Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Joplin-themed ABF recital signup thread

For those of us playing more slowly than we think ragtime is -

Joplin's pieces can be *very* musical and lovely, and that sometimes gets lost in the speed. The harmonies and tune-like bass line sometimes gets lost in the speed. There is much to be said for slow/slower Joplin. It's often a pleasant surprise.

The first Joplin I posted in the ABF was 1/8th note at 62.5.

So you have company, you have precedent, and you have some great possibilities due to Joplin himself.

Cathy

I'm certainly going to be playing "Rose Leaf" at a more sedate pace.

"Joplin's pieces can be *very* musical and lovely, and that sometimes gets lost in the speed. The harmonies and tune-like bass line sometimes gets lost in the speed. There is much to be said for slow/slower Joplin. It's often a pleasant surprise."

That`s my excuse and I`m sticking to it . . . .how sweet it can sound when ya don`t go rushing things . .

Harmonically, the piece I have been working on is not nearly as rich or complex as other classical works I have managed with, since joining piano world. However, I am finding it every bit as challenging to learn.

It took me a long time (I was starting to get panicky around Christmas, due to my lack of progress) to get into the groove with it. Had it not been for the pending deadline, I'd have left it. But, making progress now and feeling GREAT about that.

PW and more specifically, recital commitments have advanced my playing light years from where it was. Full preparation steam ahead now, and until the curtain rises.

Hope everyone is progressing well ...

Woowoo!

Wow, this has been so hard. Extremely useful but really hard for me; not so much the learning and practicing part, but the performance/recording part. I'm a hundred years behind in this compartment. Fast pieces like this one are killing me. Might be that I haven't learned how to speed up a piece in an efficient way yet, or it's just that my brain and fingers are not fast enough.

With this kind of non classical pieces I found that I get pretty quickly from the very slow learning the notes phase to the "it clicks!" phase when muscle memory sets in, but then all sorts of mistakes pop up and anything could happen, i.e. I may concentrate and stop thinking and be able to play it all through quite well, or more often than not I black out completely in several places that I thought I know well.

Anyway, I have my recording! It's almost 3 minutes with the repetitions! Awwww

I`ve got to the fun stage with this. Mistahes are fun, Joplin wouldn`t have it any other way. . . brash and loud! I`ve loved this from the moment I started playin it. It won`t be my last! I get to hear the rest when the recital starts!
Just wackin` me jo-anna out of tune in readiness . . .

sinophilia - you have your recording? Wow! Congratulations!

I thought I was going to get all this practicing done starting this past week, and then my water heater broke and I moved all the furniture out of a small room into my piano room, and I can't even climb over enough furniture to get to my keyboard! So today's project is to move furniture back in to the small room

I wonder what happens next?

Cathy

Well, I might be in a world of hurt. My wife and I sold our house and bought two smaller houses. So we are becoming snow birds between Salem, Or and Las Vegas, Nevada. My piano is on its way to Nevada and I have been practicing on my little Yamaha 76 key keyboard, what little practicing I can do. We are heading to Vegas in two weeks so maybe I'll have a little time to get my recording done. Its going to be what it is probably not what I wanted to do.....

The very thing I've been finding! After a couple attempts at recording, I realized that I had to go back and learn more deeply the parts that were only in muscle memory. I've been spending the last several days on this and am starting to see progress again. I even got two good play-throughs today, but the sound of snow blowers outside kind of ruined the recordings.

Greetings ragtime friends. Not having enough time lately has left me squeezed between getting something presentable on either the Chopin Nocturne I've committed to or Country Club Rag, but not both I fear.

The better news is I already have a recording ready to go on Maple Leaf so that is covered, but for now I've decided I must pass on Country Club and hope that it will be picked up by someone else? Unfortunately it only dawned on me in the last few days that progress on CC had been grinding to a halt and more seriously, available time ahead looked to be shrinking.. apologies to all (and in particular to CebuKid who'd asked to have it played) if the recital is left with a gap. I'm hoping the remaining six weeks will give someone enough time to take it on.

Sorry to hear of this DT. Glad you are still in the show.

Questions:
1.) Is pedal ever used in rags?
There are no indications of it on the sheet. Plus, it goes like blazes, so I doubt it. But, would like to ask about as have not seen any mention of it (but perhaps missed it) and really have no clue.

2.) A bit early for this yet, but will this recital be a YouTube submission format?

thx

Pedal is definitely used in rags. At the very least you'll tend to use it to sustain the bass long enough to move your hand to the chord.



I'm thinking to just use the piano forums quarterly recital software, if Sam S will show me how. It should support both video and audio links IIRC.

So is a video required, or is the audio alone sufficient? I've got a recording done of the Palm Leaf Rag, but no video to go with it. Should I be thinking about putting together some images to use in a video?

If we use the recital software (which I am happy to help with after the current quarterly recital is done) then the only thing that is required is an mp3 recording. Video is great to have but an optional extra.

Sam

The forum recital software takes only .mp3 files. There's a place on the submission form where you can provide a link to a video if you want to.

It's .mp3s for me

Cathy

You guys are way ahead of me in being prepped for this! I can play most of it in chunks at a nice tempo (not fast. . .) and today I started just playing it thru sometime so I have it in my head. But I'm sure not ready to record already! This sounds like it will be fun to listen to.

Cathy

Hi Dire Tonic,
No worries. It's excellent that you've complete MLR. That was a tough one!
I actually PM'd whizbang a month ago that I would be bowing out.

The holidays, career, and other "distractions" have cut into my bench-time. "Easy Winners" is actually about a 5-month piece, easily, and I lost months of time.

The good news: I have the 1st 2 strains up to a "respectable" tempo.

The bad news: There's no way I can finihs the last 2 tricky strains and then put it all together by mid-March.

I'm still on the fence about submitting an "incomplete" version - but it would kind of be in the spirit of Marvin Hamslish's piano version of Entertainer where he only played the first 2 strains...lol.

I've always been purist when it comes to Joplin, and have always played and performed the repeats. So I still don't feel comfortable submitting an incomplete work.

With that said, I'd like to get everyone else's thoughts on this, but would also like to leave my name out for now. I noticed nobody has taken my open slot so we shall see. The 1st 2 strains do sound nice still...
If there's one thing I now appreciate from reading the comments....Joplin ain't easy!! That's for sure. Either way, I look forward to listening to everyone's playing!

I'm with you! And I had a simplified version.

For the record, I made a video by adding my digital audio recording to the (heavily annotated and drenched in sweat!) sheet music and clips of the acoustic, so I have both a YouTube link and an mp3.

Play it, Cebukid - shortened version, who cares? This is for fun.

Cathy