Had a student want to learn this wonderful piece on piano. Originally it was written for, well, a harmonium by the Penguin Cafe Orchestra, but why not play it on a piano?

I can’t recall the first time I heard this piece, but certainly it makes me remember the last scene in the movie Napoleon Dynamite. That arrangement by Patrick Street is for guitar, accordion, and violin, and sounds great.

I spent some time making a simple arrangement for piano, and I think it also works pretty well. A couple things that make this piece a little challenging, but fun, for the pianist: One is the repeated notes that frequent the page, and our fingers (as seen in the last 3 notes of each measure below).

What works for me is keeping the thumb on the D and using the 2nd finger, or maybe the 3rd, to restrike that same D. The initial response from most students encountering this motion is that it feels quite unnatural, or weird. But by being light and quick, and actually using the action of the keyboard to “pop” or “lift” the finger off the key, one can, with some practice, get the motion to be fluid and accurate.

Another thing that confuses students about this piece and others like it is the time signature of 2/2. “Isn’t that just the same as 4/4?” they ask? “It looks just the same on the page?”

What really makes 2/2 different is that there are only 2 beats per measure, not 4. Why this matters is because the “feel” of the music changes drastically when you are forced to count 4 beats each measure, especially with faster music. By reducing the number of beats to 2 per measure, we get a nice, even, bouncy, maybe even danceable feel to the music. If we tried to squeeze 4 beats in there, well, it’d get a little too rigid, to strict, and a little harder to follow.

Main point is, with faster music, 2/2 can produce a feel that you can tap your toes to. If it were 4/4, you might get some shin splints trying to get your toes to tap that fast.

Nonetheless, here’s the arrangement in a downloadable .pdf. Just like with any arrangement, there is some artistic freedom. So feel free to comment, make changes, suggestions, or ask questions! Thanks for reading!