Black and White Rag

Here's a 1908 American ragtime piece by Botsford that I'm now playing. A few misses playing it on my Kohler and Campbell piano but that was my fault for playing it at 2 AM in the morning. But ah, but no work for me today and so I have an excuse. I'll play the piece again when I'm a bit more refreshed. Meanwhile, enjoy my playing the piano as one of the very, very few deaf/hh ragtime pianist around. Expect more videos of me playing ragtime or novelty old timey pieces in the very near future.

An update...

Still practicing my Black and White Rag. I got the technicals down pretty good. Just need to work on the transition and a couple of sticking points. Hopefully in a week or so I'll have it down good for a video piece of myself playing it.

If you have forgotten what Black and White Rag sounds like watch Marty Mincer play that piece, although I will *not* be playing that fast (yet).

Maple Leaf Rag by Mike McConnell

Here's a video of me playing on my $50 crappy piano that I bought less than two months ago so I can be able to practice my ragtime and early jazz pieces with a full length keyboard for the first time in years (note: I had a shortened keyboard piano called the Melodigrand which was even worse than my current one). It has been too many years gone by where I didn't even play or practice my piano as much as I wanted to. Now, I am back into my piano playing by practicing 2 to 3 hours every day and the opportunity to learn new pieces such as a George Botsford's piece called "Black and White Rag" where I have almost memorized the whole piece. Just a need a few more weeks before I make my next video tape.

It has been less than two months of practicing so far just to get past my "rusty" stage first and allow time my dexterity and coordination to catch up. I'm still "rusty" but certainly much better when I first started. As you can tell in my Maple Leaf Rag piece I've missed a few notes and the tempo was not as smooth as I wanted it to be (that may be because it's very late at night and I was tired, too). You can hear the clacking noise while I play plus many of the notes are obviously out of tune. It's not so bad but I was playing it in my garage which makes the whole experience a little "echo-ey".

But here is where you can help! You can "donate" for a good cause. How?

As you may not know I am one of the very few hard of hearing or deaf musicians to play the piano, especially Ragtime. The problem is, ever try playing on a gawd awful piano? But you can help me get a better piano by purchasing some of my ragtime products at my Deaf Ragtime store and also help defray any costs for my upcoming Ragtime festival visits. One of the products available is a button seen at the top of this blog entry that says "I'd Rather Be Playing Ragtime!" Indeed. Wouldn't you rather be playing Ragtime?

You can visit my ragtime store at:
http://www.cafepress.com/deaf_ragtime