Most marathoners don’t spend an inordinate amount of time watching The Lion King, but Matt Grinke is no ordinary marathoner.
The Friday Night Live fixture is getting set to play piano 24 consecutive hours of notes beginning Friday at 7 p.m. at Lynn Valley United Church.
“I’ve been wanting to play piano for 24 hours for years and years,” Grinke says.
The pianist usually puts on a few shows every month but a 12-course load at Capilano University’s jazz studies program has taken Grinke and his piano out of action recently.
“There wasn’t really time to do my usual few shows a semester … so I figured I’d try to cram a semester’s worth of gigs into one day,” he says. “And try to make the money that I would make during the semester over the course of one gig.”
Grinke is hoping his one-man musical Iditarod will bring in enough cash to pay his way to Scotland to play in the Edinburgh Improv Festival with Will Shakespeare’s ImprovMusical.
Grinke has provided the soundtrack for Friday Night Live since the sketch comedy show’s inception five years ago, but when asked about a night when everything went right, he talks about playing with Will Shakespeare’s ImprovMusical at Bard on the Beach.
“All the songs fell right into place. I remember driving home after that show and being like: Nobody can really do that. I don’t even know how I did it,” he says, describing the evening as “transcendent.”
Playing with a comedy ensemble requires an incredible ability to improvise, Grinke explains.
You need a background in musical theory in order to extemporaneously compose a song that “sounds like something,” according to Grinke.
You always have to be a good listener and to trust in your abilities, Grinke explains.
“You really do have to ignore what your hands are doing, just trust that your brain will cover the piano part, and listen to what the actors are doing on stage so you can follow them in an instant,” he says.
The 24-hour marathon includes plenty of room for making it up as you go along. The show begins with Friday Night Live and includes a blues jam, quiet jazz and Grinke’s combo The Three Kings.
“It’s inevitable that my hands are going to get sore,” Grinke says. “I’m not going to take any breaks.”
If he’s successful, Grinke’s Friday/Saturday performance will be the longest he’s ever played. His previous best, he reports, was a day in Chemainus when he played for 10 hours straight while getting ready to accompany the musical version of Footloose.
Besides having some energy drinks nearby and lattes courtesy of his brother’s girlfriend, Grinke’s plan is distinctly Canadian: just give’r.
“My plan right now is just to sit down and start playing,” he says. “I’m not really preparing for it mentally much.”
The one exception involves the movie The Lion King. At the 20.5 hour mark of the marathon, Grinke plans to play the score during a screening of the Disney favourite. Grinke says he’s spent the past two months painstakingly transcribing Hans Zimmer’s score, a process the pianist says helped him appreciate the intricacies of the composition.
Asked what his mother thinks about her son’s marathon performance, Grinke doesn’t miss a beat.
“She was all for it,” he says. “Grandma … not so much.”
However, the event has since become a family affair with Grinke’s grandmother volunteering to work the midnight to six a.m. shift.
“She’s packing a lunch and she’s bringing her knitting stuff, so she’s into it now.”
You can learn more at mattgrinke.com.
