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Whizbang - I still have lots of time before I'll pick a rag, but I checked the 1st page list vs what I know, and there are a few left (unless there's an updated list I missed). Are any of these taken:

Elite Syncopations
Eugenia
Ragtime Dance
Euphonic Sounds
"New Rag"
Sunflower Slow Drag
Wall St Rag

Edit: the bold ones are two of my favorites..

All of those are unclaimed!

Great, I'm leaning towards the Ragtime Dance, but I'll have to see if you can hear the foot-stompin' on my carpeted floor..

Making progress. Played the first part Hands Together at a slow pace this past week. Yay!

You go!

Me, as well. And not happy with my progress to date. I've been making better progress with Tchaikovsky and as a result have been spending more time there.

What I am finding is that in one sense there really isn't much to the piece. It is a simple (often 2 note) harmony that doesn't make a lot a sense to me until it is brought up to reasonable tempo and eventually goes like blazes. When playing it in my mind, everything is fine, but at the keyboard it is not near fine. I read painfully slow and am nowhere near a tempo to bring the feel of it out.

A slump I can overcome I think, but far more dedicated focus will be required and I've been dragging my heals a bit.

With Sugar Cane, you sure picked one of the barnburners, but I've got faith in you! Still a skosh over 3 months left to work it out!

I've never played that one.. sounds a little more two-step than rag, but no matter what you call it, it sounds like fun. Can't wait to hear it.

Still plugging along with the A and B sections only of The Easy Money.

I know both sections fairly well, one hand only. I have been able to put hands together for part A but part B is still a big struggle, as (I guess) that section isn't in memory quite as firmly.

But I wanted to mention that I think I'm going to play my right hand without looking at it. The right hand is easier to play because 1) I'm right handed and 2) there aren't nearly as many jumps as in the LH stride bass.

So for the past two days I've been practicing part A RH while closing my eyes and I think it has helped. I'll be putting part B together asap and after I've got that going I'll start closing my eyes for RH part B.

Crazy man!

Great to hear, AZ.

Incidentally, folks, we just passed the 15th, so there's a little less than three months to go!

And I just played Original Rags just a shade slower than my final tempo was on The Entertainer lo these many years ago. Wow. I guess I am getting better I have a couple of gigs coming up so I haven't had as much time to spend focusing on this, but the time off has seemed to help, as it often does. It's had time to soak in

It doesn't feel "easy" yet, but it's come a long ways.

Nice going, AZ Astro! I pretty much do the same - just know the RH and watch the left. There are a couple of places tho, since I've played these kinds of basses so many years, that I do actually know where my LH goes and I can make sure my RH does the octaves that jump from B back up to E. Whew!

There's so much to learn from Joplin. I've been really paying attention to where I want the accents for the syncopation to be - I may be wrong, but it seems more subtle than I've played them in the past, and I'd like this turn out a little more sophisticated than I've what I've done before. It's a journey.

Cathy

Gasp

No well, it should work... I'm struggling through the last section, then it will take me a while to put all three together at the same tempo with the repetitions and all... but I should make it!

The LH of bar 13 in the trio got the better of me in the last few days. Without realising it, after a lot of looping practice round the Bb leaps leading into the offending bar which I probably hammered a bit to bring up the volume, I've bought on a bout of LH tendonitis. I'll have to avoid playing it for a few days at least which is a pity because this is a fun piece to play.

Heal well!

Maple Leaf Rag always fatigues my right hand and I can feel it in the tendons in the back of my right hand. It is indeed fun song to play, though. I do hope your tendons heal quickly!

Whizbang, dpaws, thanks for your kind thoughts.

Sorry to hear about your tendonitis! Rest up well. If there's a specific section, or anything you'd like to look at to see if there's underlying stress in the playing, I'd be happy to take a look.

diretonic mentioned the measure--it's those challenging LH jumps (plus the rather awkward chord) in bar 13 of the C section.

I'm not sure I'm looking at the same arrangement.. the whole section at bar 13 isn't in Bb; it's in C.

My initial guess, without info, and based on typical rag issues, would be that when jumping from octaves to chords, the player is holding the hand open, dropping the wrist, and/or twisting between the octave and the chord. Those are the three biggest stress/tension causers in this type of bass line that I can think of, and a lot of the tension typically has to do with the 4th and 5th fingers, especially, which causes those other issues. But, to be more specific, I'd need a pretty detailed description of the exact issue, or really, preferably, a video of it. If a picture tells a thousand words, well, every second of video is 32 pictures.

Well, the list of suspects is growing with a prescribed statin as a possible outlier. But, Derulux, that would be great if you could take a look – I’ll try and sort out a video in the next couple of days playing from the Bb jumps via the two Ebm bars into bar 13 - Gdim leading to Db/Ab (is this a standard arrangement or might it be written in other keys? - you mentioned Tom Brier who does it in G,A and B). Curiously, it’s the only LH figure in the entire piece written in single notes and where the syncopation shifts to the LH too. I know I get tension there both in trying to force the weight of the sound with fewer notes and also to balance the rhythm which is inclined to feel looser. I’ve been trying also to take the level of the entire piece down a notch. Where it gets difficult I tend to be heavy handed so that’s probably not helping.