Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Need Help With Maple Leaf Rag and The Entertainer

Hi everyone, I used to take piano lessons as a kid/young teenager for about 5 or 6 years. My mom insisted I shouldn't give up, but for whatever reason when I became a teenager I was just 'too cool' for the piano. I am now 23 and have since realized the piano is too cool for me. I just started messing around a month ago, but couldn't be any happier I have started playing, and I think this time its going to stick for life.

Anyways, I always wanted to play these Joplin rags as a kid. My teachers would not let me play them though, I also was really small back then and since then have grown amazing long and slender piano fingers. I did learn the simplified entertainer but it was very disappointing, the real deal just sounds so much more full.

Anyways, I bought the sheet music for it and surprisingly picked it up fairly quick. I had all 4 sections memorized in a week. I have since been working on filling in the gaps and working on the pedaling, dynamics, overall sound, and tempo. This is where I have questions.

At first I thought it sounded good, but after listening to others play it, I realized I was botching it up and way too over zealous with the pedal. Just today I started backing off and wow, it already sounds so much better. I'm looking to get as much advice about where and when to pedal and which sections or bars to avoid it. Also, I am trying not to play it "my way" as I was famous for doing as a kid. I want to stay true to the way Joplin intended it to be play. This also made me realize I don't need to play it as fast as others, I think I can actually play it smoothly with very minimal mistakes at his tempo, but I'm not really sure what BPM on the metronome that would be.

Last week I started caring a lot more about the dynamics, and it really adds a lot of character to the song. I was getting kind of sick of it, but I am loving now that im not just playing the right notes, but it actually sounds and FEELS good. There isn't too many changes, and I have memorized all the fortes, pianos, accents, crescendos, and diminuendos. Only problem I feel is I want to add my own touches here and there (mainly from listening to others play it), but I'm not sure if this is going to degrade the piece. Any advice here?


With maple leaf rag, I have been taking it slow due to still working on cleaning up the entertainer, and spending a lot of time practicing reading music, scales, arpeggios, and triads. I learned the first page the other night pretty easy and can play it at a verrrry slow practice tempo with 2 hands. Tonight I learned the 2nd section left and right, I can play both pretty easy separately, but when I went to put it together it just didn't click. One of my strong points has always been being able to hear something and play what I've heard, even off beat notes and syncopation's like in Joplins rags. This is the firs time i've really struggled to put 2 hands together in my life. I know the answer is I just need more practice, but just looking for any input on how I can learn to put the two hands together for this section, because I know the next section is going to be extremely hard.

Sorry for writing a book, but I just wanted to give the details and hopefully get some great insight.

My best advice? Post a recording for critique. Would be far more helpful than trying to type out everything you think you're doing.

Great idea, I'll figure out how to do that tomorrow and make it work.

Do you have any insight on what tempo/BPM this song SHOULD be played at?

A MIDI of The Entertainer I have, has it at 60 bpm, another of Maple Leaf Rag wants it played at 98 bpm. Most of the notes of both pieces are eight and sixteenth notes, so the numbers are a bit misleading. It's still quite fast.

Answering for both of the pieces, since you didn't specify for which one you were asking. Good luck.

Just for fun, here's a piano roll recording of the Maple Leaf Rag, performed by Joplin himself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E5iehuiYdQ&list=PL2BF5A477B6CEEEC2

- IMHO some of the best renderings of Scott Joplin rags were made by Joshua Rifkin. He didn't play it very fast either. Here are both Entertainer and Maple Leaf Rag.

- You don't need to buy sheet music for Scot Joplin Rags, it's public domain now and you can download and print it e.g. here.

- There were many threads on Maple Leaf Rag on PW. Just enter "Maple Leaf Rag" into the search window. For example, the best tempo is discussed here .

- If you were able to memorise the Entertainer in 1 week, you are very quick (at least compared to me). Good for you.

- When I returned to piano ~18 months ago, I started with ragtimes too :-) I learned both Entertainer and Maple Leaf Rag. I don't consider myself an advanced player, but I will add my beginner $0.02 of experience anyway: (but I didn't try to learn them true to the original version)

I think that you can add your "own touches here and there". But it really depends on what you want to achieve.

Some people don't use pedal in MLR at all, though I personally liked some pedal in the 3. section. I found it important to make up for the missing pedal by other means to keep the feeling of the rhythm strong: To support rhythm, I employed dynamics with consideration for rhythm in both hands and even some swing in the rhythm in some parts of the song.

I personally find Entertainer more difficult than MLR, as it contains strong melody line that, at least for me, was more difficult to make properly 'sing', in a musical way. I employed pedal in all parts of the Entertainer, though my teacher disagreed with this approach.

It should be played where it's played. Rags aren't as strict as classical music; there's an improvisational feel to them. You've got to find the groove that works for your hands and your way of playing them.


There's been a lot of conjecture about whether this was Joplin or not. I think the overall conclusion is that it was not him: In his last year of life, his piano playing suffered greatly, and it is unlikely he would have been able to record this due to his ongoing and worsening illness.

I don't know what to think about that, but there was a whole discussion about it in this forum somewhere. I just forget which thread..

Just a quick note on pedal: IIRC, Joplin didn't include any pedal indications in his scores, and my understanding of ragtime has always been that as a style is uses minimal pedal, if any at all (perhaps because the bar-room pianos it evolved on had terrible pedal mechs).

Anyway, if I were you I'd lay off the pedal totally for a while (I know it's tempting in the big ascending run in Maple Leaf...) and concentrate on a precise, clear sound. One of the problems with the sustain pedal is that it allows you to fudge your way around tricky bits - if you stop using it for a while it forces you to address the problems.

Ill try making a recording again tonight. My hands are freezing cold in this house and just because I'm trying to record it i'm over thinking it and making way to many mistakes to even worry about the overall sound of the piece.

Its amazing the difference in playing alone and then adding even 1 other person in the room.

Edit: Also been listening to Joshua Rifkins recordings a lot, my god its so beautiful. Sucks to know i'll never play these pieces THAT well. Thats exactly the tempo I'm shooting for with both pieces, I just wish I had the same grace as him haha.

Here yuo can find many recordings of the pianoworld ABF performers

https://recitals.pianoworld.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Joplin


This was my take at maple leaf (few years ago). You may also get some ideas for dynamics from it

http://recitals.pianoworld.com/recital_files/Recital_23/07.%20wouter79%20-%20Maple%20Leaf%20Rag.mp3

I don't use pedal except to get a few accents and to get the stride first two notes slurred

For Entertainer I played a simplified version (I was then playing just 1 year) but I think it still captures how I like it. Also without pedal

http://recitals.pianoworld.com/recital_files/Recital_21/02.%20wouter79%20-%20the%20entertainer.mp3

Hey thanks for sharing that! I really liked your maple leaf rag!!! I'm just barely getting into maple leaf rag, and plan on barely touching the pedal.

The entertainer is where I'm kind of stuck on the pedaling. Another reason I'm having a hard time and making a lot of mistakes today is because I am reforming my use of the pedal throughout the song, so a lot of my attention is focused on my right foot. I also am trying to hard to be perfect like I'm going to be ripped on for making mistakes, but I'm just going to suck it up and give it my best shot. I've tried so many times my phone battery died so I'm going back at it when I get some battery life lol...

Sounds good. I, for one, would prefer to see all the mistakes. If I'm looking at technique, there's no better place to start than missed notes.

Also, I'll chime in on the "pedal" conversation with two thoughts: first, use the pedal. Otherwise a stride bass sounds very staccato. Second, don't compare modern pianos to old beat up bar pianos from the turn of the 20th century, and also in the same breath expect to create the same sound by performing the piece the same way. Won't ever happen.

"That real ragtime of the higher class is rather difficult to play is a painful truth which most pianists have discovered. Syncopations are no indication of light or trashy music, and to shy bricks at 'hateful ragtime' no longer passes for musical culture."



In my informed opinion, for a Stark rag, where you see pedal, it's indicative of the explicit wish of the composer. Where you DON'T see pedal, you're expected to use default pedaling which can be summarized basically as "Use the pedal to allow the bass to sustain well, except where doing so might cause the treble to get very muddy due to chromatic movement". YMMV.



Welcome to the club. Tempo markings are deliberately vague, IMO. Playing ragtime for people to dance to? Up tempo. House concert? Slower tempo. Despite the admonitions against playing ragtime fast, the tempo markings are very aggressive? "Slow march tempo" sounds slow, until you realize how fast a march is. 72 BPM for "Eugenia" in 2/4 is brisk. ~100 BPM for "Sugar Cane" in 2/4 is insane. But Joshua Rifkin plays Joplin at a very slow pace and the result is beautiful and who's gonna argue with him?



It can add or detract. Some performers will embellish to a point where listeners will argue that it detracts but other listeners will love the rag all the more. There almost certainly was an improvisation tradition around ragtime, which became more pronounced as the ragtime era progressed. Joplin reportedly didn't improvise much; other performers did.




Your left hand is marking time extremely regularly. Your right hand, in that section, is stressing the descending octaves. You'll get the trick pretty quick if you persist slowly.

I recommend practicing maple leaf without pedal till you have it all down at tempo, and then add a tad of pedal at a few places. The pedaling is sparse and very simple, so no need to use it already with practicing.

Ok finally got a recording. Really bummed though, because the combination of using my iPhone to record, uploading the file to my computer (compressing it), and further compressing it uploading it to youtube, and the out of tune piano really takes away from the sound. Whatever though, nothings perfect you guys should get the idea.

I'm just glad I can go back to practicing alone now without worrying about playing it perfect! :P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0CwAxF2mCE&feature=youtu.be

Does anyone know of a better way to record? I have a laptop as well, but I wasn't sure which device would have the better microphone, they are both incredibly small and not meant to record music.

I use a pretty crappy audio workup, myself, so I can't answer that one. But there is a technician forum around, and I'm sure someone there might be able to answer the question much better. (Not to mention there are some serious sound gurus who float around the other forums..)

As for the video, can you give us an angle where we can see your fingertips through your elbows? From the side is fine, but it's hard to "see" a mistake if we can't "see" the mechanism that caused it.

Tomorrow I'm going to figure out a better setup. I used to have a video camera that is probably equipped with a decent mic compared to a cell phone. I was watching the video again and god it sounds horrible, it doesn't even really pick up on the dynamics. It sounds flat and dry the whole way through, and so awfully out of tune.

I spent some time working on it tonight and wow, I improved it a lot. Mistake wise and overall sound it was really sounding good. I wanted to record it again and post it here because it was pretty dramatic improvement, but after listening to the phone recording again it just doesn't do it justice. Too muffled and compressed. So if I can dig out a video camera I know where the tripod is, then it will be much better quality.

I was actually very happy with the way I was playing it earlier, I would have been comfortable performing it that way, maybe a tad faster though. Even my dad happen to walk by and notice it sounding a lot better and he stopped to listen, and he really gets annoyed when I play the piano. (he doesn't understand you have to practice the same thing over and over again to play it well lol). My mom said it sounds like a whole new song, so I was pretty convinced I wasnt just telling myself it sounded better. Not sure why it all came together, but something just clicked. I'm excited to sleep on it tonight, that way it should be locked in by tomorrow.

Hopefully I find the camera and can get a decent recording up, with little to no mistakes!

Sometimes, just understanding that you're going to perform it makes you focus on certain things you were previously glossing over. I'm glad the process is helping you to improve yourself!

As far as I'm concerned, the quality of the audio doesn't make a difference. I understand bad audio recordings and can work with that. I would just need a better visual angle. Yes, there's a musical aspect to what you're playing, but the sound coming out of the instrument is a by-product of the movements you make to produce that sound. So, if I hear something that sounds musically off, I want to check how you moved in and out of that note/passage. If I say, "Accent this note," or, "Make that softer," or, "Even out the sound here," but your hand/arm isn't in the right place to produce that kind of sound, there will be a severe disconnect in any advice I might give.

Dan, I don't think that sounded bad at all. I like the relaxed, steady pace of the bass and the tone of the piano fits this kind of music well, although I'm sure it's much better "in person". Looking forward to your next recordings.

I'm impressed by your steady confident playing, I'd expect you to be able to turn that into a highly polished job! I find it hard, without practice, to play that octave melody run including the 3rd interval (C,D,D#,E,C,D,E) without bodging it. Either your hands are bigger than mine or you've a natural gift. The good news for determined ragtimers, I guess (I never learnt Joplin before), is that that shape seems to crop up in the writing almost constantly so we get plenty of practice over time. Just like the LH jumps - we develop a knack but it takes a bit of work.

If you want to drive yourself absolutely nuts why not pick up one of the few remaining rags for the recital on Mar 15th? If you want to spare your folks going absolutely nuts get a digital piano to practise on.