Swim To America, Vol. 3 (une rétrospective Stephan Eicher au piano) is (rather obviously!) the third installment in Doug Hammer's trio of albums and songbooks of his solo piano arrangements of favorite songs by Swiss rocker and pop chanteur, Stephan Eicher. Volumes 1 and 2 of the recordings were released in 2023, and Volume 3 in 2024; all three songbooks were released in 2024. Doug did the transcriptions of all of the sheet music from the albums and I proof-read them, so I can honestly say that the sheet music matches the recordings as closely as possible.

The thirteen pieces are varied in mood and style, and since they were originally composed as vocals, they all have very strong melodies. Some of the rhythms are a bit complicated, but if you listen to the songs a few times, it makes it easier to "sense" the rhythms rather than just counting them out. Doug is an amazing pianist so some of these pieces are easier than others. He also has a very wide reach with each hand, and some of the chords will be too big of a stretch for smaller hands. If you are at a loss for how to handle those chords, see if rolling them suits the style of the music, or play octaves instead of tenths or just leave the top notes off of the LH chords you can't reach and/or the bottom notes of the RH chords - if necessary. Experiment and see what works for your hands.

Doug has each of the pieces ranked by difficulty (easy, intermediate and challenging) on his website, so that can be a very useful reference. The layout of the music is roomy and very easy to read. Metronome settings are included as well as pedaling suggestions/instructions. Dynamics and other expression markings are also very clearly marked.

Digital songbooks and individual pieces of sheet music are available from Doug's website. There is also a collection of all of the music from all three Swim To America volumes on Doug's site. He has done a great job with this music and I highly recommend it!

The title of each piece, the key they are in, and the number of pages are:

Tomorrow Will Be Your Day - Key of Db (5 flats) - 5 pages
Nur Um Di - Key of Bb (2 flats) - 4 pages
Zrügg Zu Mir - Key of G (1 sharp) - 5 1/2 pages
Demon - Key of D (2 sharps) - 3 1/2 pages
Still - Key of C (0 sharps or flats) - 3 pages
Étrange - Key of G (1 sharp) - 4 1/2 pages
Donne moi une seconde - Key of B minor (2 sharps) - 3 1/2 pages
Ds Alte Paar - Key of C (0 sharps or flats) - 3 pages
Eldorado - Key of E minor (1 sharp) - 3 pages
Haiku - Key of Gb (6 flats) - 2 pages
Toi et ce monde - Key of B (5 sharps) - 4 pages
E* - Key of Ab (4 flats) - 4 pages
Oh Ironie - Key of D (2 sharps) - 5 pages