You’ve probably heard of the genre of piano rock – rock music centred around a single piano. Artists that are well known in this category include Elton John, Billy Joel, Ben Folds and Dr. John.
But you may not have heard of duelling piano rock – rock music centred around two pianos. In this case, one piano plays rhythm using both hands, and the other plays lead with both hands.
Duelling piano specialist Jerry Impini talked to us about how he records his music. He said:
“I laid down both parts on my multi-track recorder so that both rhythm and lead can be heard simultaneously on the sound recording in addition to the other instruments (bass, drums, and keyboard banjo) simultaneously as well.
“This is a much fuller and brighter way to hear the piano, very similar to how Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin lays down the rhythm guitar and lead guitars on the sound recordings of Led Zeppelin – only in our song we are using pianos in which to do so.
“If you Google search for duelling piano rock, with the exception of our postings on the internet together there is no other entries. The concept in this original format as a subgenre is completely 100% original.”
You can find out more about duelling pianos here – and more about Jerry on his Bandcamp, Spotify and YouTube pages.