Repertoire Tips/Help

[superman1980]

Hi,

I have been on a cruise lately and have listened to a cruise ship pianist play in a lounge. I heard him play a piece that started out as a well known Classical piece that slows becoming a Broadway show tune then a Classical or pop piece. I'm wondering if you guys can help me find the score for these types of pieces. Feel free to respond either to this post directly or PM me.

Thanks, superman1980

[pianoman1349]

Maybe this will help ...

A lot of the times, the cruise pianist will not actually have medleys written out, but a series of different classical/pop/theatre tracks that they have infront of them, which they later join together with a improvised segue.  This is actually quite common, especially if you play in lounges or play pre-concert background music ... you often find yourself playing these mega-medleys of various things that you join with an improvised segue. 

One of my favorite transitions involve connecting anything that ends of a solid I chord transitioning to the Phantom of the Opera theme ... It's really effective and popular in general.

[superman1980]

pianoman1349, thank you for your quick reply! However, I'm not a very good improviser. Do you know any scores or pieces of music I could refer to?

[pianoplayer51]

I have been to piano bars where the pianist plays a variety of different pieces of music and there is no break in between.  For instance they play one piece and the next rolls right into the end of the first piece and so on.  That is a skill in itself and you need patience