A deaf pianist?

A  deaf pianist??  Is there such a thing? Certainly. I am one of them. Specifically, a deaf ragtime pianist. I am also hard of hearing if that helps since I do have useable hearing in my right ear I take advantage of with my hearing aid. My left ear is no good.

Playing the piano is something I love to do and it is no mystery to me that deaf people can be pianists, enjoy playing it and be good at it. When I get the chance to sit down at the piano it becomes a relaxing affair even when I'm practicing a new ragtime piece. I'm no beginner here. I began playing the piano since I was 7 years old. That was over 40 years ago. Discovered ragtime in my early teens.   I continue to play and practice new ragtime songs on my 1920 Thompson player piano as well as my Kohler & Campbell piano. I play pieces like Kitten on the Keys by Zez Confrey, Black and White by George Botsford, Bag of Rags by WR McKanlass, Scott Joplin pieces, K.K. Ragtime by Kazumi Totaka, Apple Sass by Harry Belding, American Beauty by Joseph Lamb and many, many more.  The links are pages to free music sheets download.

Not all pianists born with a hearing loss have the same amount or type of frequency hearing loss. Some are born with mild hearing loss others have severe to profound hearing loss. I wear a hearing aid in my right ear while my left is no good. I can hear all of the 88-key notes. Some deaf pianists are unable to hear the higher notes or the lower notes even with the help of a  hearing aid. Some pianists wear cochlear implants.  Each of us has a preference to a particular type of piano pieces we like to play whether it'd be classical, country, jazz, ragtime, rock, or boogie woogie. For me, I am simply fascinated with the ragtime and novelty pieces. So I prefer to spend my time playing those pieces than classical scores.

What do you prefer to play?

A Bag of Rags

Two weeks to go til I go to the next monthly Portland Ragtime Society get together and I'm thinking about trying "A Bag of Rags" piece by W.R. MacKanlass. I was looking at the piece today and played my fingers on my kitchen table just to get a feel of it. A doable piece to do in a short time. Maybe memorize it by then? Dunno since I continue to practice other pieces such as Kitten on the Keys which I'm improving slowly. Maybe in time for the October meet up instead? Plus I really like the toe tappin sound of A Bag of Rags piece.

Here's the YouTube version. And here's the free music sheet A Bag of Rags you can download from.



I may even do Humoresque of a Little Dog by Ron O'Dell. A new piece but more modern rag piece. The tune came from a Nintento role-playing series called "Mother" which is the Japanese title but the English title is "EarthBound." It was composed by Hirokazu Tanaka. The piano sheets can be downloaded here. Though I don't know if I will be ready by then since I'll be wanting to do A Bag of Rags first while I have time. We'll see.




And here's the original Humoresque of a Little Dog "Mother Earth" just to get the idea of what it sounds like.



And it has the same bit of rag heard in a 1928 popular guitar ragtime piece called "Dallas Rag."

Happy Birthday Dick Hyman

Mr. Hyman was born March 8, 1927 in New York City and today marks his 82nd birthday. Even though today is March 7 I would like to say a pre-happy birthday to Mr. Hyman right now just so that I won't forget.

Dick Hyman is a well knows jazz, ragtime and classical pianist. Wikipedia has more on the history of him. Out of my many favorite piano pieces by Hyman "Kitten on the Keys" (a novelty ragtime piece whihc is a very fun piece to listen!) and "The Finger Breaker" rank at the top for me of which I am practicing those two pieces right now (albeit too slowly). I've also put the two YouTube videos permanently over onto the right side column of my blog site.