Welcome to the Piano World Piano Forums Over 3 million posts about pianos, digital pianos, and all types of keyboard instruments. Over 100,000 members from around the world.
Join the World's Largest Community of Piano Lovers
(it's free)
It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!
He used a large upright piano with a very rich tone that he liked. Mic holders were attached and in place. He also had the action regulated to his liking.
There were no thumb tacks or glass in the hammers.
The piano sounded real good, and when you're a solo act, that's extremely important.
It's surprising because people throw around the two bits of popular ragtime performance practice (no swing and not too fast) as if ragtime performance practice were a black and white issue.
It isn't, and it never was. There are degrees of swing, and the performance of ragtime evolved. Some like it swung, some like it straight, some like it somewhere in between, and for some, it might depend on the day of the week and how they feel at that moment.
"If we continually try to force a child to do what he is afraid to do, he will become more timid, and will use his brains and energy, not to explore the unknown, but to find ways to avoid the pressures we put on him." (John Holt)
Originally posted by Kreisler: It's surprising because people throw around the two bits of popular ragtime performance practice (no swing and not too fast) as if ragtime performance practice were a black and white issue.
Dick Hyman plays what I would call a very fast(but moderate according to his view!)performance of the MLR but at a tempo I really like here:
He also discusses what he thinks about the phrase so often quoted "it is never right to play ragtime fast" and Joshua Rivkin's contribution of playing ragtime at a slower tempo.
Great videos! He makes a very good point - that ragtime descended from marches but became a vessel for virtuosity.
So if you're going to play ragtime as it was originally written, then yes, a slower tempo is more correct, but if you're going to play it as it was played in the 20's and 30's, then you have to fancy it up a bit!
"If we continually try to force a child to do what he is afraid to do, he will become more timid, and will use his brains and energy, not to explore the unknown, but to find ways to avoid the pressures we put on him." (John Holt)
Originally posted by Kreisler: It's surprising because people throw around the two bits of popular ragtime performance practice (no swing and not too fast) as if ragtime performance practice were a black and white issue.
It isn't, and it never was. There are degrees of swing, and the performance of ragtime evolved. Some like it swung, some like it straight, some like it somewhere in between, and for some, it might depend on the day of the week and how they feel at that moment.
I came across a story* of Charles Daniels or another early Ragtime composer pointing at a rapid tempo indication (?allegro con anima?) on a rag he had written and saying to John Stark (Joplin's first publisher, who always printed "It is never right to play ragtime fast," on his rags) "That's Latin for 'Stick it in your ear.'" So even at the beginning, there were rapid ragtime players.
*I thought it was in Nan Bostick's collection Ragtime Era Music of "Uncle Charlie" Charles N. Daniels, but can't find it there on rereading.
There is no end of learning. -Robert Schumann Rules for Young Musicians
Do you think this is "acceptable or correct" when playing ragtime?
Interesting! This is a thread from before my time here and I'm glad to see that it's been re-upped.
IMO just as with many other kinds of variants with rags, it's very OK, provided that someone can do it well. I've played lots of ragtime and don't take much liberty, because I'm not confident that I know what I'm doing.
Good job by Jazz++ coming up with the Joplin performance! And I think the performance posted by Plover does this fairly well, also the other liberties that are taken -- although not great. To use a yardstick that I occasionally use: Good enough to get into almost all amateur competitions? Yes. Good enough to get past the 1st round in the more demanding ones? I think not.
I don't have a problem with swung eighth, I only get uptight (as many have said) when it's played too fast. Again, the actual tempo marking is "Not Fast" (!).
The swinging, to me, is more of an artistic choice, and while I know the purist ragtime camp wouldn't approve, I think it's a valid interpretation that one could make. When I played it, I would play it both ways depending on how I felt that particular day.
....while I know the purist ragtime camp wouldn't approve....
But how could they not, if Joplin did it?
Heh, I agree. But I've heard dozens of ragtime specialists play it straight, so I figured it was the standard. Like you said, Joplin did. I always figured it was OK, even before I had heard Joplin, just knowing that the whole swung eights thing was becoming en vogue around the time anyway.
All this tempo hot air about the Maple Leaf Rag is about as useful as hearing opinions on the optimum engine sounds of a sports car ... but did you chaps know about the Ferrari F14 Berlinetta?
“The car will sprint from 0 to 60 mph in just 3.1 seconds and to 124 mph in 8.5 seconds. Top speed goes up to 211 mphâ€
Wonder if Scott Joplin drove a Model T Ford ... with a chappie running up front waving a red flag ... the Ford came in one colour ... black!
Well, it's definitely not "correct" -- but it is a typical stride treatment. Kinda reminds me of the old Shakey's Pizza Parlor rag style -- intended only as background music to enhance a Wild West "feel" -- and that genre is definitely a stride mutation. As good as the pianist is, though, I would say he's "working too hard" at it -- like in other forms of jazz, the best stride pianists make the high physical demands seem relatively effortless.
After I listened to Joplin's own performance, a couple of things struck me:
1 Note the absence of virtually any pedal of all, and more importantly the rock-solid left hand, which provides to my ear the "march-like" quality that he specifically requested for this rag. He was one heckuva pianist!
2 It IS faster than I expected! Since Joplin himself repeatedly cautioned pianists not to play his stuff too fast, it suggests to me that pianists at that time were very much in the habit of playing VERY fast, and TOO fast -- at the expense not so much of expressive intent (which I really don't think Joplin much cared about), but rather rhythmic solidity; i.e., don't rush!
But it's from a piano roll, right? If so, we can't tell anything about how fast Joplin played it, unless there were instructions that were followed. I'm not aware that the latter typically occurred with piano rolls (or ever), but maybe it did....
....When Joplin said "don't play it too fast" he was probably referring to the tendency to rush by some players....
I think more likely he just meant don't play it real real fast, but more basically I look at it like you do, i.e. not necessarily meaning what it seems to mean literally. To me in this respect it's exactly like the often-quoted thing about Chopin saying that in 'rubato,' the left hand keeps "strict time." I'd bet my bippy he didn't mean it literally, notwithstanding how, uh.....strict.... the word "strict" seems to be.
"While Joplin never made an audio recording, his playing is preserved on seven piano rolls for use in mechanical player pianos. All seven were made in 1916. Berlin theorizes that by the time Joplin made these recordings he may have been experiencing discoordination of the fingers, tremors and an inability to speak clearly, symptoms of syphilis, the disease that took his life in 1917.[16] The recording of "Maple Leaf Rag", on the Aeolian Uni-Record label from June 1916 was described by biographer Blesh as "... shocking... disorganized and completely distressing to hear."[17] Berlin notes that the "Maple Leaf Rag" roll was "painfully bad" and likely to be the truest record of Joplin's playing at the time. The roll, however, does not reflect his abilities earlier in life."
I think it sounds pretty good. I don't know what the biographer is talking about.
