London, United Kingdom (Top40 Charts/ Great Scores Official Website) International digital sheet music retailer Great Scores today announced the publication of special piano arrangements of three of Ben Folds' greatest tracks.
"It has always been difficult for customers to find solo piano arrangements of
Ben Folds songs. Most of the scores available are so called PVG (piano/vocal/guitar) arrangements. This is great if you can play the piano and sing at the same time, and happen to have the same vocal register as Ben", says Lincoln Jaeger, chief arranger at Great Scores. "But most customers just want to play a piano version, and often the piano part in the PVG arrangement is just the piano accompaniment that Ben plays on the recording. Now this in itself can be quite tricky to play, but without the melody it sounds unfulfilling. Hence we decided to make special solo piano sheet music arrangements of the tracks Army, Cologne and Theme From Dr. Pyser, that work entirely on their own. It can be quite tricky to arrange, as Ben's piano parts are rather involved, but it is great fun to do and the end result is brilliant fun to play," concludes Lincoln Jaeger. Great Scores already offers a wide repertoire of
Ben Folds scores, so this will fit in well alongside the existing
Ben Folds sheet music. The new arrangements will be offered in flash download format, so there is no need to install the Scorch plugin.
Why did Great Scores choose these three tracks specifically? "Well, Army is, in a way, one of Ben's greatest hits, if not the greatest hit of his career. He always tends to play it towards the end of a concert, and gets the whole audience involved by singing the horn parts - it's brilliant fun if you've ever had the good fortune to go to one of his gigs" says Jaeger. "The Theme from Dr Pyser has actually never been published in sheet music format, and it is the most amazing rip-roaring piano piece, a favourite amongst the
Ben Folds aficionados. It is only available on the anniversary edition of the Album "Whatever and Ever Amen". "Cologne is a very recent composition of Ben's, and is very different in style as it deals with separation and the pain and loss that goes with it, yet it is a bitter-sweet piano ballad. The piano orchestra version especially has all these great piano lines, so although it was a great challenge to try and fit them into one solo piano arrangement, it begged to be done. We're very pleased with the end result," concludes Lincoln Jaeger. The company also plans to add their usual youtube videos to accompany these great arrangements, which will help the customer master the trickier sections of the arrangements. With the exception of The Theme from Dr Pyser the other two tracks have several arrangements tiered by level of difficulty, offering the customer an even wider choice.
Cologne was originally released on the album Way To Normal (2008), and later on and Stems and Seeds (2009). Theme From Dr Pyser was released on the remastered edition of Whenever and Ever Amen (2005), and Army was released on the album The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner (1999).
About Great Scores
Great Scores is a digital sheet music website with a catalogue of over 48,000 arrangements. Using both the Sibelius Scorch plug-in and Adobe Flash for score preview, the website is accessible in no less than 10 languages, making it the most international sheet music website to date.
