Ragtime Review 6/23/16

Here's my twice monthly review of my current ragtime progress, and what's new on YouTube in the world of ragtime.  A little late again, but that's no biggie.

First, how is my practicing going?  Well in general, I had less time, due both to factors like working and taking care of my kids, and having to practice about 5 million hymns for accompanying church and chapel services and a hymn sing over the weekend.  That is not a complaint though; I enjoy doing it.  But I don't really have time to practice those and simultaneously practice ragtime.  It also seem to take a day or two for my fingers to remember how to do ragtime after playing just hymns for a week.

• New Era Rag by James Scott is now for sure memorized--I just played it without the music-- and, remarkably enough, it may actually be getting slightly better.  I thought I was stuck but I think I have pushed it a little farther towards performance quality, especially if I play it when already warmed up.  Still not there yet, though.
• Grace and Beauty, also by James Scott is where I am now stuck.  Not memorized and not getting better.  It seems more difficult now than it looked.  The question is do I like it enough to keep going, or move on to something else?
• Ethiopia Rag by Joseph Lamb, I'm haven't touched.  Think I'll give up on this one for now, probably removing it from the next update.
• Ragging the Scale, by Ed Claypoole.  Played it a little but not as much as last time, needs more work.
• Two-Key Rag by Joe Hollander I also didn't practice as much this time as before; however I do feel it is improving.  This piece and the above I have not printed off, so I always practice them together when putting my computer into tablet mode.
• Over The Top by Tom Brier, I have worked on some but feel stuck.
• Canadian Capers, I haven't touched, but not sure that I'm giving up just yet.  I don't feel burned out on it.  I'll keep it on the list for now.

With all this talk of "giving up," I certainly don't mean to sound negative or imply permanently giving up.  It just means that I'm temporarily burned out on something that I don't feel I'm making any real progress on, and feel it is time to move onto something else.  Sometimes I move on to something I had worked on but abandoned in the past, such as this piece I am adding to my practice list:

• The Lion Tamer Rag, a Syncopated Fantasia by Mark Janza.  A most remarkable piece, representing, I think, the pinnacle of ragtime creativity.  For all the praise Joplin gets--all deserved, I grant--he really could never have written something like this.  It is a completely different subgenre of ragtime.  Another interesting point is that the composer was probably actually Al Marzian and not Mark Janza, who is likely fictitious. This is determined by analyzing the compositional style of known pieces by Marzian and comparing them to The Lion Tamer Rag, and the fact there is no outside evidence for the existence of a Mark Janza.  In any case, it was rather common for sheet music publishers in the ragtime era to attribute to certain pieces they published to made-up composers, to make it look like they had a greater number of composers publishing with them.

Now on to what's new and interesting on YouTube.  First, we have this performance of a ragtime standard, Maple Leaf Rag by Scott Joplin, played by a 14 year old piano student:



Here's a performance of Joplin's last published composition, Magnetic Rag.  This is Max's ancient piano which would be about 60 years old already at the time Magnetic Rag was published.  Also, I recall reading there was some reason it cannot be tuned to the usual pitch points and is about 1/2 step low.



Michael Chisholm has posted a series of videos from the Old Town Music Hall Ragtime Festival in El Segundo, California.  Unfortunately they were taken at some distance so it is difficult to observe the pianists, but they still sound great.  This is a favorite piece of mine, the Queen Rag by Floyd Willis.  One can easily imagine this being played on the paddleboats along the Mississippi River, by hired entertainers in the days long before sound systems, which apparently it was.



From the same series, this is Vincent Johnson's performance of 'Wildflower Rag' by Clarence Williams, a later ragtime piece which has been accused of blurring the lines between ragtime and jazz.  Later versions of this are often heard as a jazz piece, but here it is played in more of a ragtime style, I think... well, you decide.



Here's something I'm basically bookmarking for myself in case it might lead me to more John Arpin compositions that I could watch later.



Finally, going back a few years, here's a fine performance of the Lion Tamer Rag by Tom Brier.

Ragtime Review 6/8/16

This is where I update my fellow ragtime fans as to what is new on the internet (YouTube generally) in the world of ragtime, and my current progress with whatever I'm working on.  I said I would try to do this on or around the 5th and 20th of the month.  I have been busy but I'm not too far off.  There is a lot new on YouTube since last time, and much more I could post, but I can't post it all so I have to select some highlights.

In general this is my busiest time of year in the professional realm and I have had very little time to practice.  Let's see, last time around I said I was working on the following pieces:

• New Era Rag, by James Scott, I am still playing some, but as I said last time I doubt it will get much better at my current general skill level.
• Grace and Beauty, by James Scott continues to improve.  I can pretty much play the first half up to tempo now with only a couple blips.  (A video of a performance of this piece appears in a previous post.)
• Ethiopia Rag, by Joseph Lamb.  I'm having a tough time improving on this one, though I suppose I have practiced it a bit less than the others.  It's more challenging than it looks/sounds, and I prefer pieces to be less challenging than they sound.
• Ragging the Scale, by Ed Claypoole.  Well, it's coming along, and I seem to have the first strain memorized.
• Canadian Capers, I think I have only played once since the previous update, which doesn't really count as working on it.  At that rate I ought to drop it from my current list.

So let's add two more to the list that I am now working on.

• Two-key Rag by Joe Hollander.  More on that below.
• Over the Top by Tom Brier.  I had been working on this a few months ago.  I didn't get all that far but I ought to give it another shot.  It is catchy.

Two-key Rag is a recent discovery for me.  It is also very catchy, but it may take a couple listens to get used to.  One has to accept the premise that the first two bars (and bars 9 and 10) of the first strain are purposely in a key 1/2 step higher than the rest of that strain.  The second strain also modulates significantly, this time to a (non-relative) minor key, but is very well composed so it works; and the Trio section is also quite good.  Here Tom Brier and Elliot Adams provide a performance.

This is a recent performance of a very catchy piece by T. A. Duggan.  It is believed that a lot of New Orleans area ragtime did not leave New Orleans (at least not at first), and consequently sheet music for this piece is extremely rare.  I am fortunate to have a copy that Michael (one of the performers here) posted to Facebook.

This performance of an earlier James Scott piece was from several years ago, but recently posted.

This is a new one on me.  I like this guy's style.

Then in the really new department, we have this new composition in the classic ragtime vein by Vincent Johnson, hot off the presses:

Here's a loose end we may pick up.  Something sort of new but not as new as the rest.  This is not strictly ragtime but more of a fun, ambling piece by a stride composer.  I'm kind of wondering where everyone is getting sheet music for this.  I've seen a few versions online but I'm unsure which is the best.  None of them is free (that I have found), and while I don't mind paying for something like this, it's important in that case to make sure I have the best version.  Of course if I had more time, it would be fun to take a whack at learning it by ear.

And finally, a detour to what's old.  I mentioned 'Over the Top' by Tom Brier.  Here is what it sounds like.  As the description says this is slightly on the slow side but it still sounds great.  I'll be happy if I can play it at that tempo!

Hike Report 4/23/16: Cascade Rock Trail

Here's where I try to catch up on my hiking reports, that I had mentioned earlier.  I mentioned in passing Cascade Rock and Ned Hill: here I'll report on the Cascade Rock trail, which I hiked with my family and my son's friend back in April.

I have actually been trying to put this post together all week.  But it involves quite a few components and I never seem to have the chance to focus on it and get it done.  First I want to maintain a consistent record of trip logs--although this one isn't going to have anything on it about how long it took, since I didn't keep track, nor was I going as fast with a heavy baby on my back, and with a group, as I could have alone.  I'm also trying to produce topographic maps for each hike, with the trail and/or route I took drawn onto it.  Then of course I ought to post some photos from the hike.

Lastly, I hope to start, at least for those trails I have reached the end of, written descriptions of each trail such as one would find in a trail guidebook.  I know there are already a million trail guidebooks out there, and I'll have to amass quite a few of these before I have anything worth publishing, but that doesn't stop me from doing it to amuse myself.  Also, each person may notice different things about the same hike.  And finally, this particular trail seems so unpopular that only one of my guidebooks even describes it at all, so perhaps it needs more describing if only for promotional purposes.

So all those things are included in this post.  I only have a few photos because I'm trying not to include photos of people for the time being, and especially of other people's children without their permission!  Next time, I hope to remember to take more photos.  (Except my next report will be Ned Hill, and I didn't even bring the camera for that one!  Well, that will make it easier to write my post.)

One funny thing I should mention is that I wasn't even planning to do this hike.  I had forgotten, or somehow failed to note, the Elwha River Road was washed out about a mile past the Madison Falls area.  So Cascade Rock was a last minute decision when we just had to do something.  Otherwise I might never have discovered this fun little trail!

We had decent weather--one of those bright, overcast days where you know rain will be arriving by dinnertime, which it did.

So here, for the sake of consistency, follows my trip log:

Then we have the map, as best as I could draw it.  Apparently this trail is so unpopular the USGS didn't care to include it on their maps.  So a bit of guesswork was involved here.  It shows the starting point as the Madison Falls parking area because that was where the road was closed and we had to walk the rest of the way.

And now to the photos.  Not all these are the same size, but we'll work on that for next time.

This is the view, what there is of it, from Cascade Rock.

Occasionally one sees madrona trees with entirely smooth, cream-colored bark like this one.

More outcrops--this is not your average dense Northwest forest.

These people are indistinct enough they don't count as people.  Anyway, this is what the trail looks like.

The trail descending open madrona and douglas-fir forest near the higher outcrop.  Look at all that moss!

And finally, we shall conclude with my trail description (hastily written and subject to future revision):

Cascade Rock Trail

This trail is omitted from many guidebooks, for some reason, and seems little traveled by hikers, being narrow and moss-grown in a few spots. But it is a pleasant hike, and has the advantage of being low elevation, and thus accessible pretty much year round. It leads to an area of thin soils and moss-coated rock outcrops facing the Elwha Valley, and those are always fun. It is not long and leads to a good lunch spot, making it ideal for families with young children.

The trail begins at a point where the Elwha River Road washed out in 2015, so I did not start at the beginning, but picked it up where the temporary Elwha Access trail meets it. However, distances here refer to the washed out trailhead location, with the idea that will someday again be the starting point. As of April 2016, one has to park at the Madison Falls parking lot, walk about 0.9 miles south to a bend in the road, where the access trail turns off to the left. Not much of a trail at first, it eventually follows a moderate, rough road grade where it intersects with the Cascade Rock trail just past a water tank.

At this point one must climb a very steep ¼ mile or so up a couple switchbacks. Then the trail abruptly levels off and even descends slightly for a brief moment, before starting a much more gentle climb through open forest. The trail crosses several small creeks which, when I was there in spring, had only a slight trickle in two, and one was dry. After 1 mile the trail climbs more noticeably.

At 1.5 miles one comes to a moderately conspicuous rock outcrop just below the trail. This, apparently, is Cascade Rock, though it isn't all that impressive. I only know this because I read it in Robert Wood's authoritative treatise on the trails of the Olympic Mountains. There may have been a decent view here 50 years ago; now, the trees have grown up resulting in only a broken view of some ridgetops. From here on up the trail, one has quite a few of these glimpses.

The trail then climbs slightly more steeply—though not unreasonably so—up several switchbacks to a second rock outcrop. However, the entire terrain here is rather “outcroppy,” with shallow soils and ground-dwelling flora dominated by Sedum spathulifolium and Arctostaphylos uva-ursi. Interestingly, Arbutus menziesii is a common tree here. It is not often found in interior mountain forest as far north as Washington, but there is quite a bit of it on the east side of the Elwha where it is also found along the Griff Creek trail.

This second outcrop, at 2.0 miles, has even less of a view than the first, and marks the end of the maintained trail. Just past it are a few sawn logs for sitting on, making a great family lunch spot.

[The trail continues further uphill, but I'll have to hike it before I can write about it.]

[Also when I go back, I'll note more of the plants.]

In summary, this is a great hike if you want to do something short, won't miss seeing wide open views, and don't want to walk along a river valley. It is an excellent family hike for children who need to get out into nature, which about all of them do.

Ragtime update!

Since picking up ragtime piano music, and attempting to learn to play it, at the beginning of 2014; it has developed into a pretty major hobby.  I have discovered a wealth of music that I never knew existed, and that is a lot of fun to learn about and play.

Since I am still quite active in this hobby, I'm going to attempt to share some of my favorite piano rags here on the blog in the form of a more or less twice monthly update--on about the 5th and 20th, say--showing what ragtime performances are new and interesting on YouTube.  I might also post something old now and again just because it's worth a look.

As far as my personal progress goes, there are now a couple of easier piano rags I can play fairly well.  (I even put a video of myself playing 'On Easy Street' by J. Reginald MacEachron on Facebook last summer.)  I'm sure I could learn to play quite a few more of these well, but I have a tendency to spend most of my time working on pieces that are more difficult than what I can really master at the time.  Partly this is because I prefer to challenge myself, but also because I find pieces that aren't as simplistic to be more rewarding, and often more fun to play even when I can't play them well.  Go figure.  Just don't ask me to perform them, not yet anyway.

I am usually practicing several pieces at once.  At this time I have been working on James Scott's 'New Era Rag' for a few months and nearly have it memorized, though it's quite sloppy throughout.  I am in the middle of learning 'Grace and Beauty', also by Scott, 'Ethiopia Rag' by Joseph Lamb, and 'Ragging the Scale' by Ed Claypoole.  That last piece is really a lot of fun, and way catchier and more musically interesting than I expected it to be from looking at the cover.  On Bill Edwards' excellent webpage for all things ragtime, I read in his biography of Claypoole that he got his first big break in 1903 when he decided to get a real job as a court clerk.  That gave me a good laugh--how true it is, as musicians well know.  Anyway, if I can manage to learn this, I'll post it online somewhere.

So those seem to be the main four right now, although there are some other things I started working on and then just dropped them for a while since I don't have a whole lot of time to practice in the spring.  I am very busy with work and I basically only play when baby girl is sitting in her high chair eating.  If I wanted to mention a fifth piece, I am kinda working on 'Canadian Capers' and haven't exactly given it up, though it's not getting as much practice time as the others.  I found sheet music for it at a local thrift store so that was exciting.

I still haven't started a YouTube channel, and will probably opt to wait another year or two before doing so.  For one thing I still want my proficiency to improve a bit more, rather than make ragtime sound bad on the internet.  So I just have to give that some time.  It will also sound better if I get myself a new camera and a "new" (used) piano, which are also both on my list of things to get within that time frame.

So on to what's new.  Here's a contemporary piece by Tom Brier (still my favorite living ragtime composer, BTW) that I have had the sheet music for since purchasing his first folio, and now I finally know what it's supposed to sound like.  That second strain is a bit challenging.



And here's something you don't see every day: a minor key version of Scott Joplin's 'The Entertainer'--hey, why not?



I suppose I'll allow myself to go back a bit further and pick up some loose ends on weeks (such as this one) when the usual suspects aren't posting much new content.  Here's a fun performance by Tom Brier at the 1st ever Santa Cruz ragtime festival back in February.  This piece is catchy and doesn't sound too difficult to learn, but I don't have the sheet music for it.



And finally, let's go way back and listen to this fine performance of 'Grace and Beauty' (mentioned above) by Stephanie Trick.  Hmm, this performance was nine years ago, and seven years before I discovered ragtime--who knew what I was missing?  I'd be really happy if I can play it anywhere near this well when I'm done working on it (if I ever am!).

Hiking Update

In an earlier post I spelled out some "hiking objectives" where I said I was going to do more hiking and report on it.  I reported on one then nothing else happened.  If I had any readers they would be wondering if I just completely gave up on hiking and/or blogging or what.  Fortunately I don't have that problem, but I'll provide an update all the same.

I did not do near as much actual hiking, like on trails, as I had planned.  But, I did do a whole lot of walking.  Walking to Costco and back for lunch.  Walking the trails at Robin Hill Park (that almost counts).  Walking all over the neighborhood, etc.  This turns out to be more practical when one has a little baby to look out for.

But I did do one more hike the week after the Baldy/Maynard Burn hike, which was to hike the Upper Dungeness to Royal Basin trail.  And I did the same thing, being on a limited time budget, I walked for an hour then turned around and went back.  So I didn't get anywhere near Royal Basin,which I guess is pretty cool and I need to actually get up there sometime.  This was so long ago that I don't remember any particular highlights, but I at least produced a trip log at the time.  I thought I had taken a few photos on that hike, but perhaps I didn't since I can't find them now; or perhaps they got lost in my computer crashes of early 2015.

What else did I do?  Well, we try to do a family hike at Mt. Rainier every year with my Dad, which is his favorite place to hike and I definitely like it as well.  In 2014 (before I started with trip reports) we hiked Pinnacle Peak, and last summer we finally managed to do another Mt. Rainier hike on September 5th.  The funny thing was we originally planned this for August 29th but that was the day of the big windstorm, well advertised by forecasters, so we postponed it a week.  Then on Sept 5th we showed up at Sunrise to hike and it was freezing dang cold and windy with 3-4" of snow on the ground.  We went down to the White River Campground area and did the moraine trail instead.  I had forgotten the moraine trail leads away from the Emmons Glacier the farther up you go, and I had wanted to get closer to the glacier, but oh well.  I was also disappointed to find the last 1/2 mile of the moraine trail, that I know I hiked as a kid, is overgrown and no longer maintained.  Anyway, here are a few photos.

Snow at Sunrise, 9/5/15.  I guess it fell the evening before.

Emmons Glacier.  This glacier actually advanced somewhat in the 90's but seems to have finally joined in with its friends retreating somewhat (although not too far yet).

New bridge across the Inter Fork White River, where a recent washout occurred.

Then last October I took my son on a Sunday afternoon hike on the Slab Camp trail, which begins (appropriately enough) at the Slab Camp trailhead (the closest to our house, only 22 minutes away!) and descends to the Graywolf River.  That was a good time although the trail is one of those that goes down, then you have to climb back up.  We had done this before with the whole family, perhaps 3 or 4 years back.  I didn't take a lot of pics but here is are a couple.

Couldn't say what this is, but it looked cool.

Finally, so far this spring I have already done two hikes in the Olympic Mountains, Cascade Rock, and Ned Hill.  They were recent enough that I feel I remember them sufficiently well to provide a near-full report on each.  I'll be optimistic and aim to give them each their own space here on the blog within the next couple of weeks.  It would be exciting to actually catch up!

Second Blog Reboot

I had a blog "reboot" of sorts--I suppose we may call it that--back in September of 2014 as you will notice if you read below.  At that time I took the blog in a bit of a new direction from sometimes controversial commentary about topics such as religious and political issues, focusing on things like hiking and ragtime.  Since then I have neglected the blog pretty severely.  This is in part because I just don't get around to stuff, but also I have decided it will be easier to continue if I set a particular direction for this blog.

So that is what this second reboot is about.  All the controversial stuff has now been moved off to another site, which if you really want to know where it is I'm sure you can find it in a few clicks.  (I wanted to call it "Bloggy McBlogface" but that name was already taken.  Darn.)  This blog is henceforth reserved for discussion of hobbies and other topics of common and/or local interest.  Examples include hiking, music (especially ragtime), photography, natural history, reviews and maybe even building with Legos if I ever have time for that again (it's been a couple years).

The big question is, will I continue to post this time and possibly build a readership?  I promise nothing.  If I keep expectations low, the chance reader will not be disappointed.  But with a little luck, maybe I will remember to post here if I leave that tab open in my browser.  It's worth a try!