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I have a 1905 Howard. Beautiful case. But unfortunately the tuning pins are beginning to loosen and not all the strings will hold a tune any more. I'll never have enough to restore it, but I haven't brought myself to be able to give up the case yet, so I still have it and play my digital most of the time. Maybe in the next couple of years I'll find a way to deal with the dilemma and get myself an acoustic I actually want to play. Or a better digital.

Thanks all, for more great music in your posts.

Cathy

Here are a few that I like:

1. http://www.ragtimepiano.ca/rags/rare.htm

2. http://www.perfessorbill.com/links.shtml

3. http://www.perfessorbill.com/sources1.shtml

@jotur

Hi Cathy, I'm not sure what the procedure is exactly but you might ask over in the tech forum about doing some work on the pinblock (I think it's called) and replacing or tightening the pins instead of a complete restore. They might give some insight about what could be done. If it doesn't have many major problems other than this it would be a shame not to keep it. Got pictures?

I love ragtime!!!! Once I establish a solid foundation on piano I plan to learn some ragtime stuff. The 'big three' of ragtime piano... besides Scott Joplin there were two other main ones (Joseph Lamb & James Scott). I haven't read through all 7 pages of posts on this thread yet but I imagine the other two have been mentioned already.

Yes I like Joplin's rags, but I put only the well known Maple Leaf and Entertainer on my todo list, too much other nice stuff to work on



Haven't heard Rag on Midi but I did hear some Boogie Woogie on midi. It sounded very weird, it totally lacked 'swing' that makes it work. So I would not count too heavily on the midi files.

Nothing wrong with listening but if you want to listen I recommend going for a good audio recording on eg youtube or here on this forum.

Well, there were hundreds of ragtime composers, but two others that are extremely well regarded are Joseph Lamb and James Scott.

There are many fine rags by other classic era composers, such as Artie Matthews, Arthur Marshall, David Guion, Charles Hunter, May Aufderheide, Eubie Blake, et al., not to mention modern composers.

I only have one easily accessible picture - scroll down here:

1905 Howard

As for the room itself, the white boxes are gone, but other sheet music books have replicated and taken that space :\ Oh well.

As for fixing the pin block, I hadn't thought about it. I could ask my tech, but I suspect he'd rather I got a newer piano -

Cathy

Just recently become a ragtime man, and my newly found interest has been strengthened by this thread. I'd like to learn to play some of the silent film ragtime music, just love silent films. The Entertainer and Rocky Racoon (the solo therein can be seen as ragtime.)

Just found this video, someone turning 80's hits into ragtime, on a Nord Stage of course.

Hi, Im a beginner adult player and have found a book that is fun and challenging for my level. Its called Jazz Rags and Blues by Martha Mier. I wold like to find more beginner level songs like that.

There are some free simpler ragtime arrangements linked in my--shameless plug-- Joplin-themed ABF recital thread

Just scroll down to the resources section and you'll see some of the free ragtime sheets I was able to unearth on the Internet. Alas, most ragtime arrangements are covered by copyright and published by the big publishers, so there weren't too many of the free ones that I could find.

Sorry about bumping an old thread (I'm not sure why it's bad etiquette though)

I love Ragtime! I'm still pretty early in my piano learning journey and I find the Ragtime piano music injects a happy and at the same time kind of surreal type of feeling into my mind. It's like traveling back to the childhood and amusement parks and all the joy and now... the nostalgia... and so it sometimes sounds strangely depressing at the same time, depending on the mood.

I'd love to be able to play it someday, and I'm sure it will be very fun because of the lovely rhythm that resembles drum playing and considering the piano is a percussive instrument, it's gonna be heck of a lot of fun playing Ragtime on the piano!

I'm so glad you bumped this old thread! Lots of good info in it. I hope the links to ragtime midi sources are still good -- will check them out when I have more time. I'm not advanced enough to handle ragtime yet, but it's definitely a goal. It sounds like it would be great fun to play.

It's only "bad etiquette" when the person who revives a long-dead thread is responding directly to a specific question posted by the original poster who, for some time, has no longer posted on PW.

In many cases, an old thread can contain information and opinions that still spark interest, so it's a question of whether reviving an old thread or starting a new one is more appropriate.

Regards,

I find it interesting to look at the first page of an old thread and not recognizing anyone who posted back then. Interesting and depressing at the same time.

True!

While any affinity, strong in my youth, I had for classical and jazz has diminished over the years, for some reason I appear to have a permanent infatuation with ragtime. There has been a huge amount of accomplished ragtime written in the last few decades, probably much more than during its previous history. For me, David Thomas Roberts creates the most powerfully eloquent music in the idiom, but there are many other composers, particularly Scott Kirby, Frank French, Hal Isbitz, Brian Keenan and Reginald Robinson, all of whom have distinctively prolific and interesting musical personalities. None of these people appear to feature in this discussion, which strikes me as odd.

I just started learning my first ragtime piece, The Chrysanthemum by Scott Joplin. I'm really enjoying it.

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