interview, Joel said he does not perform "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" in his live shows anymore because it is in too high a key and "shreds" his vocal cords.) The album also featured the song "New York State of Mind", a bluesy, jazzy epic that has become one of Joel's signature songs, and which was later covered by fellow Columbia labelmates Barbra Streisand, on her 1977 ''Streisand Superman'' album, and as a duet with Tony Bennett, on his 2001 ''Playing with My Friends: Bennett Sings the Blues'' album. Other songs on the album include "Summer, Highland Falls", "Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)" and "Say Goodbye to Hollywood", which became a Top 40 hit in 1981 in a live version. Songs such as the powerful "Prelude/Angry Young Man" has become a mainstay of his concerts.

''The Stranger'' and ''52nd Street''

For ''The Stranger'', Columbia Records teamed Joel with producer Phil Ramone. The album yielded four Top-25 hits on the ''Billboard'' charts in the US: "Just the Way You Are" (#3), "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)" (#17), "Only the Good Die Young" (#24), and "She's Always a Woman" (#17). Album sales exceeded Columbia's previous top-selling album, Simon & Garfunkel's ''Bridge Over Troubled Water'', and was certified multi-platinum. His first-ever Top Ten album, it reached #2 on the charts. Ramone subsequently produced every Billy Joel studio release up to ''Storm Front'', initially released in 1989. This album also featured "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant", an album-oriented rock classic, which has become one of his best-known songs.

''The Stranger'' netted Joel Grammy nominations for Record of the Year and Song of the Year, for "Just the Way You Are", which was written as a gift to his wife Elizabeth. He received a late night phone call to his hotel room in Paris (he was on tour) in February 1979, letting him know he had won in both categories.

Joel faced high expectations on his next album. ''52nd Street'' was conceived as a day in Manhattan, and was named after the famous street of same name which hosted many of the world's premier jazz venues and performers throughout the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. Fans purchased over seven million copies on the strength of the hits "My Life" (#3), "Big Shot" (#14), and "Honesty" (#24). This helped ''52nd Street'' become Joel's first #1 album. "My Life" eventually became the theme song for a new US television sitcom, ''Bosom Buddies'', which featured actor Tom Hanks in one of his earliest roles. The album won Grammys for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male and Album of the Year. ''52nd Street'' was the first album to be released on compact disc when it went on sale alongside Sony's CD player CDP-101 on October 1, 1982, in Japan.

Despite the publicity photos and album cover showing Joel holding a trumpet, he does not play the instrument on the album, though two tracks on the album do feature some well-known jazz trumpeters. Freddie Hubbard plays two solos on "Zanzibar" and Jon Faddis joins Michael Brecker and Randy Brecker in the horn section for "Half a Mile Away".

In 1979, Joel travelled to Havana, Cuba, to participate in the historic Havana Jam festival that took place between March 2–4, alongside Rita Coolidge, Kris Kristofferson; Stephen Stills, the CBS Jazz All-Stars, the Trio of Doom, Fania All-Stars, Billy Swan, Bonnie Bramlett, Mike Finnegan, Weather Report, plus an array of Cuban artists such as Irakere, Pacho Alonso, Tata Güines and Orquesta Aragón. His performance is captured on Ernesto Juan Castellanos's documentary ''Havana Jam '79''.

Early 1980s

The success of his piano-driven ballads like "Just the Way You Are," "She's Always a Woman" and "Honesty" never sat well with Joel, as many critics were quick to slap the "balladeer" tag on him. With ''Glass Houses'', he attacked the new wave popularity with aplomb and delivered several harder-edged songs custom made for the live shows in arenas and stadiums he was by then playing almost exclusively. The front cover consisted of Joel's real-life modern glass house. The album spent 6 weeks at #1 on the Billboard chart and yielded such hits as "You May Be Right" (used as the theme song, covered by Southside Johnny, for the CBS mid-90s sitcom ''Dave's World'') (#7, May 1980), "Close To The Borderline" (B-side of the "You May Be Right" single), "Don't Ask Me Why" (#19, September 1980), "Sometimes a Fantasy" (#36, November 1980) and "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me", which became Joel's first Billboard #1 song (for two weeks) in July 1980. "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me" spent 11 weeks in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 and was the 7th biggest hit of 1980 according to American Top 40. ''Glass Houses'' won the Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male. It would also win the American Music Award for Favorite Album, Pop/Rock category. The album's closing song, "Through The Long Night", (B-side of the "It's Still Rock & Roll to Me" single) was a lullaby that featured Joel harmonizing with himself in a song he says was inspired by The Beatles' "Yes It Is."

His next release, ''Songs in the Attic'', was composed of live performances of less well-known songs from the beginning of his career. It was recorded during larger US arenas and intimate night club shows in June and July 1980. This release introduced many fans, who discovered Joel when ''The Stranger'' became a smash in 1977, to many of his earlier compositions. The album reached #8 on the ''Billboard'' chart and produced two hit singles: "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" (#17), and "She's Got a Way" (#23). It sold over 3 million copies. Though not as successful as some of his previous albums, the album was still considered a success by Joel.

The next wave of Joel's career commenced with the recording of ''The Nylon Curtain''. Considered his most audacious and ambitious album by many critics, and cited by Joel himself to the present day as his favorite of his works, Joel took more than a page or two from the Lennon/McCartney songwriting style on this heavily Beatles-influenced album.

Work began on ''The Nylon Curtain'' in the fall of 1981. Joel was sidelined when he was involved in a serious motorcycle accident on Long Island on April 15, 1982, which delayed the completion of the album a few weeks. Joel embarked on a brief tour in support of the album, during which his first video special, ''Live from Long Island,'' was recorded at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York on December 30, 1982.

''The Nylon Curtain'' went to #7 on the charts, partially due to heavy airplay on MTV for the videos to the singles "Allentown" and "Pressure". "Allentown" spent six weeks at a peak position of #17 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, making it one of the most-played radio songs of 1982, pushing it into 1983's year-end Top 70, and making it the most successful song from ''The Nylon Curtain'' album, besting "Pressure". which peaked at #20 (where it resided for three weeks) and "Goodnight Saigon" which reached #56 on U.S. charts.

Christie Brinkley, ''An Innocent Man'', and ''The Bridge''

The song "Uptown Girl" was one of the first songs written when Joel returned from vacation. Many believe that "Uptown Girl" was about supermodel Christie Brinkley, whom he started dating during the song's creation (the music video also included Brinkley). However, Michael Heatley and Frank Hopkinson in their book, ''The Girl In The Song'', speculate that it was actually about model Elle Macpherson, his future missus Christie, and a then-unknown model/singer named Whitney Houston, who were staying at the same hotel as he. On November 16, 2010, during an interview on the Howard Stern Show on Sirius Radio, Billy Joel stated that the song was originally called "Uptown Girls" and that he had started to write the melody of the song around the same time he was dating Macpherson. Joel said when he started to write the lyrics, the song was only about Brinkley, "...rather than it be about all these different girls, she (Brinkley) became the "Uptown Girl" and I started writing about one person...so they (Heatley/Hopkinson) got the story wrong." The song became a worldwide hit upon its release, #3 in the U.S. and Joel's sole #1 in the United Kingdom.

The resulting album, ''An Innocent Man'', was compiled as a tribute to the rock and roll music of the 1950s and 1960s, and also resulted in Joel's second ''Billboard'' #1 hit, "Tell Her About It", which was the first single off the album in the summer of 1983. The album itself reached #4 on the charts and #2 in UK. It also boasted 6 top-30 singles, the most of any album in Joel's catalog. At the time the album came out that summer, WCBS-FM began playing "The Longest Time" both in regular rotation and on the ''Doo Wop Shop.'' Many fans wanted this to be the next single released in the fall, but that October, "Uptown Girl" would be released, peaking at #3 and ranking at #20 on Billboard's 1983 Hot 100 year-end chart. Also, the James Brown-inspired song "Easy Money" would be featured in the 1983 Rodney Dangerfield film of the same name.

In December the title song, "An Innocent Man", would be released as a single and would peak at #10 in the U.S. and #8 in the UK, early in 1984. That March, "The Longest Time" would finally be released as a single, peaking at #14 on the Hot 100 and #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart. That summer, "Leave a Tender Moment Alone" would be released and hit #27 while "Keeping the Faith" would peak at #18 in January 1985. In the video for "Keeping the Faith", Christie Brinkley also plays the "redhead girl in a Chevrolet". ''An Innocent Man'' was also nominated for the Album of the Year Grammy, but lost to Michael Jackson's ''Thriller''.

Joel would participate in the USA For Africa ''We Are The World'' project in 1985, capping off a series of successful singles for Joel.

Following the success of ''An Innocent Man'', Joel had been approached to release an album of his most successful singles. This was not the first time this topic had come up, but Joel had initially considered "Greatest Hits" albums as marking the end of one's career. This time, he agreed, and ''Greatest Hits Vol. 1 and 2'' was released as a 4-sided album and 2-CD set, with the songs in sequence of when they were released. The new songs "You're Only Human (Second Wind)" and "The Night Is Still Young" were recorded and released as singles to support the album; both reached the top 40, peaking at #9 and #34, respectively. ''Greatest Hits'' was highly successful and has since been certified double diamond by the RIAA for over 10.5 million copies (21 million units) sold. To date it is the sixth best selling album in American music history according to the RIAA.

Coinciding with the ''Greatest Hits'' album release, Joel released a 2-volume ''Video Album'' that was a compilation of the promotional videos he had recorded from 1977 to the present time. Along with videos for the new singles off the ''Greatest Hits'' album, Joel also recorded a video for his first hit, "Piano Man", for this project.

Though it broke into the Top Ten, ''The Bridge'' was not a success in relation to some of Joel's other albums, but it yielded the hits "A Matter of Trust" and "Modern Woman" from the film ''Ruthless People'', a dark comedy from the directors of ''Airplane!'' (both #10). In a departure from his "piano man" persona, Joel is shown in its video playing a Les Paul-autographed Gibson guitar. The ballad "This is the Time" also charted, peaking at #18, and has been a favorite on the prom circuit ever since. The reason "Modern Woman" has been left off many of Joel's compilation sets (the exception appears to be ''My Lives'') is that he has since said in interviews he does not care for the song.

On November 18, 1986, an extended version of the song "Big Man On Mulberry Street" was used on a Season 3 episode of ''Moonlighting''. The episode itself was also titled "Big Man on Mulberry Street." In a dream sequence, Maddie Hayes envisions David Addison with his ex-wife. An extra horn solo was added to the song. ''The Bridge'' was also Joel's last album to carry the Family Productions logo, finally severing his ties with Artie Ripp. Joel has also stated in many interviews, most recently in a 2008 interview in ''Performing Songwriter'' magazine, that he does not think ''The Bridge'' is a good album.

Shortly after The Bridge tour ended in late 1987, Joel completed voice work on Disney's ''Oliver & Company,'' released in 1988, a loose adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel ''Oliver Twist.'' Joel brought both his acting and musical talents to the film as Dodger. For the film, Joel recorded a song titled "Why Should I Worry?" Critics were generally positive toward the film, and pointed to Joel's acting contribution as one of its highlights, despite it being his first acting job. In interviews, Joel explained that he took the job due to his love of Disney cartoons as a child.

The Russia trip

In October 1986, Joel and his handlers started planning a trip to the Soviet Union. He would be one of the first American rock acts to play there since the Berlin Wall went up, a fact not lost on history buff Joel. There would be live performances at indoor arenas in Moscow, Leningrad and Tbilisi. Joel and his family (including young daughter Alexa) and his full touring band made the trip in August 1987. The entourage was filmed for television and video to eventually offset the cost of the trip, and the concerts were simulcast on radio around the world.

Most of that audience took a long while to warm up to Joel's energetic show, something that never had happened in other countries he had performed in. According to Joel, each time the fans were hit with the bright lights, anybody who seemed to be enjoying themselves froze. In addition, people who were "overreacting" were removed by security.

The album ''КОНЦЕРТ'' (Russian for "Concert") was released in October 1987. Singer Peter Hewlitt was brought in to hit the high notes on his most vocally challenging songs, like "An Innocent Man." Joel also did versions of The Beatles' classic "Back in the U.S.S.R." and Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are a-Changin'". It has been estimated that Joel lost more than $1 million of his own money on the trip and concerts, but he has said the goodwill he was shown there was well worth it.

''Storm Front'' and ''River of Dreams''

The release of the album ''Storm Front'' coincided with major changes in Joel's career and inaugurated a period of serious upheaval in his business affairs. In August 1989, just before the album was released, Joel fired his manager (and former brother-in-law) Frank Weber after an audit revealed major discrepancies in Weber's accounting. Joel subsequently sued Weber for $90 million, claiming fraud and breach of fiduciary duty and in January 1990 he was awarded $2 million in a partial judgement against Weber; in April, the court dismissed a $30 million countersuit filed by Weber.

The first single for the album "We Didn't Start the Fire", was released in September 1989 and it became Joel's third and most recent US #1 hit, spending two weeks at the top; it was also Billboard's second-last #1 single of the 1980s. ''Storm Front'' was released in October, and it eventually became Joel's first #1 album since ''Glass Houses'', nine years earlier. ''Storm Front'' was Joel's first album since ''Turnstiles'' to be recorded without Phil Ramone as producer. For this album, he wanted a new sound, and worked with Mick Jones of Foreigner fame. Joel also revamped his backing band, firing everyone, save drummer Liberty DeVitto, guitarist David Brown, and saxophone player Mark Rivera, and bringing in new faces, including talented multi-instrumentalist Crystal Taliefero. ''Storm Front'''s second single, "I Go to Extremes" made it to #6 in early 1990. The album was also notable for its song "Leningrad", written after Joel met a clown in the Soviet city of that name during his tour in 1987, and "The Downeaster Alexa", written to underscore the plight of fishermen on Long Island who are barely able to make ends meet. Another well-known single from the album is the ballad "And So It Goes" (#37 in late 1990). The song was originally written in 1983, around the time Joel was writing songs for ''An Innocent Man''; but "And So It Goes" did not fit that album's retro theme, so it was held back until ''Storm Front''. Joel said in a 1996 Masterclass session in Pittsburgh that ''Storm Front'' was a turbulent album and that "And So It Goes," as the last song on the album, portrayed the calm and tranquility that often follows a violent thunderstorm.

In the summer of 1992, Joel filed another $90 million lawsuit against his former lawyer Allen Grubman, alleging a wide range of offenses including fraud, breach of fiduciary responsibility, malpractice and breach of contract but the case was eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.

Joel started work on ''River of Dreams'' in 1992 and finished the album in early 1993. Its cover art was a colorful painting by Christie Brinkley that was a series of scenes from each of the songs on the album. The eponymous first single was the last top 10 hit Joel has penned to date, reaching #3 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 & ranking at #21 on ''Billboard'''s 1993 year-end Hot 100 chart. In addition to the title track, the album includes the hits "All About Soul" (with Color Me Badd on backing vocals) and "Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)", written for his daughter, Alexa. A radio remix version of "All About Soul" can be found on ''The Essential Billy Joel'' (2001), and a demo version appears on ''My Lives'' (2005). The song "The Great Wall of China" was written about his ex-manager Frank Weber and was a regular in the setlist for Joel's 2006 tour. "2000 Years" was prominent in the millennium concert at Madison Square Garden, December 31, 1999, and "Famous Last Words" closed the book on Joel's pop songwriting for more than a decade.

1994–2007

On August 25, 1994, Joel and second wife Christie Brinkley divorced. On December 31, 1999, Joel performed at New York's Madison Square Garden. At the time, Joel said that it would be his last concert. The concert (dubbed The Night of the 2000 Years) ran for close to four hours and was later released as ''2000 Years: The Millennium Concert''.

1997's "To Make You Feel My Love" and "Hey Girl" both charted from Joel's ''Greatest Hits Volume III'' album. Joel wrote and recorded the song "Shameless" that was later covered by Garth Brooks and reached number 1 on Billboard's country charts. Joel performed with Brooks during his Central Park concert in 1997 with an estimated 980,000 people in attendance, the largest audience to attend a U.S. concert.

In 2001, Joel released ''Fantasies & Delusions'', a collection of classical piano pieces. All were composed by Joel and performed by Richard Joo. Joel often uses bits of these songs as interludes in live performances, and some of them are part of the score for the hit show ''Movin' Out''. The album topped the classical charts at #1. Joel performed "New York State of Mind" live on September 21, 2001, as part of the America: A Tribute to Heroes benefit concert, and on October 20, 2001, along with "Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)", at the Concert for New York City in Madison Square Garden. That night, he also performed "Your Song" with Elton John.

In 2005, Columbia released a box set, ''My Lives'', which is largely a compilation of demos, b-sides, live/alternate versions and even a few Top 40 hits. The compilation also includes the Umixit software, in which people can remix "Zanzibar", "Only the Good Die Young", "Keepin' The Faith", and live versions of "I Go to Extremes" and "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)" with their PC. Also, a DVD of a show from the ''River of Dreams'' tour is included.

On January 7, 2006, Joel began a tour across the United States. Having not written, or at least released, any new songs in 13 years, he featured a sampling of songs from throughout his career, including major hits as well as obscure tunes like "Zanzibar" and "All for Leyna". His tour included an unprecedented 12 sold-out concerts over several months at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The singer's stint of 12 shows at Madison Square Garden broke a previous record set by New Jersey native Bruce Springsteen, who played 10 sold-out shows at the same arena. The record earned Joel the first retired number (12) in the arena owned by a non-athlete. This honor has also been given to Joel at the Wells Fargo Center (Philadelphia) (formerly the Wachovia Center) in Philadelphia where a banner in the colors of the Philadelphia Flyers is hung honoring Joel's 46 Philadelphia sold-out shows. He also had a banner raised in his honor for being the highest grossing act in the history of the Times Union Center (formerly the Knickerbocker Arena and Pepsi Arena) in Albany, New York. This honor was given to him as part of the April 17, 2007, show he did there. On June 13, 2006, Columbia released ''12 Gardens Live'', a double album containing 32 live recordings from a collection of the 12 different shows at Madison Square Garden during Joel's 2006 tour.

Joel visited the United Kingdom and Ireland for the first time in many years as part of the European leg of his 2006 tour. On July 31, 2006, he performed a free concert in Rome, with the Colosseum as the backdrop. Organizers estimated 500,000 people turned out for the concert, which was opened by Bryan Adams.

Joel toured South Africa, Australia, Japan, and Hawaii in late 2006, and subsequently toured the Southeastern United States in February and March 2007 before hitting the Midwest in the spring of 2007. On January 3 of that year, news was leaked to the ''New York Post'' that Billy had recorded a new song with lyrics—this being the first new song with lyrics he'd written in almost 14 years. The song, titled "All My Life", was Joel's newest single (with second track "You're My Home", live from Madison Square Garden 2006 tour) and was released into stores on February 27, 2007. On February 4, Joel sang the national anthem for Super Bowl XLI, becoming the first to sing the national anthem twice at a Super Bowl. and on April 17, 2007, Joel was honored in Albany, New York, for his ninth concert at the Times Union Center. He is now holding the highest box office attendance of any artist to play at the arena. A banner was raised in his honor marking this achievement.

On December 1, 2007, Joel premiered his new song "Christmas in Fallujah." The song was performed by Cass Dillon, a new Long Island based musician, as Joel felt it should be sung by someone in a soldier's age range. The track was dedicated to servicemen based in Iraq. Joel wrote it in September 2007 after reading numerous letters sent to him from American soldiers in Iraq. "Christmas in Fallujah" is only the second pop/rock song released by Joel since 1993's ''River of Dreams''. Proceeds from the song benefitted the Homes For Our Troops foundation.

2008–present

On January 26, 2008, Joel performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra celebrating the 151st anniversary of the Academy of Music. Joel premiered his new classical piece titled, "Waltz No. 2 (Steinway Hall)". He also played many of his less well-known pieces with full orchestral backing, including the rarely performed ''Nylon Curtain'' songs "Scandinavian Skies" and "Where's the Orchestra?".

On March 10, 2008, Joel inducted his friend John Mellencamp into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in a ceremony at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. During his induction speech, Joel said:

Joel's staying power as a touring act continues to the present day. He sold out 10 concerts at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Connecticut from May to July 2008. Mohegan Sun honored him with a banner displaying his name and the number 10 to hang in the arena. On June 19, 2008, he played a concert at the grand re-opening of Caesars Windsor (formerly Casino Windsor) in Windsor, Ontario, Canada to an invite-only crowd for Casino VIPs. His mood was light, and joke-filled, even introducing himself as "Billy Joel's dad" and stating "you guys overpaid to see a fat bald guy." He also admitted that Canadian folk-pop musician Gordon Lightfoot was the musical inspiration for "She's Always A Woman".

On July 16, 2008, and July 18, 2008, Joel played the final concerts at Shea Stadium before its demolition. His guests included Tony Bennett, Don Henley, John Mayer, John Mellencamp, Steven Tyler, Roger Daltrey, Garth Brooks, and Paul McCartney. McCartney ended the show with a reference to his own performance there with the Beatles in 1965, the first major stadium concert of the rock and roll industry. The concerts were featured in the 2010 documentary film ''Last Play at Shea''. The film was released on DVD on February 8, 2011. The CD from the show was released on March 8, 2011.

On December 11, 2008, Joel recorded his own rendition of "Christmas in Fallujah" during a concert at Acer Arena in Sydney and released it as a live single in Australia only. It is the only official release of Joel performing "Christmas in Fallujah", as Cass Dillon sang on the 2007 studio recording and the handful of times the song was played live in 2007. Joel sang the song throughout his December 2008 tour of Australia.

On May 19, 2009, Joel's former drummer, Liberty DeVitto, filed a lawsuit in NYC claiming Joel and Sony Music owed DeVitto over 10 years of royalty payments. DeVitto has never been given songwriting credit on any of Joel's songs, but he claims that he helped write some of them. In April 2010, it was announced that Joel and DeVitto amicably resolved the lawsuit.

2011 Re-Releases

2011 marks the 40th anniversary of the release of Joel's first album, ''Cold Spring Harbor.'' According to Billy Joel's website, in commemoration of this anniversary, "Columbia/Legacy Recordings will celebrate the occasion with a definitive reissue project of newly restored and expanded Legacy editions of the complete Billy Joel catalog, newly curated collections of rarities from the vaults, previously unavailable studio tracks and live performances, home video releases and more." The website's press release also mentions that the album ''Piano Man'' will be re-released in a Legacy edition in 2011. During these shows, the two have played their own songs, each other's songs and performed duets. They grossed over US $46 million in just 24 dates in their sold out 2003 tour. Joel and John resumed the Face to Face tour in March 2009 and it ended again, at least for the time being, in March 2010. In February 2010, Joel denied rumors in the trade press that he canceled a summer 2010 leg of the tour, claiming there were never any dates booked and that he intended to take the year off. Joel told ''Rolling Stone'' magazine: "We’ll probably pick it up again. It’s always fun playing with him."

Other ventures

In 1996, Joel merged his long-held love of boating with his desire for a second career. He formed, with Long Island boating businessman Peter Needham, the Long Island Boat Company.

In November 2010, Joel opened a shop on Oyster Bay, Long Island to manufacture custom-made, retro-styled motorcycles and accessories.

In 2011, Joel announced that he was releasing an autobiography that he had written with Fred Schruers, titled ''The Book of Joel: A Memoir''. The book was originally going to be released in June 2011, but in March 2011 Joel decided against publishing the book and officially cancelled his deal with HarperCollins. ''Rolling Stone'' noted, "HarperCollins acquired the book project for $3 million in 2008. [However,] Joel is expected to return his advance on that sum to the publisher." According to ''Billboard'', "the HarperCollins book was billed as an 'emotional ride' that would detail the music legend's failed marriage to Christie Brinkley, as well as his battles with substance abuse." In explaining his decision to cancel the book's release, Joel stated, "It took working on writing a book to make me realize that I'm not all that interested in talking about the past, and that the best expression of my life and its ups and downs has been and remains my music."

Personal life

Marriages, relationships, and family

Joel married his business manager, Elizabeth Weber Small, on September 5, 1973. She was the former wife of his music partner, Jon Small, in the short-lived duo Attila. They divorced on July 20, 1982.

Joel mentioned in a television interview on the UK's Channel Five that he had dated Elle Macpherson in the 1980s prior to his marriage to Christie Brinkley. Joel has also said that the songs "This Night" and "And So It Goes" were written about his relationship with Macpherson.

Joel married Christie Brinkley on March 23, 1985. Their daughter, Alexa Ray Joel, was born December 29, 1985. Alexa was given the middle name of Ray after Ray Charles, one of Joel's musical idols. Joel and Brinkley divorced on August 25, 1994, although the couple remain friendly.

On October 2, 2004, Joel married 23-year-old Katie Lee. At the time of the wedding, Joel was 55. Joel's daughter, Alexa Ray, then 18, served as maid-of-honor. Joel's second wife, Christie Brinkley, attended the union and gave the couple her blessing. Lee works as a restaurant correspondent for the PBS show, ''George Hirsch: Living it Up!''. In 2006, Katie Lee hosted Bravo's ''Top Chef''. She did not return for a second season, instead going on tour with her husband. She then began writing a weekly column in ''Hamptons'' magazine, and became a field correspondent for the entertainment television show ''Extra''. On June 17, 2009, both confirmed that they have split after five years of marriage.

Depression

Joel battled depression for many years. In 1970, a career downturn and personal problems aggravated his condition. He left a suicide note (which inspired the lyrics to "Tomorrow Is Today") and attempted to commit suicide by drinking furniture polish, saying later, "I drank furniture polish. It looked tastier than bleach." His drummer, Jon Small, rushed him to the hospital. Joel checked into Meadowbrook Hospital, where he was put on suicide watch and received treatment for depression. Joel later recorded "You're Only Human (Second Wind)" as a message to help prevent teen suicide.

Substance abuse treatment

In 2002, Joel entered Silver Hill Hospital, a substance abuse and psychiatric center in New Canaan, Connecticut. In March 2005, he checked into the Betty Ford Center, where he spent 30 days for the treatment of alcohol-related problems.

Politics

Although Joel has donated money to Democratic candidates running for office, he has never publicly endorsed any candidate or made clear his political affiliation—although he did play a benefit with Bruce Springsteen to raise money for Barack Obama's presidential campaign in 2008. He has also played at benefit concerts (like the first Live Aid concert in 1985) that have helped raise funds for political causes. However, Joel has said about musicians endorsing political candidates, "People who pay for your tickets, I don't think they want to hear who you're going to vote for and how you think they should vote."

Religion

Joel was born to non-observant Jewish parents and considers himself a cultural Jew.

Discography

Band

:''Further information: Billy Joel Band''

Awards and achievements

Despite having never graduated from high school because of a missed exam, Joel has been presented with multiple honorary doctorates:

Doctor of Humane Letters from Fairfield University (1991)

Doctor of Music from Berklee College of Music (1993)

Doctor of Humane Letters from Hofstra University (1997)

Doctor of Music from Southampton College (2000)

Doctor of Fine Arts from Syracuse University (2006)

Doctor of Musical Arts from the Manhattan School of Music (2008)

His High School Diploma was finally awarded 25 years after he left High School by the School Board.

Joel was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio in 1999. Joel was on the site selection committee for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame board. Seven members of the committee voted for San Francisco and seven voted for Cleveland, Ohio, this was a tied vote so Billy Joel was the tie breaking vote, which gave Cleveland the hall in 1986.

Joel was also named MusiCares Person of the Year for 2002, an award given each year at the same time as the Grammy Awards. At the dinner honoring Joel, various artists performed versions of his songs including Nelly Furtado, Stevie Wonder, Jon Bon Jovi, Diana Krall, Rob Thomas and Natalie Cole. He was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame on October 15, 2006. In 2005, Joel received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Joel has banners in the rafters of the Times Union Center, Nassau Coliseum, Madison Square Garden, Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, CT, Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, and Hartford Civic Center in Hartford. (Joel is erroneously cited as the first artist to perform a concert at Yankee Stadium in New York City; The Isley Brothers first performed there in 1969, and the Latin supergroup, The Fania All-Stars played and recorded live albums at the stadium during the 1970s.)

He has also sponsored the Billy Joel Visiting Composer Series at Syracuse University.

Joel is the only performing artist to have played both Yankee and Shea Stadiums, as well as Giants Stadium, Madison Square Garden, and Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

Other media contributions

''Don Kirshner's Rock Concert'' (1974) (Television) (Performed "Piano Man", "Somewhere Along the Line", and "Captain Jack")

''The Midnight Special'' (1975) (Television) (Sang "Travelin' Prayer" and "The Ballad of Billy the Kid")

''The Mike Douglas Show'' (1976) (Television)

''Billy Joel Tonight'' (1976) (Time Life Video) (VHS) (Palmer Auditorium, Connecticut College, New London, CT)

''Saturday Night Live'' (February 18, 1978) (NBC) (hosted by Chevy Chase) (Sang "Just The Way You Are" and "Only The Good Die Young") (Billy passed up going to his 10 year high school reunion to appear on the show)

''The Old Grey Whistle Test'' (1978) (London, England) (Television)

''Musikladen'' (1978) (German television concert)

''20/20'' (1980) (Television)

''Saturday Night Live'' (November 14, 1981) (NBC) (hosted by Bernadette Peters) (Sang "Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)" and "She's Got A Way" live via satellite hook-up from his Mid-town Manhattan recording studio)

''Live from Long Island'' (1982) (CBS/Fox) (VHS) (Originally aired on HBO as ''Billy Joel: A Television First''. Recorded live at Nassau Coliseum)

''MTV Night School with Billy Joel'' (1983) (Television) (Billy takes questions from music students and plays some songs, much like his later "master classes.")

''MTV Special: Innocent Man Tour'' (1983) (Television) ("Behind-the-scenes" look at Joel's ''Innocent Man'' tour)

''From a Piano Man to an Innocent Man'' (1984) (BBC Television Broadcast)

''Today'' (June 1984) Introduces music video for "The Longest Time."

''Farm Aid'' (September 1985) (Television)

Contributed piano on Twisted Sister's song "Be Chrool to Your Scuel" on their 1985 album ''Come Out and Play''

''Video Album, Vol. 1'' (1986) (CBS/Fox) (VHS)

''Video Album, Vol. 2'' (1986) (CBS/Fox) (VHS)

''Late Night with David Letterman'' (September 1986)

''MLB World Series Game 2'' (October 19, 1986) (Television) (Performed the National Anthem)

''Live From Leningrad USSR'' (1987) (CBS) (VHS) (Originally aired on HBO)

''Oliver & Company'' (1988) (Provided both the voice and singing voice for the character Dodger in the Disney full-length animated feature.)

''Sesame Street'' (1988) (Sang "Just the Way You Are" to Oscar the Grouch, and "The Alphabet Song" with the kids)

''1989 NFL Super Bowl XXIII'' (Sang National Anthem, Joe Robbie Stadium, Miami, Florida)

''Late Night with David Letterman'' (August 17, 1989) (NBC) Performs with musical guest Mick Jones

''Saturday Night Live'' (October 21, 1989) (NBC) (hosted by Kathleen Turner) (Sang "We Didn't Start The Fire" and "The Downeaster Alexa") (acts in a sketch called "Die Squaren Ost Berliner" which was a German take-off of "Hollywood Squares" as a character named Josef Besselmeier)

''Eye of the Storm'' (1990) (VHS) (Sony) (Compilation of five music videos from the ''Storm Front'' album)

''Live at Yankee Stadium'' (1990) (Sony) (DVD/VHS)

''A Matter of Trust'' (1991) (CBS) (VHS) (Documentary of the 1986 Russian tour)

''Late Show with David Letterman'' (August 30, 1993) First musical guest on the show, performing "No Man's Land"

''Saturday Night Live'' (October 23, 1993) (NBC) (hosted by John Malkovich) (Sang "The River Of Dreams" and "All About Soul")

''Shades of Grey'' (1993) (Sony) (PBS documentary on the making of ''River of Dreams''. Released on VHS)

''Live from the River of Dreams'' (Sony) (1994) (Originally aired on 3Sat (German television); released on DVD in the ''My Lives'' box set in 2005) Live from Frankfurt, Germany.

During the 1994 Grammy Award Show, the director cut short Frank Sinatra's acceptance speech for receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award. Joel extended his performance of "The River of Dreams" by stopping the song partway through, looking at the celebrity audience with a grin while pretending to check his watch and saying, "valuable advertising time going by...dollars...dollars...dollars..." which was met with laughter from the audience. He then resumed playing the song.

''Greatest Hits, Vol. III'' (Sony) (1997) (DVD/VHS)

''The Rosie O'Donnell Show'' (1997) (Television)

''Behind the Music'' (1997) (Television)

''VH1 Storytellers'' (1997) (Television)

''VH1 Video Time Line'' (1998) (Television)

''60 Minutes'' (April 26, 1998) Interviewed by Steve Kroft.

''Inside the Actor's Studio'' (1999) (Bravo Network)

''Mad About You'': "Murray at the Dog Show" (1999) (NBC Television) (Appeared as himself; wrote the music for the song "Lullabye For You" which was featured in the episode. Paul Reiser wrote the lyrics.)

''ABC 2000'' (1999/2000) (Television, VHS) (International broadcast; portions of Joel's New Year's Eve concert were aired live)

''Piano Grand! A Smithsonian Celebration'' (2000) (Joel served as host and performer; aired on PBS; released on DVD)

''MLB World Series- Subway Series Game 1'' (2000) (Television) (Performed the National Anthem)

''America: A Tribute To Heroes'' (2001) (Television, Radio, DVD)

''Charlie Rose'' (2001) (PBS television/DVD)

''The Concert for New York City'' (2001) (Television, VHS/DVD)

''A&E; Special: In His Own Words'' (2001) (A&E; Network) (Master class recorded at the University of Pennsylvania)

''The Essential Video Collection'' (2001) (Sony) (DVD/VHS) (Music Video compilation)

''Movin' Out'' (2002), is a musical based on twenty-four Billy Joel songs which was a smash hit on Broadway from 2002 to 2005 (last Broadway show was on December 11, 2005). Joel was composer, lyricist, and orchestrator and won a Tony Award for Best Orchestrations. The musical is really a dance performance choreographed by famed choreographer Twyla Tharp, with Joel's songs sung by Michael Cavanaugh.

''The 2003 Tony Awards'' (Television) (Performed "New York State of Mind")

''The Ellen DeGeneres Show'' (2005) (Television) (Performed "Miami 2017" and "Only the Good Die Young")

''Late Night with Conan O'Brien'' (2005) (NBC) (Performed "Everybody Loves You Now" and "Vienna")

''The Today Show'' (2005) (NBC) (Performed "Keepin' the Faith" and "She's Right on Time")

''The Today Show'' (2006) (NBC) (Performed "The Good Life" with Tony Bennett live)

''The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch'' (2006) (CNBC)

''American Chopper'' (2006) ("The Billy Joel Bike") (Television, DVD)

''Tokyo, Japan'' (2006) (Television, DVD) (Concert was taped and produced by The Fuji Television Network)

''NFL Super Bowl XLI'' (2007) (Joel is the first to sing the National Anthem in two Super Bowls.)

''The Oprah Winfrey Show'' (March 24, 2008) (Appeared with wife, Katie, and performed "Only the Good Die Young")

''The South Bank Show'' (July 13, 2008) (Joel discussed his career)

''The Howard Stern Show'' (November 16, 2010) (Sirius XM) (Interview and musical performance)

See also

List of best-selling music artists

References

External links

Billy Joel – Official Website

Billy Joel at Rolling Stone.com

History of Live Performances by Billy Joel

Interview at TonyAwards.com

Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Category:Grammy Award winners Category:MusiCares Person of the Year Honorees Category:English-language singers Category:American Ashkenazi Jews Category:American pop rock singers Category:American crooners Category:American rock singer-songwriters Category:American pop pianists Category:American rock pianists Category:American people of German-Jewish descent Category:American people of British-Jewish descent Category:American atheists Category:Jewish atheists Category:New York Democrats Category:Musicians from New York Category:People from Long Island Category:People from the Bronx Category:1949 births Category:Living people

bg:Били Джоел da:Billy Joel de:Billy Joel es:Billy Joel fa:بیلی جوئل fr:Billy Joel ga:Billy Joel ko:빌리 조엘 hi:बिली जोएल id:Billy Joel it:Billy Joel he:בילי ג'ואל kn:ಬಿಲ್ಲೀ ಜೋಯಲ್ lt:Billy Joel hu:Billy Joel nl:Billy Joel ja:ビリー・ジョエル no:Billy Joel oc:Billy Joel pl:Billy Joel pt:Billy Joel ro:Billy Joel ru:Джоэл, Билли simple:Billy Joel sk:Billy Joel fi:Billy Joel sv:Billy Joel te:బిల్లీ జోయెల్ th:บิลลี โจเอล tr:Billy Joel uk:Біллі Джоел zh:比利·乔尔