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Update and question:

Whew - I have the Easy Version of The Easy Money (which I now think is the Hard money). I have learned the A and B sections for both right hand RH and left hand LH and am currently playing each hand separately about three or four times a day.

I tried to put the hands together a week or so but the LH and RH were not sufficiently memorized and I stopped trying. At this point, I still marvel at the prospect of putting it all together but don't think it's possible. Thank goodness for the videos of people playing these pieces because it's amazing what they can do!

I am an early intermediate so have far to go. But this piece, I think, will really move me up a few notches.

My question is: How many times should I be playing the LH and the RH daily? Currently I play both A and B sections about 3 or 4 times, RH first and then LH.

Should I be playing them 10 times? The progress is very slow.

I imagine this is a 'your mileage may vary' type of situation and one which only a on-the-spot teacher may be able to answer. I think I'm in the slow-boat category for learning...

Anyway, any thoughts would be appreciated.

I currently try to play each section slowly, and try to hit only the right notes, with little concern for timing and pace.

I'm practicing several interesting pieces now, all classical except for the Joplin. Guess which one becomes the ear worm? The Joplin, of course...

Sam

The C part of Original Rags is currently playing in my personal head space.

I share because I care:

Well, if hands together is still too much of a hurdle, I think I would try to play hands separately (like you are doing) but with the correct timing, even if is very slowly. Once you can play hand separately with the correct timing, then pick up the pace. Next step would be hands together slowly, but with the correct timing.

Sam

I don't know the rag you're playing (can you point me to a YT performance?) but where the LH and RH have such a high degree of interdependence as they seemingly do with rags - the syncopation in one of the hands (usually RH) being grounded in the non-syncopation of the other (usually LH)- then I think hands separately is less useful as a practice strategy. Admittedly, I can't possibly put myself in your shoes or sense your difficulties but how about trying to spend a day putting two hands together over 4 bars or even just 2 bars? Start very slowly. A lot of the rhythmic ideas crop up repeatedly so getting the hang of one of them will help set you up for the others.

If HT isn't productive then revert to HS.

Here's a link to a fast recording.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CegOF1vEJ4

A delightful piece, to be sure!

It's not really the syncopation that I'm worried about, it's simply the independence of the two hands and the speed!

I will keep up with LH only and RH only for another week or two to cement those a bit more. Then will try to put them together, VERY SLOWLY! It's going to take time!!!!

Thx for your insights.

AZ_Astro

Any idea what the curvy blue (or gray?) line is running down the length of the roll? Also, do you know how the dynamics get encoded on the roll?

The short answer is "no" and the Internet wasn't much help in decoding the Duo-Art format.

Based off some stuff I read, the wavy blue line may be a human-readable dynamics guide for people who did not have a reproducing piano but who wanted to use manual controls on the piano to control dynamics.

I suspect that the reproducing piano-readable dynamics correspond to the punched holes on the far right side of the roll.

Based off some stuff I read, the wavy blue line may be a human-readable dynamics guide for people who did not have a reproducing piano but who wanted to use manual controls on the piano to control dynamics.

I suspect that the reproducing piano-readable dynamics correspond to the punched holes on the far right side of the roll.

...I am glad I still have 4 months...