Piano Instrumental Covers
tagStarted 1955Peak 1955–1978Last big hit still active
Located in 1 route
Piano instrumental covers foreground touch, voicing, and sustain pedal rather than orchestral mass, often using grand piano, light rhythm, and discreet strings to keep the tune front and center. The style ranges from cocktail nimbleness to sentimental ballad playing, but it nearly always privileges melodic legibility over jazz complexity.
History
From Roger Williams and Ferrante & Teicher to Peter Nero and Richard Clayderman, piano-led versions of standards, film themes, and pop songs became a durable easy-listening format because the instrument could sound both intimate and glamorous; the substyle migrated smoothly into wedding music, shopping-mall demo pianos, and later new-age-adjacent adult instrumental markets.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- Library of Congress, "Elevator Music"
- Smithsonian Libraries, "Popular instrumental music"
- Joseph Lanza, *Elevator Music*. citeturn7search21turn7search11