K.K. Ragtime this is a song that came from a Nintendo video game called "Animal Crossing." K.K. Slider is the name of the dog character seen in this video. Kazumi Totaka is the original composer of the song in the video but this K.K. Ragtime piano piece was arranged by Ron O'Dell. This is no old-timey ragtime song but it is certainly a modern ragtime piece that Tom Brier exclaimed after playing it for the first time, "Oh, that's cute!"
I love playing this piece. It is indeed fun to play it on my piano, especially my antique player piano.
If you haven't heard Tom Brier play ragtime you won't be disappointed. Here's Tom playing "K.K. Ragtime" for the first time by sight reading this piano piece. He stumbles about 1/4 way but his effort playing this piece for the first time by sight reading is still quite impressive. This tune was composed by Kazumi Totaka for the Nintendo video game series "Animal Crossing" where it was transcribed and put into a ragtime format. In the end Tom Brier remarked, "Oh, that's cute!"
Just be patience. I'm curious how it'll sound on my "crappy" piano with me being the only deaf Ragtime pianist around. Of course, I'm not completely deaf but hard of hearing with the help of my new Siemen hearing aid which can pick up all of the notes on my piano and finally with volume control this time since my old digital hearing aid had an automatic volume control which was maddening whenever I played the piano because it would make it soft. So, thank goodness for getting one with volume control this time.
Anyway, enjoy K.K. Ragtime. A real diddy to enjoy listening to.
ADDENDUM: Here's a YouTube version of Tom Brier playing it again on a different piano a year later seen here. Still, I liked Tom's playing in the first video. It sounded much more livelier.
But a month earlier played that piece at the 2008 West Coast Ragtime Festival with the Raspberry Jam Band playing the "K.K. Ragtime" in one of their after-hours jam session. Pretty cool with all instruments playing. Even with a bit of "K.K." vocal piece thrown in for a short time.
Here's where K.K. Ragtime got it's inspiration from.
If you're ever in Portland, Oregon on the first Sunday of the month, come and stop by and enjoy some ragtime tunes. Click here for more details.
And for the inquisitive types, exactly what is ragtime?
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About Me....
I was born with a hearing loss in both ears due to the 1960s outbreak of the Rubella (German Measles). My left ear has a profound hearing loss around 92 dB while my right but good ear has a hearing loss at 70 dB on average across all frequencies. I wear a hearing aid in my right ear only. It continues to help me tremendously with my piano playing with the feedbacks and allowing me to enjoy my own piano playing.
I began playing the piano at age 7 and I haven't stopped since then except with several breaks over the years with school, marriage, kids, my career, etc. Though I play mostly the Ragtime variety. As far as I know, I'm the only deaf/hh pianist who love to play ragtime, novelty pieces, and early Jazz if I ever get to it.
This blog is not just solely about piano ragtime but will include other deaf and hard of hearing pianists who are not ragtime pianists. I hope you will enjoy my blogs, links and free ragtime sheets for download.