On The Ragtime

In an effort to revisit actually being proficient at playing an instrument, last week I picked up the piano sheet music book "Ragtime Classics" in the Alftred Masterworks series. Ragtime is a style of music that I've never been great at but I think is so fun to play. I love the way it blends blue notes and tendencies with its very straightforward and measured pacing.

Ragtime sounds good fast but even better a bit slower, which is lucky for me, as at this stage I need to take even the simpler ones quite slowly. I don't know a lot of ragtime except for Joplin's best-known works, but this book includes Irving Berlin, Eubie Blake, W.C. Handy, and Claude Debussy (not the first name that springs to my mind with rag).

My all-time favorite rag song, though, is Billy Joel's (who despite my incredibly hip musical taste, remains a favorite for piano tunes) "Root Beer Rag," which years ago took me many months to learn and remains stamped on my memory. Joel paid better homage to Joplin with this song than he did to Frankie Valli with "Uptown Girl."

The piano gets tuned tomorrow. Sweet.