Gift for Pianostreet

[ted]

Here is a reversal of Pianostreet's frequent "free gifts". I first recorded this old tune seventeen years ago but seemingly never wrote it out. Thanks to Pianostreet's "perfect_pitch" for very quickly picking up the whole thing sufficiently to trigger my recall.



Elegance on Federal Street score:
https://www.box.com/s/kxz24xceaeh1mllrej34


Elegance on Federal Street recording (today):

[commissiona]

So, you wrote this? It's very charming, thank you!   I should try it as I love stride but never really experimented with it.

[ted]

Yes, it's mine. I used to write a lot of stride, swing and ragtime. I have been infatuated with this sort of music since I was young. I think it is because as a child I heard my father play at parties. I haven't written any for a few years now as I am preoccupied with improvisation, but I am always liable to do so if the mood takes me. Glad you like it.

[goldentone]

Nice, Ted.   Would love to hear more of these.

[ted]

There are a few more here:

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=44287.0

 I only have handwritten scores though.

[rachfan]

Hi Ted,

This is a very entertaining piece, Ted.  And now with the score available, I'm sure that some of the members will want to try it out.     

David

[pianowolfi]

Yes I will definitely try it out someday It's beautiful and fun!

[ted]

Thanks David and Wolfi. In many ways I do seem to lack the "profundity gene" in music, but then again, perhaps there really is an expressible state we might term "serious happiness". If so, it certainly isn't fashionable on piano forums, but that has never worried me.

[pianowolfi]

That's indeed a cool term, Ted! And I don't think that you are lacking the "profundity gene" at all!  

[ted]

I would like to say it is original, but unless I am mistaken, I think the term was first used by Henri Sauget, in a response to criticism that his music was  flippant and shallow.

[rachfan]

Hi Ted,

Shallow, you're definitely not! 

David

[m1469]

Ted, this is very cool!  I enjoyed it from the first note to the last!  Thanks for posting and sharing .

[ted]

Glad you like it, m1469. If you can't play a straight tenth just play either the top or bottom note with the last semiquaver of the preceding group and jump to the other one.

 A couple of people have asked why I do not use 4/4 in notating this type of music.

Most of it in print does use 4/4, of course. You are then left with three options: writing triplets, which is cumbersome, using the so called "dotted note convention" (a dotted quaver + semiquaver is thought of as a swing triplet), or writing two quavers to the beat and putting an instruction to "swing the eighths".

In a simple piece like this, and indeed in much similar music there might be no ambiguity. However, if any section uses other rhythms, either consecutively, or worse still simultaneously, "conventions" of notation quickly become an impossible mess for both writer and reader.

Therefore, I agree with Brubeck, in his preface to Points on Jazz, where he opts for writing the best notationally correct approximation, regardless of appearance, so that somebody without a recording or unfamiliar with "swing" is at least likely to produce something close to the intended rhythm.

[johnmar78]

thanks Ted, I will give it a go this week and posted in auditiom room some time.

Good work again.

[ted]

Glad you like it John. I very rarely hear anyone else play my music so that would be interesting.

[johnmar78]

Glad you like it John. I very rarely hear anyone else play my music so that would be interesting.

give me 2 weeks, i do a quick sight read....