During my copious amounts of spare time lately I've been recording a few Joplin rags. Well, actually, I've been practically sight reading them into the microphone because that's how copious my time is, and my energy. It's the end of the semester, after all. Still, with the ability to do a few takes and some light editing, some of the playing isn't too bad. I've gotten used to playing music well on very short notice these past several years.
While I'm doing things on the fly, I'm also trying out some creative interpretations of the Joplin classics. Maybe it's my classical training, but some of the interpretations are rather expressive, and I'm doing some unusual things with the tempi as well. But today I thought I'd let you listen to one of my favorites, and point out one salient feature.
When ragtime was new, the public (well, the white public, anyway) didn't know what to make of it. Amateur pianists, who bought most of the sheet music, couldn't really play it because of the complex rhythms. In some cases, those rhythms were taken out, so the pretty little heads that bought the music wouldn't get too frustrated with it.
Rhythm can be a tough thing to notate, particularly if things are syncopated--that is, if they are not on the beat. If everything is between the beat you end up using a lot of ties and sixteenth notes and so on. A lot of ink is spent on what is really a pretty simple concept if you just listen and feel it. But on the page it looks daunting.
Then there are rhythms that aren't on the page. A row of eight notes might just be a row of eighth notes, or they might be swung. In that case, the first eighth note is longer, and the second is shorter, in what is pretty much a 2 to 1 ratio (you might say they are really triplets, with the first note getting the first two-thirds of it). On the page all the notes look equal. But they aren't. This concept actually existed in European music back as far as the Renaissance. But it also crops up in American jazz styles. Ragtimers probably did their fair share of it, too.
In this recording, I do a certain amount of it. Since Joplin repeats each section, on the repeated halves of two of the sections I do some swinging. There's nothing in the score that says to do this, and I don't know whether Joplin would have approved. But I'll bet you anything I'm not the first person to do this! In fact, I'm probably about a hundred years late.
Now in the second section of the piece, which starts at :48, I play it straight the first time, and swing it the second time (that repeat is as 1:09); after the opening section returns, there is another section, similar in nature to the second (it is more lyrical and melodic than its bouncier cousin, the first section) and this time I swing it the first time (1:49), and play it straight the second time (2:09). It sounds so polite and contained the second time! I love it. Sometimes an even passage of notes can sound syncopated--or at least give the same effect-- if they follow a group of notes that are syncopated. In that case, it is the sudden contrast between the syncopation and the unsyncopated notes that make the effect. Putting everything suddenly on the beat after several measures in which nothing is on the beat is a sudden rhythmic shift, just like your body experiences going around a tight turn in a roller coaster. It's a neat trick Joplin himself employs in the bass line near the end of the piece when, after a bit of unpredictable oom oom pah pah ooming he suddenly restores the old predictable oom pah oom pah in the bass (at 2:41 and on the repeat at 3:01). And, with the uneven notes becoming even notes when I repeat that earlier section I'm doing something like that as well.
Anyhow, have a listen. It's a fun piece.
Elite Syncopations by Scott Joplin
Showing posts with label ragtime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ragtime. Show all posts
Monday, April 28, 2014
Friday, April 25, 2014
Woa, Nellie!
If you've been reading this blog you already know that I often like to deal in small things--small, that is, unless you are a performing musician. Then you are ready to fight to the death over them. They're only small for everyone else.
I recently re-posted my blog about the Widor Toccata from last year, which involved a discussion of the appropriate tempo--from the composer's own point of view, and then also from that of the organists who frequently make a blurry mess of it trying to impress girls (or boys) or hoping to make it to their next gig, which started five minutes ago, on time. If you haven't heard my impression of the Widor Toccata as played in Prague for tourists a couple of summers ago, here it is (just the opening).
There is some risk associated with eschewing the hyperspace hurry of notes and instead taking a more relaxed tempo as the composer himself may have wanted. It is the same risk cereal manufacturers take when they only put five times the recommended daily amount of sugar in a single bite-size portion of their product, or when restaurants do the same dastardly thing with salt, making it necessary to nearly eat half the meal if you want a week-and-a-half's worth of the tasty rocks in one sitting. We love the stuff! down with the food police! booo!
Similarly, an artist who takes a less blazing tempo than the next guy is probably going to seem less impressive. The guy on the street is thinking: sounds like he can't play the piano as well.
Still, I cleave to my principles--sometimes. And when it comes to a Mr. Scott Joplin, another "cranky" old fellow how actually scolded his public that "It is never right to play ragtime fast!" on many of his published works, I try to give him what he wanted. I myself have been scolded by some smug listeners for playing Joplin too fast. But as I mentioned in passing in a page on my website from years ago, how fast is actually too fast might not be as simple as you'd think.
While Joplinesque speed-bumps adorn most of his rags, actual metronome markings are rare. Most of the time we are instructed to take them "march tempo" which is a little harder to gauge unless you live in a culture where marches are heard frequently and most people agree on how fast most of them should go most of the time. But the other day I sat down to play (and record) "Pineapple rag" and stumbled upon what, so far as I can tell, is one of only two metronome markings in his published solo rags. Since this is a reprint from the first edition, there's a pretty good chance Joplin put it there himself. Maybe.
It is 100 to the quarter note. These days I have a nice little metronome app on my smartphone so I punched it up to see how fast it was. "Oh, you've got to be kidding" is the sanitized version of what I said when I realized my assumptions about Joplin's notions of speed were a little off.
100 to the quarter is pretty darned fast.
To give an idea, the recording you are about to hear, the one I made that afternoon, is a little bit slower, actually. I checked it later and found it is around 94 beats per minute.
There is a letter in a museum someplace in which the governor of some state complains about early locomotives going at the "break-neck speed of 15 miles an hour!" I saw it a few decades ago when on a trip with my family as a child. Many things of that era (late 19th-early 20th centuries) were much slower than they are now--news, transportation, the half-life of the attention span--but not everything. Human beings could move their fingers on keys pretty fast. So fast, apparently, that even the guy with the reputation for wanting people to slow down a little wasn't as stately as you might think.
Of course, I am basing this on two metronome markings which might possibly have been done over Joplin's objections, though some research suggests 100 bpm is actually consistent with the ubiquitous "march tempo."
Still, I can conscientiously say I have done a little homework, and that it actually matters to me what the composer might have thought about his own music. Sometimes, of course, I like to try different tempi to see if it brings out different aspects of the music, or makes me discover over things in it. My previous recording, made 10 years ago on a smaller piano with a single microphone (which is why I'm not getting it back out to play for you) is about 34 seconds slower.
If you were keeping track.
listen to Scott Joplin's "Pineapple Rag"
I recently re-posted my blog about the Widor Toccata from last year, which involved a discussion of the appropriate tempo--from the composer's own point of view, and then also from that of the organists who frequently make a blurry mess of it trying to impress girls (or boys) or hoping to make it to their next gig, which started five minutes ago, on time. If you haven't heard my impression of the Widor Toccata as played in Prague for tourists a couple of summers ago, here it is (just the opening).
There is some risk associated with eschewing the hyperspace hurry of notes and instead taking a more relaxed tempo as the composer himself may have wanted. It is the same risk cereal manufacturers take when they only put five times the recommended daily amount of sugar in a single bite-size portion of their product, or when restaurants do the same dastardly thing with salt, making it necessary to nearly eat half the meal if you want a week-and-a-half's worth of the tasty rocks in one sitting. We love the stuff! down with the food police! booo!
Similarly, an artist who takes a less blazing tempo than the next guy is probably going to seem less impressive. The guy on the street is thinking: sounds like he can't play the piano as well.
Still, I cleave to my principles--sometimes. And when it comes to a Mr. Scott Joplin, another "cranky" old fellow how actually scolded his public that "It is never right to play ragtime fast!" on many of his published works, I try to give him what he wanted. I myself have been scolded by some smug listeners for playing Joplin too fast. But as I mentioned in passing in a page on my website from years ago, how fast is actually too fast might not be as simple as you'd think.
While Joplinesque speed-bumps adorn most of his rags, actual metronome markings are rare. Most of the time we are instructed to take them "march tempo" which is a little harder to gauge unless you live in a culture where marches are heard frequently and most people agree on how fast most of them should go most of the time. But the other day I sat down to play (and record) "Pineapple rag" and stumbled upon what, so far as I can tell, is one of only two metronome markings in his published solo rags. Since this is a reprint from the first edition, there's a pretty good chance Joplin put it there himself. Maybe.
It is 100 to the quarter note. These days I have a nice little metronome app on my smartphone so I punched it up to see how fast it was. "Oh, you've got to be kidding" is the sanitized version of what I said when I realized my assumptions about Joplin's notions of speed were a little off.
100 to the quarter is pretty darned fast.
To give an idea, the recording you are about to hear, the one I made that afternoon, is a little bit slower, actually. I checked it later and found it is around 94 beats per minute.
There is a letter in a museum someplace in which the governor of some state complains about early locomotives going at the "break-neck speed of 15 miles an hour!" I saw it a few decades ago when on a trip with my family as a child. Many things of that era (late 19th-early 20th centuries) were much slower than they are now--news, transportation, the half-life of the attention span--but not everything. Human beings could move their fingers on keys pretty fast. So fast, apparently, that even the guy with the reputation for wanting people to slow down a little wasn't as stately as you might think.
Of course, I am basing this on two metronome markings which might possibly have been done over Joplin's objections, though some research suggests 100 bpm is actually consistent with the ubiquitous "march tempo."
Still, I can conscientiously say I have done a little homework, and that it actually matters to me what the composer might have thought about his own music. Sometimes, of course, I like to try different tempi to see if it brings out different aspects of the music, or makes me discover over things in it. My previous recording, made 10 years ago on a smaller piano with a single microphone (which is why I'm not getting it back out to play for you) is about 34 seconds slower.
If you were keeping track.
listen to Scott Joplin's "Pineapple Rag"
Monday, January 13, 2014
New Year's Eve at the Virginia (part seven)
We now return to our regularly scheduled rag sonata, already in progress.
The last of the three movements of William Albright's "Grand Sonata in Rag" is modestly entitled "Ragtime Behemoth" and it is certainly a monster. Mr. Albright lets us know that right away, with this reference to Liszt's "Dante" Sonata. Dante's story of obsession obsessed 19th century composers, particularly the bit about making a pact with the devil (turns out to have been a bad idea; who knew?), and Liszt begins his sonata with a musical illustration based on the tritone, an interval so bizarre to Medieval minds they referred to it as "the devil in music."
[listen]
It gets the point across that something sinister is going to happen, doesn't it?
Now for Mr. Albright's version, which is simultaneously more diabolical and more fun at the same time:
[listen]
We can tell right away we are dealing with something a bit on the wild side. A Behemoth is not really a very nice animal, after all.
Then the composer takes us on a wild ride through something that sounds like it was made for the vaudeville stage. It starts out nicely enough; then it turns into this:
[listen]
Writing at least 75 years after ragtime began, Mr. Albright has the luxury of mixing, matching, and generally amplifying various influences and voices that we now know as ragtime, stride, jazz, novelty, even various references to Hollywoodish entertainment. I present for your inspection this little number from later in the piece, which somehow reminds me of the Dick van Dyke show:
[listen]
This is a long way from Scott Joplin's idea of dignified ragtime--clearly he's lost control, here! As entertaining as it is, The Monster seems to have won. This may be a "Ragtime" sonata, but ragtime purists will have started scratching their heads a long time ago.
But it isn't as if Bill Albright doesn't know his history--in fact, he's practically giving us a pellmell rundown on the whole thing in just a few minutes!
One of the trends in ragtime was for a pianist to take a well-known tune and "rag" it. Making even classical tunes, popular songs, whatever you could find, sound like ragtime. I recently demonstrated this at a party to general laughter when someone called out the tune for "Amazing Grace." Being able to do this on the spot was kind of a way of demonstrating your "chops." Another thing that ragtimers and popular entertainers ever since have done was to make fun of serious music by ragging it. And so, for the second time in the same evening (the first was when the writers of "The Girl in 14G" worked in a reference to "Tristan and Isolde") on the program was a bit of fun at Richard Wagner's expense. Richard Wagner was a composer so serious that even other serious composers like to make fun of him, which tells you something!
Anyhow, listen to this bit from Wagner's "Ring" cycle--an ethereal progression of just four chords, followed by an outburst of horribly uncouth ragtime:
[listen]
This happens three times, and the third time Mr. Wagner appears to be very upset!
[listen]
In the end, a fairly jaunty, Joplinesque tune has us heading for home, and we get there with a bang!
[listen]
One of the problems with writing a long series that runs well into January is you have to get on with the rest of the schedule. Which means this is the end of the line, even if it could have used a little more of a wrap up. Thank you for reading!
The last of the three movements of William Albright's "Grand Sonata in Rag" is modestly entitled "Ragtime Behemoth" and it is certainly a monster. Mr. Albright lets us know that right away, with this reference to Liszt's "Dante" Sonata. Dante's story of obsession obsessed 19th century composers, particularly the bit about making a pact with the devil (turns out to have been a bad idea; who knew?), and Liszt begins his sonata with a musical illustration based on the tritone, an interval so bizarre to Medieval minds they referred to it as "the devil in music."
[listen]
It gets the point across that something sinister is going to happen, doesn't it?
Now for Mr. Albright's version, which is simultaneously more diabolical and more fun at the same time:
[listen]
We can tell right away we are dealing with something a bit on the wild side. A Behemoth is not really a very nice animal, after all.
Then the composer takes us on a wild ride through something that sounds like it was made for the vaudeville stage. It starts out nicely enough; then it turns into this:
[listen]
Writing at least 75 years after ragtime began, Mr. Albright has the luxury of mixing, matching, and generally amplifying various influences and voices that we now know as ragtime, stride, jazz, novelty, even various references to Hollywoodish entertainment. I present for your inspection this little number from later in the piece, which somehow reminds me of the Dick van Dyke show:
[listen]
This is a long way from Scott Joplin's idea of dignified ragtime--clearly he's lost control, here! As entertaining as it is, The Monster seems to have won. This may be a "Ragtime" sonata, but ragtime purists will have started scratching their heads a long time ago.
But it isn't as if Bill Albright doesn't know his history--in fact, he's practically giving us a pellmell rundown on the whole thing in just a few minutes!
One of the trends in ragtime was for a pianist to take a well-known tune and "rag" it. Making even classical tunes, popular songs, whatever you could find, sound like ragtime. I recently demonstrated this at a party to general laughter when someone called out the tune for "Amazing Grace." Being able to do this on the spot was kind of a way of demonstrating your "chops." Another thing that ragtimers and popular entertainers ever since have done was to make fun of serious music by ragging it. And so, for the second time in the same evening (the first was when the writers of "The Girl in 14G" worked in a reference to "Tristan and Isolde") on the program was a bit of fun at Richard Wagner's expense. Richard Wagner was a composer so serious that even other serious composers like to make fun of him, which tells you something!
Anyhow, listen to this bit from Wagner's "Ring" cycle--an ethereal progression of just four chords, followed by an outburst of horribly uncouth ragtime:
[listen]
This happens three times, and the third time Mr. Wagner appears to be very upset!
[listen]
In the end, a fairly jaunty, Joplinesque tune has us heading for home, and we get there with a bang!
[listen]
One of the problems with writing a long series that runs well into January is you have to get on with the rest of the schedule. Which means this is the end of the line, even if it could have used a little more of a wrap up. Thank you for reading!
Monday, January 6, 2014
New Year's Eve at the Virginia (part five)
The annual New Year's Eve concert at the Virginia Theater in downtown Champaign, Illinois, isn't like anything else that happens all year. This year's concert packed itself into a trim two-and-a-half hours and contained choral and solo singing, instrumental solos and accompaniment, colorful commentary and jokes, audience participation, a pretty full house, and plenty of time to go celebrate the New Year afterward unless you just wanted to go home and sleep.
Before the show begins I play the Wurlitzer for 15-minutes. The Virginia is an old Vaudeville Theater which was built in the early 1920s and boasts a theater organ dating from the same time. Like the Theater itself, it had fallen into disrepair and been kept going on wings and prayers, or in the case of the organ, rubber bands and duct tape. The organ owes its continued existence to two gentlemen, the last of whom, Warren York, played the organ at this concert until the year before I started doing it. He was a beloved figure in our town, along with Dan Perino, who led the second half singalong into a couple of years ago. Both gentlemen have passed away. Warren York used to always wear red socks, which is why I wear them every year in tribute. Last year after he died the entire men's section of the Chorale wore them as well!
Unfortunately I can't seem to find any pictures of the Wurlitzer. I tried taking one myself--at the concert--you can imagine it didn't look like anything! The Wurlitzer has recently been restored by the Buzard Pipe Organ company of Champaign, Illinois, and looks and sounds great.
The concert is bookended by the 70-voice Chorale singing sets of a half-dozen pieces. In between, guest artists fill in with songs and instrumental music, and the audience gets to join in with the popular sing-along.
This year I was one of the guests. I played about half-an-hour of piano solo music of the lighter variety. In addition to the Grand Sonata in Rag which I've been discussing in other posts in this series, I played Gottschalk's "Union" and a little novelty piece called "Nola." One of our former college scholarship winners, Caitlin Caruso-Dobbs, returned to sing Irving Berlin's "Alexander's Ragtime Band," "My White Knight" from The Music Man, and "The Girl in 14G." I was also the accompanist for her.. Since I double as The Chorale's regular accompanist as well, that meant that I was on the stage or in the pit for the entire concert, playing everything. Since the concert began at 7 and finished up at 9:30 (minus the 20-minute intermission plus 15 minutes before on the Wurlitzer and also 5 minute before the second half also at the Wurlitzer) I spent 2 and a half hours in concert. No wonder I'm still a little tired! I told someone backstage that I had set a new record that I wasn't planning to beat.
The Chorale usually goes "American" for this concert, and this year was no exception. We began with a very intriguing arrangement of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" by David Dusing, which was introduced by real-life radio man Jeff Bossert (who sings with us). We were then joined by a fellow named Josh on the harmonica, the first time either of us had collaborated with the other instrument. The occasion was Mark Hayes's arrangement of "Home on the Range." We then sang arrangements of "the Lonesome Dove" before concluding with a Gershwin pairing of "I've Got Rhythm" and "The Real American Folk Song is a Rag" which introduced Caitlin's rendition of the Berlin and the Rag Sonata. Fade to intermission, complete with a harmonica player strolling the lobby and later some more grand sounds from the Mighty Wurlitzer.
The sing-along always features music from the 30s and 40s, which was a little before my time, and the words are projected on glass slides that date back to the early days of the Theater. Sometimes they also have wisecracks on them.
Eve Harwood leading the singalong
I often have to go to Youtube to familiarize myself with these songs. This year I was at the airport waiting for my flight home from Dallas, listening to them through headphones from my Android and writing them down on a stray piece of staff paper. I notated the melody, hinted at the chord structure, and away we went on Tuesday night!
I should mention here that I had my second pleasant sing-along experience of the holidays season (the first was at the 7 o'clock Christmas Eve service) where a large gathering of people know the tunes well and are obviously enjoying singing them. The first thing you realize as organist is that you don't have to play the melody very much, and that you can even not play at all for a few beats here and there, creating a real accompaniment part under the congregants because they really don't need any help from the organ to sing out and even if you use a healthy selection of stops you are only going to be the junior partner in the proceedings, which allows for more creativity as you simply soak up the sounds and add a little pizazz at intervals. It was terrific! (I also remembered not to look down from the hydraulic lift!)
On the second half, after Caitlynn's singing and my other two numbers, the Chorale came back to sing more Stephen Foster--Oh! Susanna, attractively arranged by our friend Alice Parker. Then came a haunting version of "Poor Wayfaring Stranger" by Michael Richardson (I think he has Illinois ties). Ed Harris's arrangement of "Bound for the Promised Land" uses the original minor key version of the tune. Then we finished off with rousing renditions of "Who Are the Brave?" and "America, the Dream Goes On."
We finish the concert every year by holding hands (both out in the audience and on the stage) and singing "Auld Lang Syne." We sing it through once, then the organ modulates up a half-step (although this year I discovered a small cipher on the low f#--that's when a note won't stop sounding--so I went up a whole step instead. I hope Warren York's spirit won't mind!). This year the ceiling at the Virginia has been refurbished so there wasn't any "snow" as we got to the final chord. And yes, I managed to get a picture of the warm and fuzzy moment, even if I had to play 8 bars with one hand to get it:
It's not much of a picture, but the moment was pretty special.
------------
This year one of the funnier moments occurred when the Chorale had just finished singing their first set. The curtain came down quickly and our director, who was going to introduce the singer, was trapped on the wrong side of it. There I sat at the piano, alone in front of the curtain, while a pregnant pause threatened the production. So I played the moment a little, looking wistfully into the wings and giving signs of being very alone at the piano with nobody else on stage. The audience laughed and the show went on after a few seconds. Apparently it was convincing because I was asked later if that was part of the show! Somebody else told me they realized that I am really a ham!
onward to part six, which, I believe, is nearly the end. Thanks for reading this far. Seriously.
Monday, December 30, 2013
New Year's Eve at the Virginia (part two)
Last time we got own and dirty with the first part of William Albright's "Grand Sonata in Rag" which was very grand, also very exuberant, wild, silly, and many other things.
It's time for a bit of a rest. Here is the relatively halcyon second movement, subtitled "Ragtime Turtledove." It's the one movement I managed to record in its entirely before Christmas. It is also the piece I played on the radio about 10 days ago here in Central Illinois. That was on a studio keyboard, however. This is my own recording made on the same Steinway I'll play on the concert tomorrow evening.
After the last post I think we deserve a bit of a rest so I'll let you listen without comment except to remind you that Mr. Albright certainly has a sense of humor and that all of those apparent "wrong" notes are correct as far as I can tell.
II. Ragtime Turtledove by William Albright
Enjoy!
questions for discussion:
--What are the Rockettes doing there at the end?!?
--Why the sudden key shift shortly before they make their grand entrance? The director of our Conservatory used to call this a "Manilow"--suddenly jerking things up a half step for no apparently good reason. I think Mr. Albright is having a bit of fun.
--What is your favorite dissonance? Be prepared to defend your answer.
--Have a happy New Year's Eve tomorrow.
On to part three!
It's time for a bit of a rest. Here is the relatively halcyon second movement, subtitled "Ragtime Turtledove." It's the one movement I managed to record in its entirely before Christmas. It is also the piece I played on the radio about 10 days ago here in Central Illinois. That was on a studio keyboard, however. This is my own recording made on the same Steinway I'll play on the concert tomorrow evening.
After the last post I think we deserve a bit of a rest so I'll let you listen without comment except to remind you that Mr. Albright certainly has a sense of humor and that all of those apparent "wrong" notes are correct as far as I can tell.
II. Ragtime Turtledove by William Albright
Enjoy!
questions for discussion:
--What are the Rockettes doing there at the end?!?
--Why the sudden key shift shortly before they make their grand entrance? The director of our Conservatory used to call this a "Manilow"--suddenly jerking things up a half step for no apparently good reason. I think Mr. Albright is having a bit of fun.
--What is your favorite dissonance? Be prepared to defend your answer.
--Have a happy New Year's Eve tomorrow.
On to part three!
Friday, December 27, 2013
New Year's Eve at the Virginia (part one)
Let me share with you this terrific piano piece I'm playing at the Virginia on New Year's Eve. It's called "Grand Sonata in Rag" by William Albright. Technically, it is a classical piano sonata. I say technically, because--well, here is how it beings:
[listen]
That's not how Beethoven would begin a piano sonata, for sure. Sounds more like a saloon than a salon. And then, after a slight pause for suspense, out breaks:
[listen]
Again, not the best behaved sonata in the world. And that is at the root of it. This is a wild, exuberant excursion into the music of ragtime, something that respectable people and religious societies of a hundred years ago thought was the music of sin and/or having too good a time. Music and social movements go together, and there are always people on the bottom rungs of the ladder that the others look down upon as inferiors. And they have their music. At one time, this was it.
But there is more going on here. The first movement is called "Scott Joplin's Victory" and thereby hangs a tale.
Scott Joplin was a man who valued art, and dignity. He wanted his music to stand for both. In an era when ragtime, and the African Americans who played it, were looked on as refuse, he wanted to show the world that his music was worthy of honor, and a good listen. One of the ways he went about that was to ask that his music be played slowly. Most of his published rags contain little boxes that warn the pianist against playing the music too fast because "it is NEVER right to play ragtime fast."
See a problem with the raucous opening of our sonata? But don't worry, Mr. Joplin will have his turn.
You see, a sonata is a bit like an argument. First one side gets a chance to speak, then the other. Eventually there is a chance for them both to develop their arguments, or talk at once, which is often the case both with the Sunday morning shows and the sonata, and then finally the dust clears and the two sides are heard presenting their arguments for the last time.
Joplin will get to speak, but first we have to establish the other guys. Those other guys weren't just critics, they were pianists. Ragtimers themselves. They like their ragtime with a little more kick. And fast. You really can't get a bunch of pianists together in a room and not expect some of them to try to play as fast and as loud as they can just to show off. Joplin be darned.
So this first part of our narrative is going to be fast and wildly exciting. After a short first section, the parts just tumble out, one after another. You heard just a bit of the second section as the last example faded out. I'll leave the rest of that to your imagination.
Then in comes a third idea, which reminds me of a bit from The Nutcracker. Those jarring chords are just the way the composer wrote them!
[listen]
Then a chance to lose our balance by way of an odd time signature or two:
[listen]
At this point, the phrases are just tripping over each other to get out, sprawling headlong into the ragtime rush, and it will take a bit of good old oompah-oompah in the bass just to restore order:
[listen]
You'll notice that even here there is a bit of the bizarre. Those upper crunchy chords that jump out at you are just as the composer wrote them. Mr. Albright sticks those bone rattling harmonic jolts everywhere. He explained once to us that one of the things that drives his music is humor, and there seems to be plenty of it in supply here, making this at times a loving send-up of the genre. And with the headlong rushing tempo and measures with various beats lopped off the ends, the whole thing is getting a bit out of control. So Mr. Albright tries to calm things down the way a classical composer would calm things down, namely, with a little symmetry. It is time to return to the beginning, which is something a ragtime composer wouldn't do, but Beethoven would. Notice the end of that example I just played for you. Here it is again:
[listen]
It doesn't really work, does it? Establishing a feeling of repose, I mean. Not when you've got an opening theme like that. But then, subito, in strides Mr. Joplin, the epitome of cool. Maybe our composer has him confused with a guy named Tex:
[listen]
It isn't subtle, this change of tempo, and mood. It is as if the slow movement couldn't wait and began right in the middle of the fast one. It is pretty chic, though, and eventually, after a few episodes, culminates in a section titled "cakewalk in the sky:"
[listen]
This is actually the first section that sounds like Joplin maybe, just maybe, could have written it. It is also the end of the section. In comes the same music we heard at the very beginning, and then, slowly, inevitably.....
[listen]
Oh no! They're back! Those crazy New Yorkers with their New Yorkified ways! And the music is fast! and Loud! and people love it! Oh dear....
(by the way, I love that little gesture that near the end of the example (:32) that glues it to the next section. That little "tata tum tum." I've played a lot of Joplin and he seriously overuses that little rhythm as a way to get from section to section. It's a ragtime cliche that Mr. Albright cattily inserts here.)
Now there are two things still to check off our list if we want this to get certified as a sonata by the Sonata Association of America and one of them is there needs to be development. In other words we need to take at least one of the themes, namely that little rocket we heard right in example two, right up at the beginning of the sonata itself (after the slow introduction):
and develop the heck out of it, which basically means chop it up, slice it, dice it, play it in different keys, make it part of a horrific symphonic maelstrom:
[listen]
Now see if you can find those bits of thematic development in the midst of the storm:
[listen]
Ok, check. That is the hardest thing for people to listen for and the part they often find the least rewarding. But clever composers can be counted upon to do it anyway.
Now we heard for home.
I told you earlier that a sonata was like an argument with two sides vying to see how would win. I might as well tell you now that the contest is rigged. The first one to speak always wins. (don't be that way: when we watch a movie the good guy always beats the bad guy but we are still immersed in the drama the entire time as if it were really a question.) In a sonata the two sides are heard in order at the beginning, and again at the end, which you might think would give some weight to the second fella, but by then it is being done in the key and the mood of the first theme, so the amicable understanding they have come to is really all about the second accommodating the first. And we get a nice sense of well-roundedness and symmetrical civility.
But unlike a sonata a rag doesn't end up where it started. It leaves the home key and never comes back. Funny thing about the rules being different that way. This being a "Sonata" you'd expect that if you heard from Mr. Joplin again at all, he would have given up and played his music fast and loud and in the same key as the other guys. Sonata accommodation and all that.
But...surprise! Our second theme, Mr. Joplin's "cakewalk in the sky" comes back for a bow, no compromises at all in mood or tempo, except that it is quite loud for a few moments, making its grand, overstated entrance, and then, once it safely has the floor, it abruptly becomes sweet and lovely, and leaves us with the a smile at the end.
[listen]
I've been a little busy this month, so I'll have to bring you a complete recording in January. For now if you want to hear the whole thing uncut, come to the Virginia Theater in Champaign, Illinois at 7pm on Dec 31st. And to think that this is only the first movement! I'll be back to blog about the rest next week.
[listen]
That's not how Beethoven would begin a piano sonata, for sure. Sounds more like a saloon than a salon. And then, after a slight pause for suspense, out breaks:
[listen]
Again, not the best behaved sonata in the world. And that is at the root of it. This is a wild, exuberant excursion into the music of ragtime, something that respectable people and religious societies of a hundred years ago thought was the music of sin and/or having too good a time. Music and social movements go together, and there are always people on the bottom rungs of the ladder that the others look down upon as inferiors. And they have their music. At one time, this was it.
But there is more going on here. The first movement is called "Scott Joplin's Victory" and thereby hangs a tale.
Scott Joplin was a man who valued art, and dignity. He wanted his music to stand for both. In an era when ragtime, and the African Americans who played it, were looked on as refuse, he wanted to show the world that his music was worthy of honor, and a good listen. One of the ways he went about that was to ask that his music be played slowly. Most of his published rags contain little boxes that warn the pianist against playing the music too fast because "it is NEVER right to play ragtime fast."
See a problem with the raucous opening of our sonata? But don't worry, Mr. Joplin will have his turn.
You see, a sonata is a bit like an argument. First one side gets a chance to speak, then the other. Eventually there is a chance for them both to develop their arguments, or talk at once, which is often the case both with the Sunday morning shows and the sonata, and then finally the dust clears and the two sides are heard presenting their arguments for the last time.
Joplin will get to speak, but first we have to establish the other guys. Those other guys weren't just critics, they were pianists. Ragtimers themselves. They like their ragtime with a little more kick. And fast. You really can't get a bunch of pianists together in a room and not expect some of them to try to play as fast and as loud as they can just to show off. Joplin be darned.
So this first part of our narrative is going to be fast and wildly exciting. After a short first section, the parts just tumble out, one after another. You heard just a bit of the second section as the last example faded out. I'll leave the rest of that to your imagination.
Then in comes a third idea, which reminds me of a bit from The Nutcracker. Those jarring chords are just the way the composer wrote them!
[listen]
Then a chance to lose our balance by way of an odd time signature or two:
[listen]
At this point, the phrases are just tripping over each other to get out, sprawling headlong into the ragtime rush, and it will take a bit of good old oompah-oompah in the bass just to restore order:
[listen]
You'll notice that even here there is a bit of the bizarre. Those upper crunchy chords that jump out at you are just as the composer wrote them. Mr. Albright sticks those bone rattling harmonic jolts everywhere. He explained once to us that one of the things that drives his music is humor, and there seems to be plenty of it in supply here, making this at times a loving send-up of the genre. And with the headlong rushing tempo and measures with various beats lopped off the ends, the whole thing is getting a bit out of control. So Mr. Albright tries to calm things down the way a classical composer would calm things down, namely, with a little symmetry. It is time to return to the beginning, which is something a ragtime composer wouldn't do, but Beethoven would. Notice the end of that example I just played for you. Here it is again:
[listen]
It doesn't really work, does it? Establishing a feeling of repose, I mean. Not when you've got an opening theme like that. But then, subito, in strides Mr. Joplin, the epitome of cool. Maybe our composer has him confused with a guy named Tex:
[listen]
It isn't subtle, this change of tempo, and mood. It is as if the slow movement couldn't wait and began right in the middle of the fast one. It is pretty chic, though, and eventually, after a few episodes, culminates in a section titled "cakewalk in the sky:"
[listen]
This is actually the first section that sounds like Joplin maybe, just maybe, could have written it. It is also the end of the section. In comes the same music we heard at the very beginning, and then, slowly, inevitably.....
[listen]
Oh no! They're back! Those crazy New Yorkers with their New Yorkified ways! And the music is fast! and Loud! and people love it! Oh dear....
(by the way, I love that little gesture that near the end of the example (:32) that glues it to the next section. That little "tata tum tum." I've played a lot of Joplin and he seriously overuses that little rhythm as a way to get from section to section. It's a ragtime cliche that Mr. Albright cattily inserts here.)
Now there are two things still to check off our list if we want this to get certified as a sonata by the Sonata Association of America and one of them is there needs to be development. In other words we need to take at least one of the themes, namely that little rocket we heard right in example two, right up at the beginning of the sonata itself (after the slow introduction):
and develop the heck out of it, which basically means chop it up, slice it, dice it, play it in different keys, make it part of a horrific symphonic maelstrom:
[listen]
Now see if you can find those bits of thematic development in the midst of the storm:
[listen]
Ok, check. That is the hardest thing for people to listen for and the part they often find the least rewarding. But clever composers can be counted upon to do it anyway.
Now we heard for home.
I told you earlier that a sonata was like an argument with two sides vying to see how would win. I might as well tell you now that the contest is rigged. The first one to speak always wins. (don't be that way: when we watch a movie the good guy always beats the bad guy but we are still immersed in the drama the entire time as if it were really a question.) In a sonata the two sides are heard in order at the beginning, and again at the end, which you might think would give some weight to the second fella, but by then it is being done in the key and the mood of the first theme, so the amicable understanding they have come to is really all about the second accommodating the first. And we get a nice sense of well-roundedness and symmetrical civility.
But unlike a sonata a rag doesn't end up where it started. It leaves the home key and never comes back. Funny thing about the rules being different that way. This being a "Sonata" you'd expect that if you heard from Mr. Joplin again at all, he would have given up and played his music fast and loud and in the same key as the other guys. Sonata accommodation and all that.
But...surprise! Our second theme, Mr. Joplin's "cakewalk in the sky" comes back for a bow, no compromises at all in mood or tempo, except that it is quite loud for a few moments, making its grand, overstated entrance, and then, once it safely has the floor, it abruptly becomes sweet and lovely, and leaves us with the a smile at the end.
[listen]
I've been a little busy this month, so I'll have to bring you a complete recording in January. For now if you want to hear the whole thing uncut, come to the Virginia Theater in Champaign, Illinois at 7pm on Dec 31st. And to think that this is only the first movement! I'll be back to blog about the rest next week.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Onward and up--well, not this time, actually...
I felt like just having a little fun today, so if you're in a similar mood, this is for you. It's a bit of Joplin. I've been thinking about having a go at some Jelly Roll Morton, actually, but probably won't get around to it until after Christmas. At the moment, just not being sick and too busy is a good start. So let's have a bit of Joplinesque cheer...
(Click here to make noise come out of your computer!)
The piece is called "The Cascades" and it is exactly halfway through the Joplin catalog. If you don't mind one nerdy observation, since I spent a month in 2009 working my way through the first half of Joplin's rags, I find this one interesting for one particular reason. The ideas are great, the tunes, the rhythms, are catchy, and, by the way, the second part of the piece, a little over a minute and a half in, when the 'trombones' come in in the left hand--that's the trickiest thing Joplin ever wrote, I think--but if you're a composer you know that after a while, cranking out piece after piece, you struggle not to keep doing the same thing. And for Joplin, it wasn't easy to stay fresh, since rags have a pretty set formula. The odd thing here isn't that there are four sections, all of which repeat (and each, conveniently 45 seconds long in the recording!): no, what's odd is that, after the first two parts, it's time to change keys. Nothing new there. But for some reason, Joplin decides not to go where ragtime composers nearly always go, which is four steps up; instead he decides to go one step DOWN. What made him do that, I wonder?
Here's what I mean. I'll play you about four seconds of the first part, and fade into a little bit of part three....
It's not that much lower, so don't worry too much if you can't hear it.
The Cascades was actually a sort of man-made waterfall at year-young world's exhibition in 1904. It was built right outside the festival hall, and apparently Joplin, whose music was played there, wrote the music as a kind of tie-in. Did he conceive the strange modulation in response to the idea of falling water?
Kind of far-fetched, isn't it? Maybe, after 21 rags he was just trying to find something different. And, since, as far as I know, he didn't do it again, maybe he figured it was the kind of eccentricity you only did once.
But you know, if you listen to it all the way through, you probably won't even notice it. That's how smoothly he constructs this little transition passage.
Boy, you never know when a composer is doing something truly strange and making it sound like no big deal at all. You just can't trust these folks, can you? wink, wink, nudge, nudge...
(Click here to make noise come out of your computer!)
The piece is called "The Cascades" and it is exactly halfway through the Joplin catalog. If you don't mind one nerdy observation, since I spent a month in 2009 working my way through the first half of Joplin's rags, I find this one interesting for one particular reason. The ideas are great, the tunes, the rhythms, are catchy, and, by the way, the second part of the piece, a little over a minute and a half in, when the 'trombones' come in in the left hand--that's the trickiest thing Joplin ever wrote, I think--but if you're a composer you know that after a while, cranking out piece after piece, you struggle not to keep doing the same thing. And for Joplin, it wasn't easy to stay fresh, since rags have a pretty set formula. The odd thing here isn't that there are four sections, all of which repeat (and each, conveniently 45 seconds long in the recording!): no, what's odd is that, after the first two parts, it's time to change keys. Nothing new there. But for some reason, Joplin decides not to go where ragtime composers nearly always go, which is four steps up; instead he decides to go one step DOWN. What made him do that, I wonder?
Here's what I mean. I'll play you about four seconds of the first part, and fade into a little bit of part three....
It's not that much lower, so don't worry too much if you can't hear it.
The Cascades was actually a sort of man-made waterfall at year-young world's exhibition in 1904. It was built right outside the festival hall, and apparently Joplin, whose music was played there, wrote the music as a kind of tie-in. Did he conceive the strange modulation in response to the idea of falling water?
Kind of far-fetched, isn't it? Maybe, after 21 rags he was just trying to find something different. And, since, as far as I know, he didn't do it again, maybe he figured it was the kind of eccentricity you only did once.
But you know, if you listen to it all the way through, you probably won't even notice it. That's how smoothly he constructs this little transition passage.
Boy, you never know when a composer is doing something truly strange and making it sound like no big deal at all. You just can't trust these folks, can you? wink, wink, nudge, nudge...
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