Piano

It's all about Piano. At least it has been in my life for about 42 years. I started playing piano at 8 years old. It seems hard to believe that a generation has passed, I am the father of one in College, and two in High School, and the Husband of a beautiful girl for 25 years (in Feb. 2007). My how the time flies. But, other than the routine of family and earning a living, my days, every day, have been involved in one way or another with the Piano. There were piano lessons for 17 years, and during those years, piano accompaniment for both Church and High School Chorus and small groups. Then touring the country performing Inspirational Concerts over and over, trying to keep it fresh every day. Then recording albums beginning in 1987. Then selling those albums, here there and everywhere. And then along came the Internet, and mp3.com and downloads, and web domains, and online streaming, and web hosting. But it's all been wrapped around the piano in one way or another. Up to this point for about 8 years, my website has the title, John Troutman Piano Instrumental Music, but today, I gave it a new name, simply, "Piano". Because, that should be the focus for a beautiful instrument that pervades so many areas of my life. So hopefully in the future when you search for John Troutman in Google, you will find me under the heading "Piano".

Pachelbel Canon In D Original Sheet Music Arrangement

If you have been to more than one wedding chances are you have heard the time-honored Classical piece by Johann Pachelbel, Canon In D. The song is traditionally played by a string quartet or ensemble, but it has been arranged for myriads of other instruments.
A Favorite artist of mine is George Winston. He takes classical and songs from other musical genres and puts a new-age George Winston flair on it for some of the most wonderful recordings you can imagine. With that in mind, I recorded Pachelbel's Canon "a la George Winston" "a la John Troutman Piano arrangement". I recorded the song in 1994 and have been barraged with requests to transcribe the piece into sheet music. And so about 12 months ago, the work was completed. Here is a link to an excerpt of the Pachelbel Canon Sheet Music arr. by John Troutman. That's me. I would love to hear your feedback at johntroutman@yahoo.com.

Silent Night - Lyrics & History

The song “Silent Night” is a favorite at Christmas Time. And there are many stories that are told about how this peaceful song has affected people from many walks of life. One such story is told of soldiers on a German battlefield on a pitch dark night during WWII. It was in the middle of a heated Gun-Battle and out of the darkness was heard a lone voice singing “Silent Night – in German” – then more German soldiers joined the Chorus, then American Soldiers joined in .....and for about 10 minutes you could hear Silent Night in German and in English all across the valley. And then it stopped and for a moment there was peace on the Battlefield. It was quite a phenomenon – and even more so considering there were similar reports in France, Holland, and Italy. .... Perhaps you know the story of Joseph Mohr in Austria who wrote the poem Silent Night and collaborated with his friend Franz Gruber who added music to the poem. As the story goes, the Church Organ was broken and could not be used for the premiere performance of this legacy song, therefore the two performed the song with the accompaniment of an acoustic guitar.

Inspirational Hymns for Mother

I started playing the piano when I was only 8 years old. In the beginning there were only 3 finger melodies and basic scales etc. but with a little encouragement from mother (my biggest fan and slave-driver who made me get up at 5 AM every morning to practice), soon I was playing 10 finger songs that made mom feel like she was in heaven. Oh how she loves music. Mom is a very devout spiritual person. And she has spent her life, giving to, caring for and serving others, as the Good Book would lead us to do. So of course, she loved spiritual melodies and hymns. And I began to learn to play the hymns, one by one. And she would encourage me to keep learning. Day after Day. Soon I was playing consecutively through our Church Hymnal almost for recreation. I found soon that Inspirational Hymns were my love as well, and many encouraged me to record an Album. So finally I did. I recorded my first CD about 15 years ago (back then it was a Cassette Tape) but in a couple of years, we converted it to CD. Not long after I recorded the album, it was picked up by a conservative radio network, and has been on their active playing roster for well over 10 years. In fact, a few weeks ago while driving around the city, I heard one of my piano hymns on 2 consecutive days, on our local affiliate station. And often I hear from friends in many States that they heard one of my songs. But, I just love to play the music. So I started a website johntroutman.com to distribute some free music every day to people all around the world. And what do you know, it worked. To date there have been over 400 Thousand songs (mostly inspirational hymns) downloaded from the website over the past 7 years.

But I have a lofty goal. I want to record music in every style and make it available on my website because I find that good quality Piano Renditions of favorite songs are just plain hard to find. There are only a handful of artists that do this well. My favorite is Richard Clayderman. Over the years I have enjoyed the music of Ferrante & Teicher and Liberace and Roger Williams. I would like some day to join them as I have great respect for their music.

But my inspiration from the beginning was my mother. And this past weekend I had a chance once again to sit down and play a song for her, and she simply melted as only a mother can do. You know a mother loves her children unconditionally. And I always felt the support for my music even when it was "in the rough". Because she could see, with the eyes of faith, what the music could be some day and how it could be a blessing to many.

So Mom, you have inspired me once again.