Duelling piano playing growing in popularity

from http://www.star-ecentral.com/news/story.asp?file=/2009/3/11/music/3441268&sec=music

Duelling piano playing, lest you don’t know, is growing in popularity in the United States, according to Dueling Pianos Kansas City (http://duelingpianoskc.com/). Just what is a duelling piano player?

Apparently, one has to have some serious credentials including natural abilility (you can play by ear), humour (you must be funny), a wide and varied knowledge of music (you know every song ever written, well most of them), the ability to read an audience (you can look out at your audience and decide what genre and era of songs to play, as well as what comedy rating to use) and you must be able to generate tips.

Duelling pianos is based upon random requests from the audience and one has no script to get through the performance. A duelling pianist like Matt Giraud, does however, usually possess a large songbook – with lots of lyrics. Even though he may have the talent to pick out the melody to a strange song, he may not know the correct lyrics – thus, the lyric book comes in handy.