The Pink Panther Theme - Easy Piano Tutorial

#easypiano #pianotutorial #pianolessons
The Pink Panther Theme is a jazz composition by Henry Mancini written as the theme for the 1963 film The Pink Panther and subsequently nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score at the 37th Academy Awards but lost to the Sherman Brothers for Mary Poppins. The eponymous cartoon character created for the film's opening credits by David DePatie and Friz Freleng was animated in time to the tune. The tenor saxophone solo was played by Plas Johnson.
The tune was included on the film's soundtrack album originally issued as RCA Victor LPM/LSP-2795 and available as a single in the United States in 1964 the single reached the Top 10 on the U.S. Billboard adult contemporary chart and won three Grammy Awards.
Various recordings of the composition appeared in the opening credits of all The Pink Panther films except A Shot in the Dark and Inspector Clouseau. It has also been used in theatrical shorts, television cartoons, commercials and other works in which the animated Pink Panther appears.
The Pink Panther Theme, composed in the key of E minor, is unusual for Mancini's extensive use of chromaticism.
Mancini talked about how he composed the theme music:
I told the animators that I would give them a tempo they could animate to, so that any time there were striking motions, someone getting hit, I could score to it.
The animators finished the sequence and I looked at it. All the accents in the music were timed to actions on the screen.
I had a specific saxophone player in mind Plas Johnson. I nearly always precast my players and write for them and around them, and Plas had the sound and the style I wanted.