there s an element of alchemy in making music. almost a sorcery or a magic that, i don t necessarily understand, but i know that it moves me. i seen the lights go out on broadway i saw the empire state laid low and life went on beyond the palisades they all bought cadillacs and left there long ago to tell the world about the way the lights went out and keep the memory alive it s all these human emotions. for some reason, we can tap into that, musicians. when we came up with this idea of doing a series of in-depth interviews with really extraordinary people, we started thinking about whom we should try to get, and whom we should ask. and we thought about the usual political figures, obama, the dalai lama. and i kept coming back to the idea, of interviewing the person i really wanted to interview, and that was billy joel. and the reason is that i ve been in love with his music ever since i was a teenager growing up in india. billy joel has been a
broadway i saw the empire state lay low life went on beyond the palisades they all bought cadillacs left there long ago to tell the world about the way the light went out to keep the memory alive it s all these human emotions. for some reason we can tap into that as musicians. when we came up with this idea of doing this series of in-depth interviews with really extraordinary people we started thinking about whom we should try to get and whom we should ask. and we thought about the usual political figures, obama, the dali lama. and i come back to the idea of interviewing the person i really wanted to interview, and that was billy joel. and the reason is i ve been in love with his music ever since i was a teenager growing up in india. billy joel has been a rockstar for five decades. today he keeps up his nearly ten-yearlong residency at madison square garden playing the piano and belting out the lyrics that so many fans adore. he s sold more than 150 million reco
off we go to music land learn by eye and hear and hand so, when you were taking piano lessons, and your mom s in the next room, and you re doing piano practice and you re meant to be doing a mozart sonata yeah. what would you actually do? well, i would start to learn the piece, so i got a feel for, you know, how it should go, say the mozart sonata in c. and then the next part is the, but i wouldn t play that because, it was a lot of notes there.
Played wait a minute, i ll show you this. my daughter has the same book. i m plugging this shamelessly. the john thompson piano course, book 1. first grade book. john thompson, music for piano. the first piece i learned was called believe it or not off we go to music land. do you remember it? yes. can you play it without looking at it? here it is. okay, and it goes like this. and it even has words. off we go to music land learn by eye and ear and hand so when you were taking piano lessons and your mom s in the next room and you re doing piano practice and you re meant to be doing a mozart sonota, what