
If without ever really having heard ragtime you can just sight read through a book of rags or old-time songs and believe you can quickly capture the essence of them, then you are far superior musically to most of the world (seriously, not a judgment call) and should probably be teaching at Julliard or Berklee and composing microtonal operas based on derived quantum physics and string theories. Listen: One of the best forms of practice to start out with is to practice listening.
Black cat rag player piano series#
As Artie Matthews noted on his series of Pastime Rags, "Don't Fake!" If this music is approached with a careless or sloppy attitude, the quality of performance will suffer audibly and the result will be unfocused and undesirable. If you really desire to learn ragtime, then that level of enthusiasm should help to overcome the initial frustration you are likely to encounter. (See my Hanon Rag for a fun example of this). Never underestimate the curative powers of exercises such as those formulated by Czerny or Hanon for finger dexterity and rhythmic accuracy. If, however, you have worked out the fundamentals of Bach preludes, Mozart sonatas, Chopin mazurkas, Debussy arabesques, or the like, you will be surprised how many elements of each of these exist in a large body of classic and popular ragtime. If your experience is primarily derived from reading out of fake books or simplified editions of pop tunes, don't expect the ability to read and play ragtime to come easily. Therefore, the ability to read music, while not critical, is certainly an inherently useful factor.Ī strong building block is the type of music you have worked with. People who learn by rote (listening to or watching and therefore learning by example) may have a more difficult time capturing the essence of pieces that they have not heard. Also important to the foundation is the content of what you've learned. Without the ability to read the music, or to be able to place your hands on the keys without being constantly conscious of the mechanics of playing, progress will be impeded and the ragtime learning curve will be inordinately steep.
Black cat rag player piano how to#
The topic of How to Play nearly anything on a musical instrument is obviously broad, even more so on piano, and is therefore difficult to avoid tainting with the author's bias.
