[Daren]

I suppose they’re taking a different angle from a lot of the members here, who struggle with the perception of the melodica as a novelty toy instrument.

I think they’re fantastic musicians, who’ve put a lot of work into learning their craft, and into making arrangements of some quite complex orchestral works. I think their performances are expressive, and you can see that they both have experience of playing with orchestras. So, musically speaking, I couldn’t fault them.

In regard to the comic element of the performances, I think it is a valid way of reaching a larger audience. People like to be entertained while listening to music. Is this so bad? I think it becomes a problem when it detracts from the music, but I’m not sure this is the case here. You could listen without watching, and you’d have some great performances.

But back to Gianluca’s original point, “Shall we talk about how heavily edited and overdubbed their videos are, while pretending to be playing live?” I have noticed this, and it is an issue – should you be deceiving your audience? In the classical world (where these two guys actually come from), it might be less acceptable to do this. But on fun, youtube videos, does anybody mind? Probably not – its light hearted entertainment. I suspect though, that if they didn’t overdub and edit, we’d still have some impressive performances. I get the feeling that they’re trying to put out the very best they can.