This Fake Piano Trend Must Be STOPPED

You forgot a major point : they all spontanously speak English while this is (mostly) taking place in France.

not them straight up using ray on the thumbnail🤣

If they would simply say, "We did this unannounced and recorded the crowd's reaction," it would still work.

If you can fake coincidental ensemble playing slowly, you can fake coincidental ensemble playing quickly.

As a pianist who does perform on streets and never have someone to ask to collab, these fake videos are just ridiculous.

I think the problem isn't the fact that these performances (might be) are staged / planned. It is perfectly fine to play together. But the way they present it and probably tell in the titles and descriptions that they just so happened to come across world-class musicians at times is ridiculous.

I had the misfortune to be at a station in Paris waiting for my train and having to witness the repeated takes taken for fake videos. It’s really annoying as they play the same sections repeatedly and do the same walk on. They have zapped all the joy of having a public piano space and everyone too polite to tell them to stop being so irritating

finally someone is speaking about this. nothing pisses me off like a completely contrived video being played off as a genuine human interaction. it’s completely soulless content that is deceptive for the singular purpose of getting more views. it’s despicable behavior and the people that make those videos should feel ashamed of themselves.

These videos are proof that classical musicians are actually witches and wizards, they can get summoned by a certain melody, they can summon their instruments and a chair, and they can read each others mind. And they magically disabled Twoset's camera to stop them from spilling their secrets 😂

Petition for Ray Chen to upload a reaction video to this!

For the first one I saw a woman on Tiktok complaining about the pianist. She said they stay there for min 2 hours rehearsing and staying on the piano until they're done so no one else could play... It's so sad 😒

Most of these are filmed in Paris, Gare de Lyon. I have to go there quite often, and honestly it is PAINFUL to see them orchestrate and film the whole thing. Not a wholesome music moment overall. More a Tiktok Fame thing... :/

Ray is a relatively young female confirmed

As a classical and improvisational pianist, it is obvious to me this is all faked. If asked if I know a given classical violin piece, and am requested to play along, I will first consider if the piece has a piano part. In most cases where there is none, I will improvise something. If it has a piano part, I will play it; as opposed to these meticulously arranged accompaniment parts. If I "knew" La Campanella, I would play the tune as part of my improvisation, or else I would play an arrangement that most likely contains the tune, rather than kicking out a clearly arranged accompaniment. Unless the piano player had a LOT of experience accompanying solo violinists alone playing classical music (unlikely), they would not be able to formulate arrangements like these on the fly. If these piano players are as good as they make themselves out to be, they would be doing a lot more, or a lot less with their playing. I saw no sign of improvisation, all of these pieces were clearly rehearsed, in fact, I doubt they have any improvisational skills at all. Just as any string player can spot the difference between a violinist and a fiddler, I know when someone is improvising or playing from memory. These people are fake!

They could just say "we collaborated to surprise the audience with a musical flashmob" or something. I don't see why they would need to try to fool their online audience too. Plus if they're open about it being a planned collab they can actually promote their collaborator/friend too.

As a pianist, I don't feel annoyed by those videos, but rather amused. This even if it is fake. I am a French expatriate and when I visit my family, I play on that very same piano at that train station when time allows. My experience playing on that piano: - the bench is tightly attached to the instrument. So tightly that it makes it hard to set it up so that I can play with a good posture. I am a small person and even for me, the maximum distance I can put it is too close. Last Christmas, I even had a hard time to move the bolts to set the bench higher. - the accoustic of room: the piano is located in the last floor, just next to fast-foods and supermarkets. There are tables and chairs where people eat. A few steps away, the regional train stop (you know, old trains that make noise). So imagine the noise. It is quite hard to hear what you play, even forte. When there is less crowd, it is fine but... - the BUT... when I was lucky enough to play in quiet times, I found it out of tune and the state of the damper pedal not so great. This is why when I watch these videos filmed there, I just laugh... or cry. I have played on many public pianos (I won't say "street" because they were in train stations and airport. 1-2 times in a non-music shop). Barely no-one stops to watch what you play. This even happens to professional musicians (see the experiment made with Joshua Bell). Not because of supposedly lack of talent, but because people don't have time. They do their stuffs. I had a few people watching me playing but it was brief. One problem I can find with such video is that people come to believe that a full blown performance, collaboration can just be made up out of the blues, and that it happens every day. No it doesn't because: - To do so, you may need a special permission from the municipality or other authorities: In France, I witnessed once a spontaneous attempt of collaboration between a pianist and violinist, but a security agent came and asked the violinist to put his instrument back. Despite their protest, the guy said that they needed a permission. - Many musicians struggle with some kinds of performance anxiety. A random dude coming to ask to play A,B, C and staying close to the piano would make many feel uneasy. A pianist in this kind of mood would have their intimacy circle bigger than their audience. - In this day and age where everything can be recorded (and used against you), musicians have to be extra careful when playing in public. They have a reputation to maintain. - As you mentioned in the video: rehearsal and improvization skills are not things that one can do at random. Even the best music improvizers and transcriptors need some thinking time and to listen to a song before working on it. Even if they know which song random dude is talking about. Even knowing how to play songs/pieces or having learnt them before, the latter need to be maintained through practice and rehearsals.

"CaN YoU PlaY thE SuMmEr bY VivAlDi?"

I hate this trend. Thanks for Twoset Violin shed a light on this for those who didn't know

There's a huge difference between knowing La Campanella for the piano, and knowing the accompanying arrangement 😂

There is no crowd noise. Those places are very noisy and you can’t hear any background sounds at all. Thanks TwoSet, I was trying to convince a friend this was staged only a few days ago.