Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Need Help Identifying a mystery Rag

Unfortunately I have very little to go on. I was driving around with a friend and he had his Ipod on shuffle. A really amazing rag comes on and I ask him what it is and he had no idea. He couldn't even remember where he got it from.

I started to listen to a bunch of joplin rags on youtube but none of them fit the bill. My mystery rag was much more virtuosic than any Joplin rag on youtube. It was also much more dramatic.

So I guess a good follow up question would be who are some other great Rag composers?

Thanks for your help!

Rufenreddy?

I know a tremendous number of rags but I need more help than this. Why was the rag so good? Was it just a really good melody? Did it have figures cascading up or down the keyboard? Did it follow the traditional Rag structure (AA-BB-A-CC-DD)? Did it sound like Joplin or not at all like him? Did it have a very modern sound (there are some composers today who compose ragtime). Would you describe it as "pretty"?

A couple options

If it was extremely virtuosic, it may be this, although to my ears this doesn't sound much like a rag:



William Bolcom has recently written a bunch of rags. Here's one:

There were lots of other rag composers, but the next three from the era were probably James Scott, Joseph Lamb, and Tom Turpin.

If it is faster, it might be called novelty piano instead. The big name in that style was Zez Confrey.

There were others who wrote in similar styles, as the borderline between styles is never clear. There are some virtuoso rags by Eubie Blake.

I think you will enjoy this.

There is a member here, I think gsmonk, who knows a lot about rags. Maybe you can PM him.

Maybe "Atomic Shuffle" by Petot?
That's the one rag that sprung to mind from your description.

Where I discovered it, and the only time I've ever heard it, was at the 2007 Cliburn amateur competition. The whole set-up was sort of interesting because, as was announced, the player was a last-minute replacement from the waiting list for someone who dropped out. He was a local guy from Fort Worth, so they called him and said hey, you wanna come on over and be in the competition after all? He said yeah, and this was one of his pieces. I was bowled over, but he didn't advance past the 1st round, and the one review of his performance that I saw wasn't real favorable.

Here's an excerpt of the piece, played by someone named Glenn Jenks.(I couldn't easily find an online performance of the whole piece.)

"Atomic Shuffle"

edit: Found the whole piece, apparently played by someone named Sue Queller. These two people, whoever they are, are real good.

I used to belong to a Ragtime society in the US and I bought every single piece of music that they offered. Every once in a while I'll work through that pile.

Dick Hyman played all the piano parts for the film Scott Joplin. The gentleman in this clip who determines who's in and who's out is Eubie Blake.

Thanks so much for your suggestions. You've opened my eyes to some awesome rag pieces however my mystery rag hasn't been identified yet If it helps, one of the themes of my rag featured a tremolo. Also most of it was in minor I believe.

The search continues!

Maybe The Serpent's Kiss by William Bolcom?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzorssRJce4

Say a little bit more about the tremolo you noticed - was it in the left hand or right hand? Was it used as part of a melody? Can you answer any of the other questions I asked above?

Maybe this? Check it out at 7:43

I believe it was used in both hands to make a secondary melody. Actually the last thing in the piece was that tremolo.

How about Kitten on the Keys:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYK1g-3thYw&feature=player_detailpage


Or perhaps Ragtime Nightingale: (no tremolo but it is in a minor key)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6oUjiLPU6k&feature=player_detailpage

Sorry, doesn't ring a bell

Try this site.

ChopinAddict,

thanks for that link to Ragtime piano.ca .

Just found out that there were actually rag composers from Québec. And I downloaded 2 pdf partitions.

Thanks again !

That's great!