Tag Archives: Gifts

Somewhere Over the Rainbow/Simple Gifts Piano/Cello Cover – The Piano Guys

Download the MP3 for FREE here: thepianoguysfreestuff.com (limited time only) Support us by downloading this song at one of the following links Our site: thepianoguys.com iTunes – itunes.apple.com Amazon.com – www.amazon.com SUBSCRIBE to our YOUTUBE Channel here: www.youtube.com Follow ThePianoGuys here: www.thepianoguys.com Facebook www.facebook.com Twitter: twitter.com Story behind the song: Jon Schmidt and Steven Sharp Nelson were booked for a Piano Guys show in Hawaii. How could we resist filming our next video in the land of Aloha — beautiful beaches, green mountains, and fresh pineapple?? We went to our Founders and Facebook fans to ask what song they wanted us to play there. “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” was the nearly-unanimous response. But you know how we are … we couldn’t “just” do this tune by itself…so in the studio we found a made-in-heaven matchup in the timeless melody from the Shaker Hymn “Simple Gifts” written in the 1800’s (also used by Aaron Copland in his Ballet “Appalachian Spring”). We feel it’s an especially appropriate mash-up because of our profound love and respect for the Hawaiian culture — a people who are so good at finding happiness in simplicity. As you probably could hear we borrowed a lot of ideas from Iz’s version which has become the stuff of legend. This arrangement is, in part, a tribute to him. Getting a piano onto a sandy beach and then onto a big hill in a famous ranch within the SAME day (we only had 8 hours to film) was no