Fred Astaire - Is he really playing the piano

[suzyq]

In the movie Let's Dance, Fred Astaire plays the piano.  Is he really playing the piano? 

It's hard to tell sometimes.  Let's Dance, is a fun movie with Doris Day

[eyeresist]

I don't think I've seen Let's Dance, although I enjoy both Fred and Doris. I think Fred could play piano, but maybe not to a professional standard.

[suzyq]

Netflix Instantplay - I think that's what it's called.  Came across the movie by chance. 


I was surprised to see him playing the piano.

[Szykneij]

It looks to me like he's definitely playing, starting around 1:50 of this YouTube clip (sorry I can never get YouTube videos to post.) It makes me cringe, though, when he kicks the crap out of those instruments!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF55Q9TwuCY

[Scarpia]

It looks to me like he's definitely playing, starting around 1:50 of this YouTube clip (sorry I can never get YouTube videos to post.) It makes me cringe, though, when he kicks the crap out of those instruments!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF55Q9TwuCY

I've read that he could play the piano   But in musical numbers in those old movies I believe it was standard practice to synchronize the film with an audio track that was recorded separately.

[Szykneij]

I've read that he could play the piano   But in musical numbers in those old movies I believe it was standard practice to synchronize the film with an audio track that was recorded separately.

If that was done, they did an incredible job because his fingers, the piano hammers, and the music are all in perfect sync.

[Scarpia]

If that was done, they did an incredible job because his fingers, the piano hammers, and the music are all in perfect sync.

It's not that complicated.  They play the audio track as they film the scene and he plays along with it.  He doesn't have to get the notes right, he just has to get the rhythm right to make it look convincing.   The one passage where you can really see what is being played is a closeup where you can't see his face, and which I suspect is not Astaire.  The posture of the person in that close-up is nothing like Astaire. 

To record the music that on the sound stage with multiple cuts to different camera angles would be much, much more complicated.  And would they really record the score of a film on a piano that Astaire has been stamping on with his tap-shoes?

[Szykneij]

It's not that complicated.  They play the audio track as they film the scene and he plays along with it.  He doesn't have to get the notes right, he just has to get the rhythm right to make it look convincing.   The one passage where you can really see what is being played is a closeup where you can't see his face, and which I suspect is not Astaire.  The posture of the person in that close-up is nothing like Astaire. 

To record the music that on the sound stage with multiple cuts to different camera angles would be much, much more complicated.  And would they really record the score of a film on a piano that Astaire has been stamping on with his tap-shoes?

Well, it could be (and probably is) overdubbed, but watching the correct hammers hit the bass notes precisely with the music as well seeing the perfect timing and accuracy of the right hand chords, I'm sure Fred was actually playing the music during the take, even if a different audio was used for the film.  (Starting at 1:50, the piano keys, hammers, and Fred's face and hands are all clearly visible simultaneously.)

[Szykneij]

Hmmm ... IMDb doesn't mention Fred's piano playing in "Let's Dance", but it credits Betty Hutton as the female lead and doesn't list Doris Day.

[Luke]

No, he's not playing any of that. Nor is the 'real' pianist seen in the first half of the clip. Hands are in the wrong places, and aren't moving when and where they should, for starters. It's very good 'hand choreography' of course (and foot choreography too), but it's not for real. It's possible that the close-up of of 'Fred's' hands is playing the right notes (when I freeze-framed it looked like the notes being played matched the chords I could hear), but I still don't think it is actually what we are hearing, which was pretty certainly recorded separately.

[StephenC]

I've read that he could how to play piano   But in musical numbers in those old movies I believe it was standard practice to synchronize the film with an audio track that was recorded separately.

Indeed. In movies, it is really hard to distinguish if someone is really playing an instrument like in this movie, which is a piano, but I agree that any musical rendition is recorded separately and just synchronized upon editing the film or movie.

[retrosho]

This is about two years too late, but the answer is...a qualified "absolutely!"

Fred Astaire not only wrote the interlude you see him playing on the small upright piano in "Let's Dance" (he's credited as composer on the original Paramount music cue sheets) but also pre-recorded the track.

The qualification - he mimed his own playing for the camera.

This was standard practice, as the ambient sound from "live" pickup would not have matched correctly. Classical musicians who landed numbers in mainstream Hollywood musicals also mimed to their own pre-recorded tracks, whether vocal or instrumental. You can readily hear this in virtually all "Golden Age" movie musicals as they switch from dialogue (recorded on-set) to musical numbers (pre-recorded) and back again. The tools to pull off something like the recent "live-on-set" performances of the "Les Miserables" film simply were not available at the time. In "Let's Dance," it's definitely Astaire synching to his own playing.

If you hear Astaire's opening piano chorus on his 1952 recording of "Not My Girl," his syncopated, 1920s-influenced sound sounds a great deal like the solo in "Let's Dance." In the few recordings I've heard of Astaire at the piano, his style consistently evokes the general approach of his good friend and colleague George Gershwin (at least the Gershwin we know from the English Columbia recordings of c. 1926-28).

Other film numbers where Astaire plays his own piano on *and* off screen include "I've Got My Eyes on You" (in "Broadway Melody of 1940") and "I Won't Dance" (in "Roberta," although I understand that Hal Borne plays along with Fred on the pre-recorded track for a fuller four-hand sound).

In a reversal of the miming procedure, Astaire (along with Gene Kelly, the Nicholas Bros. and every other screen dancer in Hollywood) were obliged to go back into the studio, watch their film performances, and redub their own tap sounds for clean, crisp sound pickup - and this practice also dates from at least the mid-1930s on.