About

Sheet Music Boss is a YouTube channel dedicated to demonstrating how to play songs on piano via colorful videos using the Synesthesia software. The channel also posts memes based on the format and has particularly seen success with videos based on letters that became memes, such as B and E. Its piece Rush E became a meme among YouTube musicians for its immense difficulty.

History

The Sheet Music Boss YouTube channel launched on February 4th, 2017.^[1] It was started by Samuel Dickenson and Andrew Wrangell, based in Queensland, Australia.^[2] The channel's first several dozen videos were straightforward tutorials on how to play pop songs, starting with Queen's "We Are The Champions" (shown below).

On June 30th, 2017, the channel posted its first meme-adjacent video with a tutorial on how to play Smash Mouth's song "All Star" (shown below, left). The video gained over 1 million views in five years. On July 25th, they posted a tutorial on how to play "Megalovania," ganing over 3.4 million views in a similar timeframe (shown below, right).

In late 2017, the channel posted a joke video on how to play the "B" meme, featuring only the B note on the piano. The video was later taken down by YouTube, but while discussing the takedown, the pair saw a comment asking if they could make the "B" meme sound Russian. This inspired the creation of "Rush B," posted on January 14th, 2018 (shown below, left). The video gained over 17 million views in four years. The virality of the video led the channel to create other "Rush" songs based on memes, including the infamous "Rush E," which gained over 30 million views in over three years (shown below, right).

To date, their most viewed video is a take on Coffin Dance, which gained over 38 million views in under two years (shown below).

Online Presence

Sheet Music Boss gained a quick following, accumulating over 100,000 subscribers in a few months after the account's creation (shown below). As of April 1st, 2022, the channel has over 2.66 million subscribers.^[1] The channel also has its own YouTuber Wiki page^[2] and is active on Twitter, where it has over 6,200 followers.^[3]

Rush E

Rush E is a piece of piano music created as a spinoff of a Markiplier E (also known as Lord Marquaad E) joke. The song went viral on YouTube due to it being genuinely impossible for one human to play. However, some pianists have also attempted to rearrange the piece to make it manageable for one person to play. This led to a YouTube argument where one commenter boasted they could play the piece better than another person, and after being challenged by other commenters, actually delivered in a video of his own that also went viral.

In June 2021, YouTuber ProLitening posted a video of himself attempting to play "Rush E" via an arrangement that was possible for one person. The account was later deleted, but the video was reuploaded to his new account, Litening, on July 28th, 2021 (shown below, left). In the comments of the video, YouTube commenter Fanchen said the performance was mediocre. Upon being challenged by other commenters, particularly a user named "Just A Guy Who Likes Hentai" to perform the piece better, Fanchen obliged. On June 24th, he posted his version of "Rush E," and it was widely thought of as the superior performance. It gained 6.5 million views in nine months.

Search Interest

External References