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Ragtime!

I have always loved ragtime music. When I was a kid in the 1970s, our family had the soundtrack to "The Sting" on LP, and I remember listening to it over and over again. I remember seeing the movie in the theater, too. I don't remember a thing about the movie, but ... that music!

It seems that every kid who takes piano lessons can play some version of "The Entertainer," but, oddly enough, I didn't learn it until I was an adult and taught it to myself. I can also play the last two sections of "Solace" and the first two sections of "Maple Leaf Rag." I never studied these with a teacher; I just loved Scott Joplin's ragtime music and wanted to be able to play it myself. None of it is easy, or I probably would have taught myself more over the years.

With my years-long sabbatical from piano-playing, my ragtime pieces don't sound as good as they once did, so I've decided to go back to them. This weekend, I opened up "Maple Leaf Rag" and began relearning the notes. This was very challenging, as I've played it by memory for years, so it's hard for me to play from the sheet music with something that has become that engrained. But I played through it anyway, very slowly, finding a few places where I'd been playing it wrong.

Once I did that, I played through the A section with the metronome on about 40 (i.e., SLOW!). After playing through a few times with no messy missed or accidental notes, I sped up slightly and did the same thing. It's coming along. I did the same with the B section, which is more difficult and took quite a bit longer than the A section. Again, I knew the music because I'd played it a million times in my 20s and 30s, but when I played it that slowly, I kept losing my place. Such is the power of muscle memory; apparently, all I had was the muscle memory because my mind didn't recognize any of it!

The B section is going to take a little time, and then I'll need to learn the C and D sections. Meanwhile, I decided to try the A section at tempo before I finished up for the night. Here it is, still a little sloppy, but a great deal better than how it would have sounded if I'd played it for you before yesterday.


What has prompted this return to ragtime? Well, I never really left it; even during my sabbatical, if I was near a piano and someone asked me to play, I could at least bang out a bit of "Maple Leaf Rag." When I met with the piano teacher last week, I mentioned that I'd like to brush it up, as well as learn the C and D sections. So it's been on my mind. But I also had the pleasure of attending a presentation on Scott Joplin, given by pianist Scott Kirby this weekend at the piano store. Listening to him, and learning more about one of my favorite American composers, finally motivated me to begin seriously working on "Maple Leaf Rag" again. Once I finish that, I'll brush up on/re-learn "Solace" and "The Entertainer," and then move on to more rags. Can't wait!

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