Favourite Things Friday: Cancelled Due to Snow

Dear beautiful Spring weather, I miss you. Was it something I said? –“Skipper” Kim Corbin

I had a great Favourite Thing planned for today. I've been working on the idea in my head all week and finally figured out how I wanted to do it yesterday. But I was in a hurry when I left for work and forgot my camera. No matter. I could still take photos today, right? Not so much. We woke up to snow. Not just that slushy wet stuff that melts as it hits the ground, but actual snow. Big, fat flakes of wet, heavy, stick-to-the-ground snow. Which makes photographing my favourite for today . . . difficult. Perhaps next week.

Rather than leave you all hanging, I arranged with The Piano Guys to fill in today. They're awesome like that. And they're always a favorite of mine. I have tickets to see them in concert soon. They're playing right here in town. I'm so excited!


Available from The Piano Guys and on iTunes.

From The Piano Guys:
Many people ask why Steve is SO HAPPY when he plays the cello. We followed him around with our cameras on his day off. We think we now understand why...

**NO INSTRUMENTS WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THIS VIDEO** — we used a "stunt" cello for these scenes just in case — and we were really careful out of respect for the instrument. After all the filming, "Jackie" (named after Jackie Chan since he does all his own stunts) only had one minor scratch inflicted by a shopping cart... (this proves the saying that statistically there are more shopping cart accidents than sky diving accidents).

Story behind the song:
This music video was one of our very first ideas as ThePianoGuys. It originated when we were filming "The Cello Song" — the first project that Steven Sharp Nelson, Al van der Beek, Tel Stewart, and Paul Anderson did together (which is also the first time they all MET!). As we were finishing the all-night film session, we starting talking about the many "uses" of the cello and before we knew it we were laughing about how funny it would be to make a movie about "cello bonding" — spending quality time with the cello. We didn't feel like we could ever get away with making this video, but we just couldn't help ourselves . For a while Al and Steve tried to write an arrangement of two Bob Marley tunes for the background of the video. It wasn't flowing, so the project was abandoned for several months. Since the making of "Cello Wars" we haven't really had the opportunity to throw "funny" at our audience. And to be honest, we've missed it. We all love to laugh — especially at ourselves. It keeps the pressure of producing videos every other week bearable...so we revisited this concept, but this time with a new tune — the Turtles "So Happy Together." It fit perfectly. We ended up with a lot more scenes than we could use—some of which we were sad we couldn't fit in. Maybe we'll make an "extended version" one day...

"This video is dedicated to all of my music teachers that taught me to have FUN with music — to let it live and breathe rather than insist it be dead and dissected. As for my other music teachers that didn't teach me to have fun...I'll try to make a video for you some other time." –Steven Sharp Nelson

Filming Locations (in order of appearance)
St. George, Utah:
-(Performance) Main Street Square
-(Dinner) 25 and Main Cafe - Awesome place to eat!
-(Golfing) Ledges Golf Course
-(Grocery Shopping) Lin's Grocery
-(Volleyball) Vernon Worthen Park, St. George
-(Basketball & Sit-ups) The Biggest Loser, Fitness Ridge
-Ocean Buffet Asian-American Cuisine & Hibachi Grill
-(Treadmill & Yoga) The Sumitt
-(Art Museum) Dixie College Delores Echols Fine Arts Building
-(Disco) Go check out this home where we filmed the Disco scene, it will blow your mind with Awesomeness!!
-(Skydive) Skydive Utah
-(Carousel) St. George Rec Center
-(Movie Theatre, Bumper Cars, Arcade) Laser Mania

Special Thanks:
The Dotty's for letting us use their Yellow Tandem bike.
The Neilsons for the use of their home where we filmed the Disco Scene
Will Stucki for the use of the Bass

Credits
"Happy Together" originally written by Garry Bonner & Allan Lee Gordon and performed by The Turtles
Published by EMI Glenwood Music Corp
Arrangement written and produced by Al van der Beek & Steven Sharp Nelson
Performed by:
Steven Sharp Nelson: cellos, percussion, vocals
Al van der Beek: vocals
Recorded, Mixed and Mastered by Al van der Beek at TPG Studios
Video filmed, edited, and produced by Paul Anderson & Tel Stewart
Steve's sky diving stunt man: Phil Liu
Sky diving footage shot by Jeff Agard

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