Interesting how the bells’ inharmonics tend to turn complex harmonies into a mess, but give richness and interest to simple harmonies. Btw I bet the Harry Potter theme would sound great!
I mean, anything written for celesta or glockenspiel would work pretty well on a toy piano, as they're very similar, as long as you could make the ranges work. Same with carillon or tubular bells. Really, anything metallic and bell-like in timbre will probably translate to toy piano well.
Yes, Harry Potter theme would work great. Not surprising as it's also played with a "bell like sound" in the original. Especially the "Nutcracker" from Tchaikovsky reminded me of Harry Potter.
I think it's largely down to how the melodies are arranged. For example, the tremolo in Swan Lake was the big offender there; if the accompaniment were simpler - perhaps single notes outlining alternately the bassline/5th - I suspect it would have been more successful. The melody is, after all, commonly heard in music boxes which aren't dissimilar.
Not to discredit how amazing all the picks were but I was hoping to hear Rach… then I realized literally one chord of his would cover the entire piano. Cute video, Nahre. I love how different tunes flowed with the piano.
I liked the Nutcracker best. Surprising how some of these pieces sound OK and others do not. I think it also has to do with the dynamic range - the toy piano really plays at only one volume and you can't really play soft and loud 🎹 I have that same little Yamaha keyboard you have (Reface CP) which also has a toy piano sound.
Yes, this one was great and it reminded me a lot of the Harry Potter theme (not surprising cause of the sound). I disagree on Clair de Lune having only a D, I'd given at least a B, it's beautiful.
It's so interesting how some pieces really kind of worked and seemed to take on a new aspect 😀 I want the Carmen Overture Ice Cream truck to swing by my neighborhood
The Bach Fugue was most effective to me, it made the best of the magical percussion of the toy. All of the slow pieces were the worst - the lack of sustain on the little toy piano really hurts those slow pieces like Clair de Lune.
Using Nahre's tiered grading system: - Nahre's facial expressions while playing each piece = S - Nahre's sitting positions (especially the 'asian squat') while playing each piece = A - Toy piano having a line-out jack = A - The probability that Nahre's mom wants to hear Mendelsson's Wedding March theme played in a church with Nahre walking down the aisle = S The songs that Nahre put in the S tier category sound like perfect music box song choices. 👍
8:45 Clair de lune was S for me, the timbre of the toy piano gave it an additional nostalgic and yearning feeling, kind of like remembering your childhood in times of hardship. But this is all subjective anyways :)
I'd give the Paganini and the Beethoven both an "S" - Great percussive/rhythmic clarity--especially with your attack. I think the toy piano adds a very interesting texture to the music. IMHO
Hey, Nahre. Just want to tell you I heard a composition of yours on our Canadian national broadcasting service (CBC radio). For me that is a big deal so congratulations.
@@MNeathway Sorry, I was station hopping in my car and just heard the last bit of her composition and the radio host after saying who it was and the composition's title. I believe the show is a Toronto, lunch time one.
@@NahreSol Looking at the piano and thinking back to this episode and what the insides of the tiny piano might look like ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-OpCpBWdl-ic.html I imagined you saying to the guy in the video: Hey Damon I have a new piano I'd like you to overhaul; and then his expression when he sees it
My eyes immediately fixed on that output jack! This could be an interesting platform to explore some effects processing in pedals, software, or even through your Arturia synth if you're so inclined. Lovely video as always, thanks for spending your time educating and entertaining us all!
What I find interesting about this is how the limited dynamics/articulation really changes which lines sound prominent and which don't. Suddenly I heard fragments in the music that I have never really paid attention to, even though I heard some of these pieces a thousand times. That being said, I really liked the Pachelbel. It sounded a bit like a music box making it quite happy instead of dreadful and boring.
Reminds me of Schroeder from the Peanuts comic strip. I like how you played it while sitting on the floor rather than putting the piano up on a table. I'd love to see more of this. Some ideas: Maple Leaf Rag (Joplin) Gymnopedie No. 1 (Debussy) Pavane (Faure) Theme from The Third Man (Karas) Theme from the movie Fargo (Burwell) Gavotte en rondeau from Violin Partita No. 3 (Bach)
I feel sorry for the hamsters, but I'm still laughing at their graduation 😂... Chip'n'Chop would be delighted. I mostly agree with your list. Hamster graduation and marriage sounded great, and Mario was in his element with this toy sound. The moment you mentioned the ice-cream truck, I couldn't imagine anything else.
Super Mario was defo my fave followed by grieg 'in the hall of the mountain king'. The kids went crazy for Baby Shark (no surprises there). Also, I thought ride of the valkyrie was pretty nice too
Claire de Lune sounded like one of those wind-up music boxes for toddlers, towards the end of the run, when you don't know which note will be the last one. Kind of hard to squeeze into two octaves, but I think ragtimes would also work. Also Scarlatti.
I think it would be very interesting to see you try making some original composition for the toy piano! I'm curious how you would approach the instrument and all its limitations in trying to make something specifically for it.
Nacre you are delight to the ear ! This should be shown in every school room. It would be a wonderful way to disarm the intimidating world of music education. And a special thank you for the Nutcracker excerpt... a rare joy from everybody's favorite instrument !
Interesting experiment. Speaks volumes of your musical talent to fit these melodies into two octaves and still make it work. The smile on your face: like a kid in a candy store - totally contagious. What a fun video.
I found Grieg's "In The Hall of the Mountain King" Tchaikovsky's "Dance of The Sugar Plum Fairy" were most effective for me, and William's "Jaws Theme" to be least effective. I think that the Jaws theme needs to be in a low range to have the effect of the original. Glad to see the full version of this after seeing the wonderful Instagram short! I can't wait to see what other shorts become full length RU-vid videos!
I could have watched this all day. Sometimes I have trouble finding stuff on RU-vid when I'm chewing on coffee beans after the sun comes up and THIS..was perfect.
Nahre, just so you know, your little smile while playing give me life, and i'm currently struggling with mine right now. I didn't expect that when come to this video, but i'm glad i clicked it. Thank you...and now i'm gonna go support your channel... Once again, thank you...
Thank you for having exactly the sounds I was looking for when I randomly googled "toy piano music." I needed a comparison to demonstrate that things had just gone completely silly, and this fit perfectly!
This reminds me of the many times I tried to play music not arranged for flute on my flute. It feels really weird when the music goes below the flute's range.
OMG that's the exact toy piano I bought for my kids from a garage sale back in the 90s! I've still got it sitting just a few feet from my desk, everybody loves it and you're doing it great justice! Although now I feel the need to keep up and add a pickup.
It really comes across how much fun you had making this video! Either from your commentary or your facial expressions or your body language while playing. Every video you put out musically inspires me in some way. This time I’ve got to listen to Chopin “Raindrops” and take away some melodic / rhythmic elements from that in my own ideas. Thanks for the great videos always
This was amazing! Your facial expressions were great, 😂 and a surprising amount of the pieces still work! Would love to see more of this if you wanted to make this a recurring idea 🙂
I’d imagine the Christmas-y melodies faired well because the toy piano is similar to Bells which are used heavily in Christmas music. Even full on bell covers!
Awesome video! The Bach fugue was my favourite. Good counterpoint will sound great, no matter the instrument. I also think that using a piece written for celesta is a little bit cheating :)
When my cousin was a baby 30 years ago she had a music box where you would pull a string and then it played the melody, I remember I opened it up one day to see how it works and I was amazed at how elegant the mechanism was. I wish I remember the melody, I think it was Bach’s Minuet.
Totally nuts... but delightful! The Bach C minor fugue ,for instance, reminded me of a Victorian music box. It would have been interesting to hear a Toy Piano VST used which covered the required octaves for all the pieces.
OH! I started out hearing this in a different register, and didn't zero in on the lower fundamental until half way through the first Mozart piece! Brains are so weird and cool!
The wedding march was a big surprise, but there were several that sounded like a wind-up toy coming to its sad end. I don’t know the right term, but not being able to sustain or hold notes seems to be a huge hindrance. Pretty fun, and the people at Jaymar must be stunned to hear one of those things played like that.
Yann Tiersen has a lot of music using Toy Pianos! It's kind of a signature for his music :D Specially his oldest works, search them up!! Btw, I NEED A FULL VERSION OF LIBERTANGO IN TOY PIANO, SOUNDS IMPRESSIVELY BEAUTIFUL
Ah curious about how you feel about "Toreador" from Carmen! It got a bunch of recognition in the gaming world a couple years ago because it got used in Five Nights at Freddies but played on a toy piano/toy box. Worked real well in the horror setting of the game.
It’s really interesting that is chords and harmony that sounds weird to me but the single note lines sounds excellent, something about the decay of the notes make many of the chords sound off somehow.
It might be because the harmonics of bells are radically different to most other instruments (e.g. a prominent minor third) so chords that normally sound pleasing can sound very off
This is such a great ode to classical music’s role in our common culture and human experience from movies to video games to the pomp and circumstance of weddings and graduations!
Nice job !! Thanks for posting. I like that you fit so many samples into only 11.5 minutes. Mostly music, little talk.... Tone is SO variable amongst toy pianos. Yours had lots of overtones ~~~ a strip of felt or foam might have changed the results mightily ~~~
Hi Nahre, I've always wondered, do you listen to "modern" classical music meaning the composers are still alive? If so, could you enumerate some of them? Thanks for all you do!
@@alexaben6299 well maybe you have to listen more. Classics are what they are because they're filtered by the time, only great ones are preserved. We just don't have a standard repertoire when it comes to contemporary serious music because we are the filter ourselves who are responsible for the musical tradition. And there is indeed superb contemporary music from my own experience, even being selective and spoiled by the great tradition of classical music. Most of them really suck, as was the case in any period of human history. But you can fibd the real ones. You just have to spend alot of time and, in some cases, money because some of them can only be heard at special concerts.
@@alexaben6299 I mean, since you're on her channel, have you listened to Nahre's original compositions? As far as I know she considers herself a classical composer. They're really enjoyable IMO.
My thought is that anything that will work on harpsichord will work, and anything that requires sustain will fail. Also the tuning is so poor that anything with dense chords will fail spectacularly.
I thought this is going to be a quick light video, but then Nahre made it into a seriously interesting video that makes you think about these pieces in a new and original way. Very nice.
I play Hungarian Rhapsody #2, the intro to Pictures at an Exhibition, and a few other things I can't remember at the moment. I also have an original composition that a local composer wrote for my Jaymar.
This is an interesting case study on the differing use/importance of note-spacing, legato, chord-voicings and their relative "geometry" within harmony-progression as well as timbre in the aesthetics of different pieces. Also - it's a really cute instrument, plus "... and now the hamsters are getting married" kinda made my morning 😊
Always a pleasure to discover your original and very interesting videos on piano and musician culture. This one is definitely unlikely ! Thanks for this light and funny moment ! 😊
My fav is CDL because I can now say my version sounds better than Nahre Sol 's played on my rock jam keyboard , not mentioning the fact Nahre was using a toy piano.🎶😉🤗😃😅
When Nahre said the overture from Carmen sounds like an ice cream truck, I remembered that Emma Watson said on Conan that Rupert Grint bought an ice cream truck -- I suddenly had high hopes that the Harry Potter theme made it on the list so I could imagine that's what Rupert's truck sounds like LOL!
Grieg, Nutcracker & Mario - it is like they were written on this instrument. Loved your impression on Swan Lake. it’s both hilarious and so descriptive )
I really like how bach c minor works on the toy piano despite being rated B(maybe cuz it reminded me of an album of classical pieces that I listened to when I was young in which all the pieces are catchy and have that toy piano sound)and for Nutchcraker if I had not know this is actually toy piano ,I would have thought it's the actual one.My comments might have seemed a little exaggerated ,but it's just my opinion.Good Job.
Super fun! Music with medium-active melody and simple harmony work best. Long notes and chromatic harmony are lost. I bet Bach's Minuet in G would work! Sugar Plum Fairy and In The Hall of the Mountain King were among my favs.
WOW 😳 we were used to play like this in childhood, take known melodies and play in a kids keyboard 🎹 THANKS NAHRe this videos all these old and good memories back 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
