Who Created Rush E? The Story Behind the Viral Piano Meme

The Anatomy of a Modern Internet Phenomenon: Who Created “Rush E”?

If you have spent any time on YouTube, TikTok, or gaming spaces over the last few years, you have almost certainly heard “Rush E.” It is the hyper-dense, impossibly fast piano meme piece featuring cascading notes that look like a literal waterfall of MIDI data. It has spawned countless challenge videos, orchestral covers, and remixes.

Behind this chaotic masterpiece is Sheet Music Boss, an Australian YouTube duo consisting of composers and pianists Andrew Wrangell and Samuel Dickenson.

The Origins: From Counter-Strike to Deep-Fried Memes

To understand how “Rush E” came to be, you have to look at its predecessor, “Rush B.”

Sheet Music Boss built their early internet following by creating fun, approachable piano tutorials, video game covers, and playful arrangements. They previously released “Rush B”—a Russian-style folk tune named after the famous internet and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive meme where players aggressively shout “Rush B, cyka blyat” in voice chat.

When “Rush B” proved successful, fans began clamoring for a sequel. Around that same time, the internet was saturated with the surreal, deep-fried “E” meme—a distorted mashup of Markiplier’s face and Lord Farquaad from Shrek.

Seizing on the absurdity, Andrew Wrangell and Samuel Dickenson decided to answer the internet’s call. They constructed a brand-new, tongue-in-cheek composition built entirely around hammering the musical note E, wrapped in a dramatic Russian-inspired classical style.

A Song That Shouldn’t Exist (At Least for Humans)

What started as an internet joke quickly evolved into a monster. “Rush E” was intentionally written to be absurdly difficult—so complex and fast that it is physically impossible for a single human pianist to play it cleanly with just two hands.

The sheet music features sections where notes fly past at humanly unreachable speeds, requiring extra virtual hands or computerized precision in the MIDI visualization videos that Sheet Music Boss is famous for. This “impossibility” is precisely what sparked a viral wildfire.

• The Challenge Culture: Pianists and content creators across the globe began trying to figure out ways to perform it—using rulers, noses, multiple players, or frantic superhuman fingerwork.
• The Meme Explosion: Millions of kids and teenagers encountered the song through animation parodies, rhythm games like Magic Tiles 3, and short-form video platforms.

The Legacy of Sheet Music Boss

Andrew Wrangell and Samuel Dickenson set out to make a funny, viral song capitalizing on internet culture, but they accidentally created a modern cultural touchstone. “Rush E” bridged the gap between classical music theory, internet shitposting, and modern gaming culture.

Today, “Rush E” stands as one of the most successful viral music pieces of the digital age—proving that with a little bit of internet humor and a whole lot of impossible piano chords, two independent creators can compose a track that echoes across the globe.

The Original Rush E by Sheet Music Boss

This video is relevant because it features the exact, official source of the viral piano composition created by Andrew Wrangell and Samuel Dickenson.