Piano Performances
From AboveTheGarage
I was pretty bored in high school so I taught myself to play the piano. I was inspired by Rod Miller who told me that he taught himself to play from a player piano in only two years.
So I got to work and practiced a couple of hours each weekday and about 4-6 hours on the weekends; plus a weekly trip to Disneyland to watch Rod play.
And after two years I was playing well enough for the school talent show.
(I wish I had time to practice more ... my skillz are starting to get rusty. :( )
Contents |
Maple Leaf Rag
Maple Leaf Rag (MIDI) was by Scott Joplin and is the first piece of sheet music that sold over a million copies in the United States. That would have been around 1900.
The primary source of entertainment in the early 1900s was the piano. I learned how to play piano from a 1910 Aeolian Grand Upright Piano that I purchased with help from my Mom for $450.00. I restored it to reasonably good condition with help from my friend and neighbor Mr. Woodworth, who owned a piano store in Santa Ana and helped me order parts and get information on how to do it. The player piano project occupied most of my life from age sixteen until I graduated from high school. The piano wasn't much use during the first eight months of the rebuild - it basically didn't work.
One the piano was rebuilt enough, I learned by slowing down the player piano (while pumping like mad) and then placing my hands on the keys and memorizing.
I still can't read music very well (hardly at all, actually), but I can sound some music out pretty fast.
I knew which notes to play with which fingers by going to Disneyland every weekend for two years and watching Rod Miller, the pianist at Main Street's Coke Corner. I'd watch Rod for about six hours with my friend Paul Clatworthy and then go home and practice for about four hours on the weekend. (This was in the days before the annual pass and Rod signed us both in. That was awesome and beyond anything I could have hoped for.)
During the week I practiced two hours a night, which drove my parents batty.
BTW, Paul Clatworthy was instrumental (so to speak) in helping me learn the first half of Maple Leaf Rag because I had to painstakingly mark up the sheet music and memorize it. I had no idea what syncopation was and if he hadn't explained how the sheet music worked and what syncopation was I would have been sunk. (Marking up sheet music and memorizing has little to do with sight-reading.)
It took my eight months to learn the first two parts of that piece, and then about six more, I think, to learn the second two parts, which I learned from the player piano, and are therefore heavily influenced by J. Lawrence Cook.
It was the first piece of music I learned all the way through.
During E3 in Los Angeles in 2000, and later in 2005, I had an opportunity to go to Disneyland and see Rod play ... and record him on mini-disc. Rod has a CD now that's really great. He's also done something called "Four Hand Piano" where he plays awesome duets with his protege Alan Thompson. I highly recommend both albums if you like ragtime. (Note: Rod retired from Disneyland shortly after that but Alan still plays at Coke Corner.)
(Also check out http://www.fourhandpiano.com and Stan Long's Four Hand Piano fan site.
And there's a really charming site all about Rod: Rebekah Moseley's Rod Miller page.)
Watching these two guys play really inspired me to start practicing again... so I did! The version of Maple Leaf Rag above was made after I spent a few weeks practicing. At first, I was going to cheat, by recording MIDI into a sequencer and then cutting together the best takes. Note this isn't the same as editing out individual notes. Instead, I would play the first part a few times through, then the second part, and so on, and then edit together the best takes. Just so you know, real orchestras do this kind of thing when they make albums. And certainly movie soundtracks are done this way (not with MIDI, but with audio editing). It didn't seem like such a cheat. But it turns out that it's harder to edit this stuff together than I thought. As I kept trying things and practicing, it eventually became better just to play it all the way through until I got a decent take. So that's what's posted now. The mp3 file above is a good representation of how I really play. I owe it all to Rod - without his inspiration and help I would never have learned to play the piano. (Also, thanks Mom, for helping me buy the 1910 player piano!)
BTW, I play Maple Leaf Rag in G instead of Ab. Somehow I obtained some sheet music in 1975 that was printed in G; and the piano roll I had, played by J. Lawrence Cook, was also in G. And Rod played Maple Leaf in G. So there you go - I play Maple Leaf Rag in G.
Jingle Bells Rag
Download link: Jingle_Bell_Rag
Chopsticks
Download link: Chopsticks
The Stars and Stripes Forever / God Bless America
Download link: The_Stars_and_Stripes_Forever_/_God_Bless_America
