Billy Joel Musical Director Reveals Sheet Music Hits Sour Notes

If you are a piano player and can’t figure out why Billy Joel songs sound off when you are trying to play it, don’t fret: it’s not you, it’s the sheet music.

Speaking to Rolling Stone in a new interview, Billy’s musical director and keyboardist, David Rosenthal, reveals he has been spending the entire pandemic correcting errors in Billy’s sheet music that has served as a template for musicians for years.

“I’m always doing something,” Rosenthal told Rolling Stone in a new interview. “One of my fun side projects that I’ve been doing is correcting all of Billy’s sheet music, which has been horribly wrong for years. ‘Piano Man’ was missing measures, and there were wrong notes and parts of songs that weren’t even there. The average person would buy his sheet music and try to play it and go, ‘That doesn’t sound right, but I guess I suck.’ Well, no, actually the music is wrong.”

He continued: “enough of those stories got back to Billy, and he asked me to go through the whole catalog and take my time with it, but to make sure everything he’s ever written is accurate in print. I’ve done eight albums already, and I’m working my way through the whole catalog.”