Non-Classical Music?

[ErikHelm]

Hi.

Just wondering if there's anyone else here that enjoys playing music other than strictly classical.  Any of you into jazz...pop...original composition, etc...?

Although classically trained, I play my own arrangements of mostly pop, standards, semi-classical..etc.

Anyone else with me? :

Erik

[nicko124]

I actually had a go at doing this sort of thread here: https://www.pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,8526.msg86378.html#msg86378 but unfortunetely it never caught on.

It's a shame really because i am sure that a lot of people here play standards, jazz and maybe even some Pop.

Overall i like playing some things that are outside classical such as Elton John- Pop, Dave Brubeck - Jazz  and Franck Sinatra songs are nice to play (Come Fly with Me, Fly Me to the Moon and Strangers in the night.

I will learn copacabana by Manilow in the future but it is very difficult for a pop song-great tune though.

[ErikHelm]

Hey Nikko!

You mentioned "Fly Me To The Moon".  That's a great song...I put it on my first CD!

From the short time I've been a part of the Piano Furum Community, I sense that the overwhelming majority of the people here are really into classical music.  I am too. But it would be interesting to me to see if anyone else likes to take a 'musical diversion' once in a while.

Cheers, Erik

[ted]

My piano playing is one big diversion from classical. Only about five percent or less of my playing time would be spent on classical. Most of it is spent on my own music and a large proportion of the remainder is spent on classical ragtime, contemporary ragtime, swing, blues and stride. There are quite a few here who experiment with all sorts of piano music - perhaps they haven't seen your post yet.

[Daevren]

Jazz en indian music.

I also have quite some Hard Rock and electric guitar oriented CDs. But I do not really listen to those that much anymore.

[nicko124]

Ted: I haven't really gotten into ragtime much yet but i have had a look at the scores and some are quite difficult. What do you find appealing about it? Is it fun to play, does it feel good under the hands. The chords that are demanded in the left hand can certainly be demanding and the pieces (Scott Joplin) i have heard are usually a lot more difficult than they sound.

ErikHelm: Yes Fly me to the Moon is a great piece to play and there is also a nice intro at the start that many don't know about. I use an arrangement from a Frank Sinatra songbook which is good enough for me.
Another thing i like to delve into is the REM In Time Best Of book which you can get here:-

https://www.musicroom.com/se/ID_No/058150/details.html

Obviously you need to be a fan of the bands music (as i am) to appreciate it. The arrangements are very good though and really rewarding to play.

[ted]

"What do you find appealing about it?"

That is actually a very difficult question to answer. The best of it, it seems to me,  possesses life more intensely than many genres. There is something at once intimate and universal about it. I was about to say that it is a happy music, but of course it is also capable of intense sadness, tragedy and impossible longing, as certain of Joplin and Roberts demonstrates. I'm stuck for words here; I'll think about it.

 "Is it fun to play, does it feel good under the hands."

I certainly find it so, although much contemporary ragtime is both physically and musically demanding. A piece such as David Roberts' beautiful "For Kansas City" is about as hard as a Chopin study, I suppose, although perhaps in different ways.

"....are usually a lot more difficult than they sound."

It is a type of music which exhibits a wider than usual gap between being able to play it and being able to play it well.

[JPRitchie]

Hello,

      I don't play the piano, but I do program it. For several years, I looked for something interesting and at least close to 20th century to program for my own enjoyment. That led me to Scott Joplin's work, which is ragtime, but Joshua Rifkin's CD made it sound almost classical. Fig Leaf Rag, however, is usually played much too slowly - Joplin gave the quantitative note 100 qps.  When I programmed several of his rags at this tempo, they sounded very different from what I had heard before, due, at least in part, to the difficulty of syncopation. So, I made a CD. It's available at https://www.cdbaby.com/ritchie. The package has sound recordings, MIDI files, as
well as transcriptions for instructional purposes. Joplin also composed waltzes, marches, and an opera (Treemonisha). I can't comment very knowledgeably about their difficulty to play, but Joplin compositions are fairly modern, potentially very popular ("The Entertainer" became a Top 40 hit), and are serious music.

Regards,
Jim Ritchie

[whynot]

Ted, I like ragtime!  I have a student who keeps bringing in simplified rags to work on, but his mom plays piano and tells him it's a swing style, so I spend half the lesson trying to get him to play them straight.  He knows the difference, he just doesn't believe me.  I mainly play classical now because I have a lot of catching up to do, but I like to play almost everything.   

[ted]

Some quite prominent ragtime pianists do actually swing certain rags, of course, meaning to play them in triplet rhythm. Max Morath does it with Paragon and Maple Leaf, if my memory serves me correctly. One of James Scott's, Dixie Dimples, is written as swing and Troubador Rag also has a written swing strain. Then you have the seemingly age old debate about whether to use 12/8 or similar or assume the dotted note convention. I always write my own ragtime exactly as played, with tied 12/8 if it's swung. To do otherwise courts thorough confusion.

Many of the rhythms, particularly in contemporary ragtime, are neither one thing nor the other as played. This makes for a delightful state of affairs with several writers putting instructions such as "Medium Bucktime" (Frank French's Bucktown Buck) and "Tempo di Post Oak" (David Roberts' Washington County Breakdown). Precisely how the unititiated are to fathom these nebulous descriptions is not indicated. Roberts even goes to the extent of explaining in copious notes that certain groups are "mid-way between one rhythm and another". Brubeck sometimes writes out as played and sometimes doesn't. Thankfully, with him we have more recordings to go by.

As virtually all of Morton is swung, Dapogny instigates yet another convention in his transcriptions - that two successive ordinary quavers are to be played as swing. Very nice as long as other rhythmic complexities do not occur over the top of the metre. So, in addition to the correct notation, regrettably not used very often, there occur two incorrect ones in many transcriptions. If certain sections are straight (not swung) in the middle of these latter scores (e.g. the end of London Blues and quite a few places in Waller)  they have to put the words "straight" or "regular" onto the printed page.

My own opinion is that all music is best written out in the nearest correct approximation, even if it means messy looking scores - but I'm probably in a minority.

[JPRitchie]

Another nice thing about ragtime is that the original sheet music is being put in digitized collections available online and for free (save taxes). There is a digitial sheet music collection portal at  https://digital.library.ucla.edu/sheetmusic, and you can search on Joplin, Lamb, etc. to find something that can be printed and used.
Or, if you prefer something more recent and organized, there's D. Jasen's anthology https://www.pdinfo.com/source/D258076.htm, or Rudi Blesh's at https://store.doverpublications.com/0486204693.html . The Library of Congress also has a digitized collection with a large number of American works. The original sheet music is the most reliable source for determining how the composer intended a piece to be played - a reasonable place to start with your own interpretation.
Jim Ritchie

[Corsair]

aphex twin, boards of canada, squarepusher, autechre- anything on warp really, thats where its at

[Torp]

I've spent most of my life NOT playing classical.  I've always had the improvisation bug and I've mostly written my own stuff for years.  My tastes range from jazz styles to progressive rock, often times mixing them all together in one piece.

Lately, it seems, I've had a lot of friends and relatives getting married...seems I'm on the love song composition and performance circuit these days.

Jef

[thalbergmad]

Must admit to playing the odd bit of Fats Waller, as nothing classical seems so geared to happiness.

[SirSteinway]

I play mostly non-classical music; I enjoy playing along with the music of Billy Joel, Elton John, and others.  I also enjoy jazz and ragtime.  Although I am learning more and more classical...

[Barbosa-piano]

           It is good to vary according to what friends say, but I limit that to a thread...  :-\The only musics I play outside the Great Classical World are Ragtimes by Scott Joplin, although some people consider him to be in the Neo-Classical period (erroneously, according to my opinion), Christian Music, and some songs from the 60's or old movie themes, all of this just to distract a little bit.
                                              Mario Barbosa

[bachs_homegurl]

Wow! How did I not see this post sooner? I'm a new member and I realize that classical is very important and this is what most piano players learn but is that all anyone constantly plays? I've never been classically trained until this past year. I really want to keep it going because I can really tell the difference in my technique. Also this milkcarton08 is really helping find my way in the classical world of music. 

However, I enjoy playing contemporary christian and jazz standards the most. I consider the pop that I play to be stuff like Norah Jones or Sarah McLaughlan. But I love to play jazz standards ya know like "Fly Me to the Moon" which Nikko mentioned. Lately I have been transcribing some of Bill Evans stuff. Wasn't he awesome!! When I first came to PianoForum I was expecting mostly discussion on classical but also at least a little of other music. Is there a specific place where all of us can talk about ragtime or soft rock?

Must admit to playing the odd bit of Fats Waller, as nothing classical seems so geared to happiness.

I love that!!

miriam

[jbmajor]

I started out on pop, like Some Guns n Roses, Billy Joel, Elton John, Coldplay, etc; there's some interesting stuff in every genre, really.