Maple Leaf Rag Breakthrough

Oh, Maple Leaf. Where to begin?

At the Beginning

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I learned the A and B sections of Maple Leaf Rag back in the 1990s. I can’t tell you if it was early, mid- or late 90s, but it was during those 10 years after I’d graduated college, when I was playing a good bit of piano but not taking regular lessons from anyone. I don’t remember teaching it to myself at all. I just know that, at some point, the first half of Maple Leaf Rag was part of my two- or three-song repertoire of pieces I’d be able to play by memory over the next 25 years. It was always sloppy and I knew it, but people loved it, and so I played it if there was ever a piano around.

Back in January, I decided to properly re-learn those two sections, and to finally learn the C and D sections of this wonderful piece. I worked on these over the next month or two, learning (and-relearning) the notes pretty quickly ... but it took time to memorize, and also to get everything to tempo surpassing a slow crawl.

I finally got the Trio (the hardest section, in my opinion) up to about 80 on the metronome, so I was playing the whole piece at 80. My goal tempo was 100, but I couldn’t seem to get past 80. It wasn’t because I started missing notes; it was because my left forearm would get too tense. By the time I was halfway through the Trio (and sometimes sooner), I would have to stop playing. I’m very vigilant about injury in that arm, since it was the arm with the elbow tendinitis. So I was frustrated that I couldn’t seem to play any faster without pain.

Research

I tried to do some research, but I wasn’t able to find much. There are not a lot of how-to videos out there on how to play stride piano, at least in terms of how to play it without tension in the left arm. I emailed Piano With Jonny support, but all they had for me was part of a Q & A video that just explained how to adjust what you’re playing to make it easier. (For example, just play one bass note instead of the octave.) I found a few other sites that said that, while playing big chords, it’s good to practice relaxing your hand after each big chord. That is good advice, but I was already doing this, and it didn’t seem to help.

Stumbling Upon Answers

I stumbled upon a few things last week to some answers: a Jonny May video that I’d already watched multiple times, and a recent Tonebase video that popped up in my inbox Thursday morning.

Jonny May

I’m currently learning Jonny’s arrangement of “Bare Necessities,” and I decided to watch the video of him playing it again for some reason, probably because he's just so darn cute. At about 10 seconds in, I noticed something interesting: His forearms are moving in a kind of elliptical, counterclockwise pattern. He seems to be almost “feathering” the bass notes on the downbeat, and then he follows the bottom half of the ellipse to play the chord. Next, he follows the top of the ellipse back to the bass note (a bit of a rainbow motion, which I’ve been told is bad technique, but oh well. I think it works here.). The result is a very graceful, fluid  movement of the left hand, not back and forth, but in a counterclockwise ellipse. I took two things from this:

1. His hands and arms look very relaxed. Could the elliptical movement have something to do with that?
2. The “feathering” motion, however light, results in an acceptably audible sound while not straining the hands/arms.

I decided I would try both of these approaches—the elliptical movement and the “feathering”—on Maple Leaf Rag. But first …

Dominic Cheli and Tonebase

On Thursday morning, I received a link in my inbox to a lengthy Tonebase lecture on the Hanon exercises, given by pianist and teacher Dominic Cheli. I had to drive to Atlanta and back Thursday afternoon, so I was able to listen to the whole thing while driving. (Otherwise, I probably would never have been interested enough to listen. I mean, seriously – Hanon?!?) It was fascinating, though, and when I got home late Thursday night, I re-watched some of it, including the intriguing section on the Hanon octave exercises.

He said there are really two ways to do the octave exercises. One is very structured, with the hand firm (but not tense). The other is with “floppy” hands. The sound isn’t great because you’re using very loose wrists/hands/fingers to flop them onto the keyboard, though you do want to focus on hitting the right notes. But, he said, this is a great way to practice playing with relaxed hands.

Here was another possible tool in my arsenal of tricks and techniques to overcome hand tension in Maple Leaf.

Testing the Theories

So, Friday night, I sat down for a focused practice on Maple Leaf, starting with the “floppy hands” exercise using Hanon. (Here is a video where I spend entirely too much time demonstrating it.) I then went through the B and C (Trio) sections of Maple Leaf, focusing on making that elliptical motion and feathering the octaves in the left hand (and, starting out, keeping my wrists and fingers kind of floppy like in the Hanon exercise). (Here is a video where I spend entirely too much time demonstrating these motions. Note I exaggerate both the ellipse and the feathering for demonstration purposes.)

Well. For a few minutes, I thought I was going to have to re-learn all the notes because this new approach was making me forget them all! I did have to check the music a few times, but as the movement got more comfortable, the notes came back to me. Even though this movement looks very natural in Jonny’s playing (and maybe it is), it did not come naturally to me!

But … I was able to play through the entire piece three times by the end of the practice, at 80 and then 90 and then 100, and I had almost no arm fatigue! I was also hitting the notes more accurately than I had been, so this movement, plus maybe the more relaxed hand, somehow helped with accuracy as well. I cut my practice a little short because I didn’t want to get tired, and I wanted to give my brain some time to cement the myelin sheaths around these new techniques.

The Breakthrough

My main takeaway (and the “breakthrough”) was this: With this piece, I’m not playing with my fingers, my hands, my wrists, or even my forearms. Not even so much with my elbows. I’m playing with my upper arms and primarily my shoulders. The shoulders are the levers that guide the elbows/forearms/hands/fingers in the elliptical motion. The fingers aren’t really doing any work at all, other than being where they’re supposed to be and striking (or feathering) the keys as a result of my arm weight, which, in this piece, is mostly determined by my upper arms/shoulders.

Maybe people learn this motion when they’re learning the first movement of Pathetique, or a Rach concerto, or some other big piece. Or maybe they don’t, as this technique seems particularly relevant to the movement of stride piano. I’ve long known about the importance of wrists and forearms in piano (you don’t play with your fingers so much as you play with the wrists/forearms), but I’ve never thought about using the shoulders in this way.

Over the weekend, I learned that (for now) I need to do the floppy octaves Hanon exercise before practicing Maple Leaf. It also kind of helps to loosen up my shoulders. And I still need to do more slow practice so that the elliptical motion becomes more natural. But overall, I’m very happy with how this piece is going. Playing at 80 is no longer painful, and I’m suddenly seeing my 100 bpm goal on the horizon!

So, that is my Maple Leaf Breakthrough from my Breakthrough Weekend of April 5-7,2024. Stay tuned for my Blues Breakthrough, coming soon! In the meantime, here is a snippet of Maple Leaf Rag from Friday night. In this video, I haven't yet mastered ellipse/feathering, so don't look for evidence of that ... but I honestly played this section so many times that night that it was sounding pretty good by the end. I'm not sure what the tempo is, but it's faster than 80, and I played the whole piece at similar tempos (tempi?) several times with minimal arm tension.