Soon One Of Roy Zu-Arets’s Piano Improvisation Videos Will Become A YouTube Hit

August 18th, 2009 jay View comments0 Comments

I have known Roy Zu-Arets since our sons attended the same day care a few years ago. Since then I have been closely following his unique journey in life which includes music, Judaism and a constant struggle of a musician trying to make it big.

After all, it is not easy to do what he is trying to do given his background. He started playing piano at the age of 3 and began his professional music career at the age of 12 (!). In his early twenties he was already a busy music producer, composer and pianist in Israel. He played with many artists, produced mega hit records and concerts like Rita’s “A Great Love” 4 times platinum album and tour, HaYehudim (The Jews) debut album called “Separate Reality”, one of Meir Banai’s albums and many others including Guy Zu-Aretz (his brother) upcoming album. He wrote scores for movies and theater and had a successful and busy career in the Israeli music industry. But then he decided leave everything behind and went after his dream – move to the US to become a musician in the premier league. He first spent a few years in New York where he attend Julliard & Mannes music academies, and then he moved to Los Angeles where he is trying break into the small, close group of Hollywood movies score writers. In the mean time, he is slowly establishing impressive milestones n the US which including producing Taking Back Sunday’s “Where you want to be?” platinum album, and writing MacHeads soundtrack, but he has not gotten to work on a really big movie since in Hollywood it is very difficult for a “nobody” to become “somebody”.

This might change though, very soon, thanks to the way he uses YouTube to share his talent, music and work process with the masses. Every morning, as part of his warm-up, he improvises melodies based on his mood and feelings. None of these melodies were composed before and he does not memorize notes – he “simply” plays the melody that is going in his head at that very moment. His studio neighbors, owners of a video production company, heard him play and suggested to video tape those short improvisations and publish them to YouTube as part of a documentary series called “Confessions of a Composer”. The videos are recorded using two iPhone 3GS phones, the sound is recorded separately using Roy’s studio equipment (thus the high quality), and then they mix and edit everything to a short video clip that gets posted to YouTube. This entire process happens 5 days a week, Mon-Fri.

I predict that it is just a matter of time until one of Roy’s improvisation videos will become a major hit on YouTube. Naturally, the variation on a popular songs tend to get more traffic and views (probably not enough views given the quality of these videos), like Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours” (see embed below), Michael Jackson’s Earth Song and Black Eyed Peas – I Gotta Feeling. But the improvisations are even more fascinating to watch, as they truly show his qualities as a composer and pianist.

From what I have gathered from Roy, the amount of feedback he has been getting after a few weeks of daily videos submissions is unbelievable. This includes comments, ratings and many emails from YouTube viewers from all over the world. More than that, a well known Hollywood director who stumbled upon one of his videos and loved it, already came to meet Roy at his Hollywood studio.

So, here are two video clips that illustrate how talented and versatile he is. My recommendation is to subscribe to his channel as well as go back and watch all the videos uploaded since the project began on July 13th. You will get a daily injection of heavenly and inspiring music from such an extraordinary & gifted talent.

Will Celebs Ruin Web Video for the Rest of Us?

If this was a US Weekly article, the headline would read “Stars! They’re just like us! They make web shows!” Speaking at a conference yesterday, Greg Johnson, SVP, ECD and head of digital at William Morris Endeavor, told the crowd to expect more celeb-studded content coming down the digital pike. paidContent reports Johnson as saying:

“Historically, there were huge barriers to actors or artists that wanted to form companies and actually create their own content. But with digital distribution and platforms like Facebook for games, video networks for original series—there’s less of a need for huge investments of capital—so these artists can get into production and be profitable very quickly.”

Hollywood poking its head into the world of web video is nothing new. Will Ferrell’s Funny or Die is basically a repository for celebrity viral videos. Ashton Kutcher is behind Blah Girls. And just this week, Heroes star Milo Ventimiglia’s DiVide Pictures partnered with Generate to create branded entertainment targeting young males.

Why does this matter? Well, if you’re an independent creator, it’s going to become even harder to get sponsorship money to finance your projects. As we wrote last month, advertisers want to put money where they know (or hope, at least) audiences will be. Having a celeb associated with your production is one way to do that.

The influx of Hollywood could mean that homegrown “web stars” truly will be like us. No one will know who they are because viewers are too busy watching Ashton Kutcher’s latest series.

"Earth Song" Michael Jackson Tribute - Piano: Roy Zu-Arets