Piano Rags

Last week at the library I found a 4-CD set of the complete piano works of Scott Joplin, played by John Arpin. The liner notes call Arpin "the world's No. 1 ragtime pianist," though they don't say how they determine such a title. But I'm not inclined to quibble on this point, since I've been enjoying these recordings immensely. What I love most about the way he plays the rags is his variations. He doesn't play anything straight from "the dots," but adds modifications and embellishments, and once or twice even a short coda. Naturally, this is something my folky background really appreciates. My favorite thing about hearing a good musician (in any style) is finding out what a piece of music suggests to them that I might never have thought of.

This does bring up a little question of style, though. I don't really know much about authentic, un-written ragtime style, or how Joplin might have played rags himself. A lot of Arpin's variations strike me as fairly authentic, some because I recognize a figure or ornament that's written into another rag somewhere, and some just because they "seem okay" to me. Occasionally, something will strike me as rather classical sounding (sort of the way you can tell when a fiddle tune is being played by a violinist). Of course, Joplin himself had some classical training so maybe some of that crept in even when he played it, and thus it might be considered "authentic." Anyway, it's a subject I can't really speak on with any sort of authority, and I'd like to learn more about it. I also checked out the book of Scott Joplin's complete works, which includes a short "School of Ragtime" tutorial in the back, which got my hopes up briefly. But it turned out mostly to be an explanation of notation for the different sorts of syncopation, along with an admonition not to play too fast. Oh well.

Speaking of speed, though, I had one complaint out of all 52 tunes in this set of CDs. Unfortunately, it was on the performance of Bethena, a rag waltz that has always been a really special one for me, which makes it more disappointing to hear a suboptimal rendition of it. He just played it far too slow. Granted, Joplin does have that general statement about not playing ragtime fast, but still, this one just needs a little more lift to bring it to life. I felt like I wanted to just reach in and drag it along to a decent speed. The piece is marked "Valse tempo," which to me would imply a something a little closer to a Viennese waltz than to an American box step or something (though probably not all the way up to Strauss tempos in this particular case). Also, it's subtitled "a concert waltz," so it seems even less likely he would have had slow waltzers in mind. Apparently, Arpin disagrees, though. Too bad.

I'm starting to work on playing more rags myself, now, too. I learned Bethena about a year ago, though I'm still working on playing it decently. And I recently re-started Swipsey, which I tried once a long time ago, and which is going easier now that I've got Bethena under my belt. I've also been reading through Magnetic Rag a bit. I'm thinking I might try working for a short amount of time on lots of different rags in turn, rather than slogging away at one for ages. It would be good for my sight-reading and it would probably train my fingers better, since they'd be exposed to lots of different (but similar) things instead of drilling one piece and only learning that. We'll see how that goes.

Caution: Show Turkeys

That was an actual warning I saw on a truck today during my drive out to Rossmoor. It cracked me up. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Building 42: Life, the Universe, and Google

On Monday, a building full of Googlers moved down the road to our new home in the SGI complex. We're just in one building so far (#42 -- a very good number), and the others still have SGI-ers in them, so we're sharing the cafeteria and everything for a while. It's a pretty neat place. I had to move three times on the first day until we got ourselves organized, but it worked out alright in the end. I kind of miss our old office, with the large window, but the cubicle I'm sharing is a good size, so we each actually have a little more personal space than we did before. And I can see a window, if I turn around. The ceilings are interesting, though the exposure of air ducts and whatever makes for a considerable ambient hum that we're still working on tuning out. I'm on the third floor (fourth, if you come up from the underground parking lot) so I'm going to try to make a point of using the stairs instead of the elevator, whenever possible. I figure that as long as I'm all the way up here, I should at least get a bit of exercise out of it.

New Dancers

The contradance last night was excellent. Moving Cloud is always a wonderful band to dance to and particular highlights of the evening included completely changing the character of Miss Monahan's reel by piling in all sorts of minor chords, and playing one of my very favorite waltzes at the end: Far Away, with its beautiful hemiola. Eric also called some fun new moves, like a grand right and left, doubled up with your partner (using stars instead of alemandes). But I was particularly happy last night to meet three new dancers, two of whom are Stanford grad students. They've all done contra before but are new to the area. I love seeing more people in my general age group show up at contras, and they're all really nice people. I'm going to try to get them sucked into various other dances, too.

For some reason, I've noticed recently that I really enjoy meeting new dancers. I like telling them about all the dance options around here, dancing with them, introducing them to people, and just generally making sure they get at least one friendly welcome to the community. I was wondering last night, though, about how I come across to people who meet me that way. I think I probably seem to be a lot more extroverted, out-going and talkative than I actually am. It's not like I'm normally anti-social, but "taking care" of newbies just motivates me to put out more of an effort. It's also an easier sort of interaction for me because I know I have a lot to offer, telling them about various dances or classes or whatever. So I'm okay with it, even with people I haven't met before.

Anyway, if you run into anyone else who wants to get into dancing, send them my way.

Ragtime

Ragtime Ball last night was fun. I think I ended up watching more performances and contests than actually dancing myself, but that's okay. I particularly enjoyed watching the Cardinal Whirlwinds. They did one square dance and then another group of them came out and did some clogging, with Caitlin fiddling for them. I had known Caitlin was a fiddler, but I hadn't realized that she was one of those fiddling-clogging wonders who do both at the same time. Very cool.

One thing I was really happy about last night was the dancers' appreciation of the band (The Back Swing Orchestra). At a lot of Stanford dances, you can really tell that people are used to canned music, and when they finally get a live band the applause can be sort of half-hearted, which makes me feel really bad for the musicians. But last night was a lot better. The band ended up playing for an extra 20 minutes after their last song just because everyone was so enthusiastic about it. So that made me glad.

It was also nice just to be back at a Stanford dance again. It felt like it had been a while, since I hadn't been dancing quite as much recently, and I had been doing more contra than anything else. I guess it was probably only a month, though, since the last Jammix. I didn't get to dance with quite everybody I would have liked to, but I did get to see a number of people I hadn't seen for a bit. I hope there's another Jammix before Winter Break, too.