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Family makes music with underwater backdrop By CATHY COBBS newsroom@appenmediagroup.com DUNWOODY, Ga. — The Rogers’ family, the musically talented Dunwoody-area siblings consisting of a set of twins, triplets and two other children, has launched its most ambitious collaboration yet — a piano montage that features in its background whale sharks circling a tank at the Georgia Aquarium. The video, released Feb. 26, was filmed last October at the world’s second largest aquarium, the result of hours of planning and coordination between the seven siblings — twins Keenan and Devon, 27; triplets Aidan, Corin and Brydan, 25; Leith, 22 and Ivy Catherine, 19. “It’s a lot of moving parts,” Corin said. “There were a lot of obstacles to creating and rehearsing because we are spread all over Atlanta, in light of COVID-19 and the fact that we all have regular full-time jobs or school.” The pandemic also provided plenty of challenges to their usual collaboration process, which normally involves a team, in-person approach to developing a musical production that revolves around every part of the piano — the keys, the strings and virtually every surface that can produce a musical contribution. Because of social distancing, the Rogers could not collaborate as usual with the planning and execution of the production, which was entitled “Kiss the Girl/Under The Sea,” a musical mashup of the two hits. They were also limited in filming time, which had to be consolidated to a single day, after the aquarium’s closing hours. “We basically had five hours to load in the pianos (Yamahas donated by the Yamaha Entertainment Group), do the video and take it all down, which was a lot of pressure,” Corin said. “It was also a bit extra, because we wanted to take advantage of the whale sharks coming through the shots.” The Rogers had about 40 seconds lead time to set up “cool shots” that featured some of the four whale sharks circling past the camera. “We wanted to time our music and the lyrics to when the sharks came into the shot, so that was additional pressure,” Corin said.
From left, Keenan, Brydan, Aidan, Devon, Leith, Ivy Catherine and Corin Rogers. But the end product, after about 40-50 different takes, the Rogers said, was worth all the pre-production and post-production work. And the public agrees. In the two weeks since the video was released on YouTube in late February, it has more than 27,000 views. “It’s really hard to believe that there is a way that we can top this,” Corin said, “but we have about four or five (song collaborations) in the works that we’d like to get in production.” The Rogers, who grew up in the Ashford Chase subdivision, started playing piano at the age of 4, under the tutelage of their mother, who is a music professor at Georgia State University. Although they expanded their expertise to include flute, oboe, guitar, drums and other instruments, the family continues to come back to its first love, the piano.
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“We all still enjoy playing, and it’s really fun to see all the different ways that we can make music from the piano beyond the traditional methods,” Corin said. As expected, sibling rivalry comes into play during the planning of the videos that they have produced since 2016, Corin said, but the brothers and sister manage to work it out via their own brand of compromise. “We try for a decentralization of power by drawing up a spreadsheet of what everyone will play and what they will do,” he said. “The controversies usually involve who gets the coolest parts and when and where they will be playing. But by the end, we all have some cool parts, so for the most part, we are all happy.” All of the Rogers’ family videos can be found on YouTube by searching “Rogers Family” or visiting youtube. com/channel/UCF35mWPwH7adkdzLescCZyQ.