Posting my Ragtime compositions on YouTube

[gsmonks]

I write a fusion of classical music and Ragtime, which I'm now posting on YouTube.

Everyone needs a hobby!

[ted]

You are the first I have heard who is extending the ragtime sentiment into the "classical" influence. I don't mean direct imitation of Joplin, Scott and Lamb; hundreds do that. Almost without exception, contemporary ragtime composers, David Roberts, Hal Isbitz, Brian Keenan, Frank French and company - and they do create beautiful music, that goes without saying - have taken the romantic and Latin routes. I have always thought that pieces such as Euphonic Sounds and Magnetic Rag indicate another vital direction. Why it has not been explored is a mystery. Reginald Robinson almost has, in certain sections of certain works. Max Morath tried it effectively in The Golden Hours but then for some reason abandoned it. Richard St Clair once told me he intended to try it but apparently has not. I tried it, in modest fashion, in a couple of ragtime pieces I contributed to the Pianoworld CD a few years ago.

Thank you so much for reminding me of the vitality of this direction. I think your Clowns and Carousels is a magical little piece (no need to mention Stephen King, as John Cleese would say.) If I can tear myself away from improvising I just might have another go myself.

 

[gsmonks]

I put it down to the manner in which modern classical composition fell right off the rails ca 1960, and is and remains in a bad way. Composers used to have a "no stone unturned" approach to assimilating whatever they could get their hands on in Western culture, but the modern approach seems to be one of a form of academic incest fueled by Boomer self-involved navel-gazing and self-interest.

For Max Morath I think it's a matter of time. He has been non-stop busy for the twenty-four or so years I've been in touch with him, which probably explains his amazing longevity. We should all live and stay active until we're about ninety years old! In Joplin's case, there's no telling what he would have done, had he lived longer. The same goes for Lt. James Reese Europe, who had big plans for Ragtime until his untimely death.

Now there's a subject for a great movie just aching for someone to come along and write the screenplay- Jim Europe!

[gsmonks]

Thought you might get a kick out of this one:

[gsmonks]

This Rag consists of a series of varations on the Rag prior:

[ted]

Thank you for these pieces. The first is indeed an interesting juxtaposition. Thanks also for pointing out Europe, about whom I had never heard. 

[gsmonks]

Lt. James Reese Europe is one of the most important figures in all of American music.

His is an absolutely amazing story- one that today is little known in most circles.

Someone some day has to get off their duff and make a movie about his life and career, starring Denzel Washington (of course).

[gsmonks]

Here's my latest offering. It's also probably my most lyrical Rag:

[gsmonks]

Here's my most elaborate Rag.

[gsmonks]

 . . . and one I wrote for Max Morath.

Yes, he's heard it. Played it, too.

[gsmonks]

Here's the 14th and last of my Rags. Couldn't resist a little musical humour to see myself out with.

[gsmonks]

You are the first I have heard who is extending the ragtime sentiment into the "classical" influence. I don't mean direct imitation of Joplin, Scott and Lamb; hundreds do that. Almost without exception, contemporary ragtime composers, David Roberts, Hal Isbitz, Brian Keenan, Frank French and company - and they do create beautiful music, that goes without saying - have taken the romantic and Latin routes. I have always thought that pieces such as Euphonic Sounds and Magnetic Rag indicate another vital direction. Why it has not been explored is a mystery. Reginald Robinson almost has, in certain sections of certain works. Max Morath tried it effectively in The Golden Hours but then for some reason abandoned it. Richard St Clair once told me he intended to try it but apparently has not. I tried it, in modest fashion, in a couple of ragtime pieces I contributed to the Pianoworld CD a few years ago.

Thank you so much for reminding me of the vitality of this direction. I think your Clowns and Carousels is a magical little piece (no need to mention Stephen King, as John Cleese would say.) If I can tear myself away from improvising I just might have another go myself.

Do you have any clear direction in mind?

Through experimentation I discovered that you can have exactly three syncopated lines running simultaneously without duplication, and no more. I'm done writing Rags, but perhaps you could be the first to write Rag-Fugue, or Rag Trios?

[ted]

No, I have only started to think about it again since you posted your pieces. Three or four decades ago I wrote a lot of ragtime, and tried to make a point of extending some feature of each rag in a personal direction.

https://www.box.net/shared/7y8airqopm

For example, the final strain of this one cycles three keys in non-uniform metres plus a coda which does the same thing. But it still, in some sense, preserves the "feeling" of classical ragtime, which elusive quality I find quite hard to pin down specifically.

I wasn't a typical young player who found it easy to absorb modern features into the core of my spontaneous creation, so for many years I wallowed in a desire to write and play in the dated idioms I loved. And I did write heaps of conventional piano pieces which I still enjoy, mostly in ragtime, stride, swing and late romantic styles. I didn't see any point in embracing iconoclasm for its own sake, unless it genuinely moved me, and I still don't now.

However, over the last decade or so I seem to have undergone a retarded adolescent infatuation with playing and recording improvisation, hundreds of hours of it, in consequence of which I have become deeply attached to all sorts of piano sounds I would have rejected in my youth. I cannot explain why I have gone this way; most people seem to go the opposite. So the answer to your question is that, should the urge to create notated music return, I would try to embed the colossal variety of sounds and playing forms of my improvisation into the previous idioms in new ways which mean something to me. One of these idioms would certainly be the rag, with some classical properties intact and some replaced by new features.

At this time I don't think I'm quite ready for written composition again and therefore would not want to be too clear on specifics, even to myself.

Thank you for posting more of your pieces, which I find have an engaging and distinct personality.