Ragtime piano attitude adjustment

Good, no one is still reading my blog.  So let me share with you my ragtime piano story.

Since taking piano lessons growing up, I had been aware of the existence of ragtime for a long time, and I liked the sound of it, but always considered it to be too difficult to play.  (I started piano lessons late and was never really that great at it.)  I had also pretty much associated ragtime entirely with Joplin, which people commonly do.  I may have had a vague idea that other ragtime composers had existed, but I had no reason to be interested in them as I assumed in my ignorance that Joplin broadly represented the genre and was its best composer.  This was a mistake, but more on that later.

Then last summer, things changed in the Barclay household when a lesbian piano came into my life.  Madelin's friend had one that we could borrow indefinitely, and that needed a home, so she persuaded me that we should get it so Nigel could practice on it.  We got some guys together and lugged it to our house.  Well guess who ended up using the thing all the time?  I like playing the piano so I started picking up old hymns and other stuff I used to play.  Simple things that were not too challenging, basically.  My idea of playing the piano pretty much centered around getting the fullest sound possible while moving my hands and fingers as little as possible.

Then last December, in the year of Our Lord 2013, I remembered an idea that I think had been kicking around in the back of my mind for at least 2 - 3 years, but I simply never got to it.  The overland theme from Super Mario Bros. 2 was a very catchy little tune that somehow stuck in my head for many years after I was parted from the family Nintendo.  I had also come to associate this piece with ragtime, since a 'facebook friend' (and real friend, but I haven't seen him in years) Dave Pierce mentioned the piece by chance, and called it ragtime (which it is, actually).  So finally I thought to myself, I should look online to see if I can find any sheet music for it.  When I did, I soon discovered that quality & playability varied according to the arrangement and left much to be desired.  (Apparently most folks who have arranged sheet music for video game music have never actually tried to play their stuff on a piano?)

After a couple days of poking around on the internet, though, I eventually stumbled across this YouTube video with a link to a quality arrangement of the piece:



(Open that video in a new window if you want to see the link to sheet music.)  More importantly, however, I discovered TOM BRIER, and a whole world of exciting piano music that I did not know existed.  After spending a day or two (or was it a whole week) being mesmerized by this...



...I went on to discover a wealth of actual ragtime that didn't come from a video game, including both classic ragtime-era pieces and contemporary works.

Now a little backstory here.  Apparently for many years, a certain Ron O'Dell (who goes by the YouTube username keeper1st) has been posting many videos of Tom Brier and other ragtime pianists (and more) on his channel.  (I'm bummed I didn't discover this a long time ago, but as the saying goes, better late than never.)  I greatly appreciate the willingness of Tom and others to be recorded, and Ron's relentless posting of more videos which serve to promote ragtime on the internet and connect more people with it.  (Others besides just Ron deserve credit for this as well - 'verybigrifle' being another favorite YouTube channel - but I'll be up all night if I try to credit them all here, plus I will inevitably miss some.)

The really significant thing about discovering Tom though was the attitude adjustment that happened to me with regard to how I approach the piano.  All of a sudden I realized the piano is not in charge.  I have to make it play what I want.  I have to own the piano.  I have to just go for it.  Why didn't I get this earlier?  Who knows?  And yes that does involve a good deal of practice.  But having been at this less than a year now, I have come much further in my overall piano proficiency than I ever thought I would get in life, thanks to ragtime.  Ragtime certainly has a way of honing proficiency, as long as you are motivated and don't give up.

If you watch enough of Tom, you soon find that he is renowned for his spectacular sight-reading skills, but I think learning ragtime well naturally lends itself to this ability.  I now know there are many other great ragtime pianists besides Tom, but it's likely that Tom will always be my favorite.  Not just because he is the first ragtime pianist I found online, but I still really like his style as well.

So now, for better or worse, I have become a certifiable ragtime nut.  I have purchased several books of sheet music, and printed off many scores from the internet.  So far I can play a lot of pieces poorly and nothing really well.  But my improvement continues, and when I feel that I can play something well enough for it to be worth posting, I may do so in the future.  It is tough to find time to practice when I have numerous other obligations, but I try to manage at least 45 minutes or so most days.  I'd get a lot farther with more practice, but I'll do what I can.

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of this discovery is there is so much more to ragtime than Joplin.  Ragtime is a much broader form of music than I used to think, and encompasses a lot.  Joplin was great and deserves the renown he gets, but he certainly doesn't have a monopoly on quality either among classic or contemporary ragtime composers.  There is so much more out there, and composers like James Scott, Henry Lodge and Percy Wenrich are quickly becoming favorites of mine.  (I have sheet music from Ron and Tom too!)

Here are a few more of my favorite ragtime videos for your viewing enjoyment, two classic pieces and a contemporary piece.  Enjoy!