Reviews and News From Ord, NE

WHO ARE WE?
Dueling Pianos Loup City is a subsidiary of Fun Pianos! by 176 Keys. Our Fun Pianos Dueling Pianos Players receive great reviews. We are are great fit for private and corporate parties, weddings, bars and clubs throughout Nebraska, and the country. More importantly, judge our quality for yourself and contact any or all of our hundreds of dueling pianos reviews, then pay the best prices of any legitimate dueling pianos show in Nebraska to come to your party. We serve all of Nebraska including Loup City, Columbus, Hartington, Lindsay, North Platte, Atkinson, Deshler, Ord, Wausa, and of course many times here at home in Loup City.

WHAT ELSE IS ON THIS SITE?
Elsewhere on this site you can meet the Fun Pianos staff, watch videos of highlights form our shows, or choose from our Fun Options

MORE ABOUT LOUP CITY
Fun Pianos is proud to have ties to Loup City

The first settlement at Loup City was made in the early 1870s.^[7] Loup City was platted in 1873, and designated county seat.^[8] Loup City was named after the Loup River.^[9] During the Great Depression, Loup City was the site of a clash between radical leftists, influenced by Mother Bloor, who clashed with area residents in June 1934 following efforts by Communists to organize the workers of a poultry processing plant. The completion of Sherman Reservoir in 1963 added tourism to the area’s economic base.

For many years Loup City has proclaimed itself as the “Polish capital of Nebraska,” due to a significant Polish population (see Polonia). “Polish Days” is an annual community event held on the first weekend of June. The town’s Catholic church, Saint Josaphat’s, features stained glass windows commemorating area families, most with Polish names. The windows were salvaged from the previous St. Josaphat’s and date from the early 1900s.^[13]

The early Loup City settlement has been depicted in the 2014 movie The Homesman.^[14]

Hold on just one second, says Dueling Pianos Loup City

The Fun Pianos Show is also known as Dueling Pianos Nebraska

This week we are back in full force with 4 teams rolling around the country with the Fun Pianos dueling pianos show.

Texarkana TX and McAllen TX will get one of our teams this week, at a border-town club and a fundraiser. Another serves fun to Wichita tonight then Kimball NE this weekend. Moving more to the east, Columbus IN and Wheeling WV will have us before we go down to Evansville IN after a couple off days. North Dakota’s dueling pianos by Fun Pianos will be seen in Devils Lake ND and Thornton ND.

Dueling Pianos by Fun Pianos is rockin’ and laughin’ all over the country this week…Have a FUN day!

Kansas has become a real home to us. Holiday party season and warm weather season have us bringing so much FUN to Kansas, we have set up shop in the area. Here are some highlights from a few of our shows there over the past year or so. Included in the cities that love Fun Pianos Dueling Pianos: Wichita, Seneca, Hiawatha, Hays, Marysville, Manhattan, Hutchinson, Hill City, Chanute, Salina, Goodland, and Arkansas City.

Do you like dueling pianos? But you fear that it wouldn’t be appropriate for your private event?

Instead of reading our own yammering about how many people love our show, take a look at this video, featuring folks from

Jacksonville FL

Marysville KS

Grand Island NE

Dublin GA

Blair NE

Stephenville TX

Ogallalla NE

Hill City SD

Ansley NE

Sturgis SD

Trinity FL

Now have a FUN day!

Where will Fun Pianos be this week? Where WON’T Fun Pianos be this week!

Our show is all interactive, comedy, musical dueling pianos. Colorado will see it for the third time in a month tomorrow. Three Thursday shows this week display our increasing knack for filling up our weeknights. West Bend Wisconsin, North Hollywood California and South Sioux City: dueling pianos lovers who especially love the format of show that Fun Pianos brings.

It doesn’t stop there: Friday we have two shows in Nebraska, Saturday they hit Kansas, and Sunday we hit Indianapolis. Dueling Pianos provided with extra fun and funny by Fun Pianos…proven to be a hit all over the country. Don’t take our word for it, see our 1000+ reviews at www.FunPianos.com/reviews

Have a FUN day!

The show is called “Dueling Pianos,” but you won’t see these pianists competing for audience attention.

“It’s a bit of a misnomer,” said Sam Ferguson, owner and lead player of 176 Keys Fun Pianos. “It’s more about interaction with and response from the audience.”

Ferguson, Jefrey Taylor and Steven Ramirez will take their interactive song and comedy show to Rapid City at 7 p.m. Saturday.

The three will each bring their own specialty as performers to Rapid City, something Ferguson says is perfectly suited to keeping the show lively.

“Jefrey’s the perfect guy for a rock ‘n’ roll song, and a great singer,” Ferguson said. “My strength is humor, bringing comedy to the show. Steven’s a little bit of both. Plus he’s the youngest on staff, so he’s perfect for newer songs while Jeffrey and I cover older material.”

Ferguson said that the show usually has two performers on stage at a time, with the two working together as a musical-comedy team.

“It’s kind of an Abbott and Costello dynamic,” Ferguson said. “Neither performer is the sidekick, they’re equally important.”

Ferguson said that each member was adept at switching to whatever the moment called for, however.

“I am for anything that works in the moment,” Ferguson said. “My favorite way to entertain is making people laugh, but if the crowd wants to sing more than laugh, I’m happy to do that.”

Ferguson said that the key is reading the crowd and acting accordingly, playing whatever is going to get the best reaction out of the crowd in the moment.

Megan Whitman, executive director of Main Street Square, said that this is the second time they’ve invited this particular Dueling Pianos group, with Main Street Square previously hosting other groups with similar shows. Whitman said that it’s a perfect show for the whole family.

“We see a variety of ages of people coming downtown for this show, from young families to older adults,” Whitman said. “It’s a great chance to create memories for families in particular.”

Whitman said that it’s a great variety show, mixing comedy with Elton John or Billy Joel classics and contemporary hits.

“They also take special requests,” Whitman said. “If there’s a song you want to hear, they’ll probably be able to perform it.”

Ferguson said that they keep up with the biggest hits, as they change from month to month.

“Last year, ‘All About That Bass’ was our biggest song for a while, and then two months later it wasn’t,” Ferguson said. “Whereas something like ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ is never our most popular song in the set, but they’re consistently in the top 10 because people know them and don’t get tired of them.”

Ferguson said that he looked forward to interacting with the audience and getting them to be a part of the show.

“If we’re just on stage, there’s an imaginary wall between us and the audience,” Ferguson said. “We want to break through that wall, become more tangible and get a more personal connection.”

Contact Max B. O’Connell at 394-8427 or max.oconnell@rapidcityjournal.com

If you are one of the many small businesses in the Midwest still recovering from the economic slump, you may be thinking that it is impossible for you to host any kind of holiday party this year. We have a solution that will not only provide a holiday party for your staff, but will also thank them for a great year while encouraging them to continue their hard work through the upcoming year.

We provide the venue, the entertainment and the food. You provide the people, along with many other small business owners and managers who will bring their people, and we have a Big Fun Pianos! Party for Your Small Business. It’s that easy. Tickets to the event are affordable, the food is delicious and you get an amazingly FUN show that will provide lasting memories for your entire office.

Holiday parties are important. Not only are they a great way to say thanks for a job well done, but they have the added benefit of being a great way to team build. Our Big Fun Pianos! Party is designed to get everyone involved. The hilarious dueling pianos show is completely request driven, so you determine what we play. Our players have one goal, to do whatever it takes to make the night the MOST FUN you have had. In order for that to happen, they will have you laughing, dancing and singing along. We have provided the perfect atmosphere for your staff to set work aside and just for a few hours, let loose and have FUN! You may be surprised at the team building that naturally occurs when your staff can eat, drink and have fun together. According to Deborah Sweeney, CEO of MyCorporation.com, “If there’s an element of friendship in the workplace, work doesn’t seem so much like work. Holiday parties are a great place to start building those relationships.”

If you are in or near York, NE… We will be at Chances R Restaurant on 1/9/2015.

Get your tickets HERE for York.

If you are in or near Seward, NE… We will be at the Lied Senior Center on 1/23/2015.

Get your tickets HERE for Seward.

We are taking our dueling pianos show to the fine folks in  Flagstaff AZ, Coralville IA, Davenport IA, Wichita KS, College Station TX, Fargo ND, Scottsdale AZ, Roseau MN, Hastings NE, Tyler TX, Irving TX and Omaha NE…. Whew! That’s a lot! If you missed out on booking us for this year, it’s never too early to book for next year! We would love to help make your event, wedding or party the most FUN your guests have ever had. Make sure to check out what people are saying about our show here! What People Are Saying

Our clients are so happy with our dueling pianos show that they just couldn’t keep it to themselves.

Fun Pianos by 176 Keys Dueling Pianos has never been accused of being too quiet! As a matter of fact… we like to have so much FUN, we can hardly contain it. We are taking our show to 15 different events in the next 4 days! We are going to haul out the “jolly” in everyone! Check out some fun facts about “Silent night”…

Silent Night (1818)

Words: Josef Mohr
Music: Franz Xaver Gruber
Arguably the world’s most popular Christmas carol comes in several different translations from the German original. It started out as a poem by the Austrian Catholic priest Father Josef Mohr in 1816. Two years later, Mohr was curate at the parish church of St Nicola in Oberndorf when he asked the organist and local schoolteacher Franz Xaver Gruber to put music to his words.

An unreliable legend has it that the church organ had been damaged by mice, but whatever the reason, Gruber wrote it to be performed by two voices and guitar. It was first performed at midnight mass on Christmas Eve 1818, with Mohr and Gruber themselves taking the solo voice roles.

Its fame eventually spread (allegedly it has been translated into over 300 languages and dialects) and it famously played a key role in the unofficial truce in the trenches in 1914 because it was one of the only carols that both British and German soldiers knew.

– http://www.historyextra.com/feature/christmas-songs-oldest-ones-are-best

We don’t often get requests for our dueling pianos to play Carols anytime other than Christmas.

According to WhyChristmas.com, “Carols were first sung in Europe thousands of years ago, but these were not Christmas Carols. They were pagan songs, sung at the Winter Solstice celebrations as people danced round stone circles (The word carol originally meant to dance to something). The Winter Solstice is the shortest day of the year, usually taking place around the 22nd December. The word Carol actually means dance or a song of praise and joy! Carols used to be written and sung during all four seasons, but only the tradition of singing them at Christmas has really survived.”

Actually, after that explanation… I stand corrected. We get asked to play ALL kinds of Carols, we just call them anthems or oldies or ballads. There are always those songs that take us back to another time in our lives. We can remember the first time we heard the song. The first time we danced to it, and the first time we laughed / cried during it. They make us want to dance and be happy. I know I have a few. Whatever your favorite Carol is… whether it is Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” or Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas,” we hope to hear requests from everyone at our shows. We are here to put MORE FUN in your day!

“The year 1709 is the one most sources give for the appearance of aninstrument which can truly be called a “Pianoforte.” The writer Scipione Maffei wrote an article that year about the pianoforte created by Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655-1732), who had probably produced four “gravicembali col piano e forte” or harpsichords with soft and loud. This instrument featured the first real escapement mechanism and is often called a “hammer harpsichord.” The small hammers were leather covered. It had bichords throughout, and all the dampers were wedge-shaped. By 1726 he seems to have fitted a stop for the action to make the hammers strike only one of two strings. He had produced about twenty pianos by this time and then he is presumed to have gone back to making harpsichords, probably from the lack of interest in his pianos. Three of his pianos remain extant today: one with four octaves, dated 1720, is in NewYork; one with four and a half octaves, from 1726, is in Leipzig, Germany; and there is one in Rome from 1722. There are approximately ten plucked instruments surviving today with the name Cristofori on them.” – www.piano-tuners.org

I wonder if that piano can hold a tune? In all seriousness, though, the piano has been used to entertain and educate people for a very long time. At Fun Pianos by 176 Keys Dueling Pianos, we keep that tradition alive by giving our clients the most entertaining show possible. We love that we can share our joy of music and FUN with you!

Sometimes word from the road is short and sweet.

“Grand Slam,” said Tyler and Steven of their show in Nebraska on August 15th.

By which they were referring to a bases loaded home run, not a certain restaurant chain’s breakfast special.

Testimonials to come.

While a typical 176 Keys Fun Pianos! show would be performed in the round, sometimes we hop in the Way Back Machine and find ourselves in front of plush seats up on a stage with a proscenium and everything.  That’s right, we just used a 25¢ word — “proscenium,” the front part of a stage.  Not to be confused with proboscis, which would be putting our nose in it.  If we had a really long snout, or a trunk.  But to get back to our story…

…we have a good time in an auditorium, too.  The audience still gets up and dances.

And gets down and dances…

…and has a great time, comfy seats and all!

Many thanks to the Rivoli Theatre in Seward, Nebraska.  We had a great time!

Nisswa, Minnesota, has a population of 1,971.  Map coordinates are 46º 30’N 94º 17’W.  Has a store called Zaiser’s:  shoes, kitchenware, and kid’s toys.  Frank and Ty were there on Friday — and the Nisswa audience, which included lots of kids, had a blast.

No word on how many dancing shoes were moccasins…

This week, we have not one, but TWO gigs in the only U.S. state whose east and west borders are formed by rivers. (Want a hint? The cities we will be in are Ottumwa and Boyden.) Meanwhile, Jefrey and Steven will be heading up to Carrington, ND. And Sam, George, and Matt will be trucking east — WAY east — to play in Portland, ME.

Which means 176 Keys will hit longitudes from 70ºW to just about 100ºW. That’s a lotta latitude — done with a FUN attitude.

(Still want to know what that state we’re going to twice is? That would be Iowa — about 90º W to 96ºW.)