So – here are ten questions on Piano Man – you’ll have to listen to it to figure out the answers. Some knowledge of music is required, though not for every question. Submit your answers (see below) and the winner gets a free one-month subscription for a person of their choice to my online tuition website.
And there are no trick questions!
- Assuming there are 3 businessmen, how many people feature in the lyrics of the song?
- How many verses in the song? E.g. – Verse 1 is this length – It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday, the regular crowd shuffles in. There’s an old man sitting next to me, makin’ love to his tonic and gin.
- How many choruses in total in the song (Sing us a song you’re the piano man etc)?
- How many instruments feature in the song? Can you name them?
- What was unusual about this song being a hit?
- The lyrics of Verse 2 (and many of the other verses) are very similar in structure to a limerick. Not quite the same however. What is the major difference?
- In what key is the song?
- The melody of the chorus features all but 1 note of the scale related to this key. Which note is missing?
- How many times does the famous piano riff (0:23-0:27) occur in the song altogether?
- Assuming there are 6 beats in a bar (6/8 time sig), how many bars from the beginning of the piano solo (3:26) to the beginning of the following chorus (3:42).
If you enjoyed these, you should know that every Monday on my online tuition website I publish a Weekly Challenge – 6 questions of varying degrees of difficulty about a particular song.
This week’s song is Piano Man, but I feature a different song each week. You can find all 18 Weekly Challenges published so far here.
To enter the competition, email your answers to kieran@kieranquinn.ie.
I will be live on Wednesday at 6pm on my Kieran Quinn Music Facebook Page where I will go through the answers to these questions and announce the winner of the free subscription.
