Ok...I just agreed to play Stars and Stripes forever (piano solo) in July. It sounds pretty hard from the recording I listened to. Anyone out there played it? Can lend some advice to a youngster???

Matt

Start practicing now.

Ok...that sounds like trouble. STOP the presses! Cancel the Rach, slap the Star and Stripes in there and PRINT!

Hi Matt,

Depends hugely on the context ...

If you're playing it to an audience that expects to tap and sing along, then you've got to play it straight ... the more you sound like John Phillip Sousa, the better.

But if you've got some freedom, then there are lots of choices. Ragtime is one possibility (listen to Eubie Blake's version on iTunes). If jazz is a possibility, you could reharmonize it, maybe slow it way down, really turn it into something beautiful. Maybe medley it with something else, or at least put in a quotation or two from other patriotic music.

Another possibility is to play it straight, give everybody their dose of Sousa, then segue into a very different version of it.

So many choices!

Anyway, first questions to be answered are: what's the audience, and what's the setting?

Just for a family get together with abour 20 of my relatives. I think I can jazz it up some... they won't mind

If for family, have fun with it! Or start out very straight, then jazz it up on the 2nd/3rd go-round.

The most difficult aspect of playing something that everyone knows is the fact that they have all heard it played by some virtuoso or other. It's hard to stand up to that comparison. So don't! Make it be your own, dawg. (Apologies to American Idol fans... ).

There's a Horowitz recording too, but that one is a little too ... er ... full of itself.

Eubie Blake is very cool but I'm also liking the Liberace recording that sounds like a 15 year old boy trying to play the minute waltz in 42 seconds. (WHY do they do that when they're 15? My Harmonious Blacksmith pretty much invented Techno back then!)

The advantage of the Liberace being you're offstage faster.

Here's a page form Horowitz' wonderful transcription.

Do you think you could play it?



Mel

Get it down straight first, then jazz it up. Your family will love it and because you've learned it straight first, you'll be able to change back and forth at your pleasure!

Mel - that is not the version i'm using. I'm using this old version not transcripted by Horowitz. Mine seems just a little easier

Matt

I think you could knock out the Horowitz in a few months... but the Blake sounds a whole lot more fun!

Oopppsss. Sorry. I thought you were going to play "The Star Spangled Banner."

Kathleen

Hough played(recorded) i believe Horowitz's transcription.

i'm sure there are easier arrangements.

go for it.