+Morganthe In 2001, at the Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival, they actually got the Sutter Creek Police Department to "arrest" Tom for speeding during a performance!
+Morganthe Of course not literally; it was a gag. This was after instances of people coming up and roasting hot dogs over the piano, frying eggs on the piano, and so forth -- all playing up a "Hot-Rod Tommy" persona. Having the police arrest him was the denouement.
They should've gotten him to play the Organist in the great gatsby, just imagine him hammering away on the keys, playing all the instruments of an entire band on the piano.
You know he's playing fast when you see the key still pressed down after he moves his hand... Seriously, look at some of the lower bass notes. They're still down as he hits the next note...
@@realminecraftnub3682 I doubt it's the pedal, but that could very well be a possibility. I think it's the after touch of those particular keys (where the hammer has double action if you press it slowly, the felt is creating after touch. I'm not a piano tuner, so I'm not explaining it well, but in many cases, this is a good thing as it provides a bright timbre to the piano and allows for a wider range of dynamics). Similar to a flute, however, the "pads" could be sticking. Translating that to a piano, sometimes my keys stick on my classic grand. It's very rare since my last tuning, but depending on the force and velocity in which I strike the key, it sticks. I really hope I'm explaining this well. 😅
@@realminecraftnub3682 No, there's no pedal that holds keys down. There are pedals that hold dampers, but the keys themselves still return to the upright position.
That's a rather silly suggestion. No piano is made for a specific type of music. It's just old so it has a certain sound to it, is perpetually out of tune a little bit.
It's so beautiful how Tom artfully slows down the tempo at 2:03. Seems like Julia and Kitty weren't fully expecting it, but they perfectly locked onto that swung, slow groove. Such great musicianship.
So cool to hear this video inspired cuphead. I absolutely heard it immediately and even had to double check this wasn't just the same song. May Tom's legacy live on.
@@josephkim3223comments of 'funfair fever' so admittedly it could be bs but the two songs sound so similar I find it believable, apparently Tom and the other two in this video are in the credits. It's also in the description of this video now
@Thomas Daly that's what happens when you go over 40 hours a day. The old ones of the universe prevent you in one form or another, in the case of poor Tom it was a truck.
@@kimjong-un1136 he has brain damage and can play simple stuff I think and he got hit by a truck. There's a whole page about it including updates about his condition
@@picarn803 This literally hurts me so much to know. To think that such talent may now forever more be wasted. That's damn heart-breaking. I sincerely wish him the best.
I had no idea Tom had been in an accident that caused him to suffer neurological damage, preventing him to play music furthermore. Having found out about this accident in 2016, this has broken my heart.
@@andybaldman Brother, may I ask if you have any news on Tom's position? Is he still with us? As a literal fan, I would like to know the honest answer friend. aww, Tom. If only you knew how many people could love you as they do now.
I've been binging Tom's videos and he really is an amazing musician. I'm terribly sorry to hear about the accident, and I hope he has a steady recovery over the next few years. Thank you so much for sharing these awesome videos!
Fantastic, what a great pianist to learn from and idolize. I heard about his accident, and I pray for his full recovery. This man would make an excellent teacher
This man was and hope one day again in the future will be a brilliant player with a huge talent that was tragically taken from him as well as us. I really hopes he gets back somewhere to a place he can play again. I'm sure that will give him some sort of Peace and happiness within himself. God Bless you Tom from a Stride Pianist living in Chester, England.
I've been playing ragtime since the 70's and my teacher was real fast, but I've never seen anything like that. His left hand swing base is ridiculously fast! Fantastic! Love the rhythm and woodwind sections! My teacher used to play a song called The Crazy Otto Medley with white gloves on and a silk scarf over the keys, and could still play it nice as fast as I could. But it's not as fast as this!
In this case, the guy walking around in the background is an employee at the Ice Cream Emporium, so he has to be moving around to prepare people's sandwich orders etc.
feels like a time capsule from a Wisconsin home in the 60's, what a trip! Whatever the case may be, Tom is immortalized with these videos.. thanks keeper
Tom is amazing! (Even after 2016, a man's soul simply does not change) But can we get a shoutout for his accompanying washboard and flautist? If Tom is the immortal lord of the ragtime piano, then surely these fine ladies are the angels that carry his song! Just phenomenal.
I would listen to this over and over back in 2017 before doing some post-school activities in the afternoons, while waiting for my classmates to show up (I was an early comer). I didn't know anything about Tom's accident back then. I miss those days when I would think Tom was fine and still playing.
I hope people know how difficult ragtime is, on top of playing that fast. You have to be so incredibly accurate- you can see how his left hand seems to flail but makes no flaws. This is jaw-droppingly amazing talent
His fastest song is nowhere near the speed of this at its end. The fastest song of the top of my head I could think of that is played by him is Something Doing ruclips.net/video/MeRL5CDeJ9s/видео.html Not saying it’s his fastest tune, but it’s up there.
The fastest tempo marking I’ve seen in a Joplin rag score is “fast or slow” on “Stoptime Rag” from 1910. The second fastest is “Allegro moderator” in “Scott Joplin’s New Rag” from 1912. The rest are marked slower.
Yeah, guys like Tom (before his accident) and Jeff Barnhart can play that oom-pah left hand faster than I can even move my left arm back and forth -- never mind hitting the right notes!
Keeper1st I thought my left hand was fast, when I play the staff roll stride from Mario land 2, but that's just unbelievable.. I hope tom recovers, it's such a shame.
I've began to start properly learning rags over the past half a year or so and I swear I cannot move my hands as fast as that period, let alone getting all the notes right. I'm sure speed will come with time but Tom is really superhuman
Tom, you are amazing. One of the best piano "technicians" I've ever seen. I knew a guy who won second place in an international organ competition and said he could transpose ANY key to ANY other key, virtually without effort, and I saw him do it, even sight reading. I'm curious as to how you do this. Is it just knowing what the song will sound like in the different key and your fingers do it, or are you constantly transposing, visually on the staff, or the keyboard? It can't POSSIBLY be note for note, I wouldn't think. You must be operating at some higher level, like a typist who moves from thinking about individual key strokes to whole words and eventually phrases, where the intervening translation or interpretation is somehow automated (sub conscious?). He (Rick) also had a great sense of humor. One day our director said something like "When Bach wrote this, he intended it to be done like...!", and Rick said, how do you know, were you there? The age old age joke. ;-) Roger (the director) fell off the podium laughing.
Tom was able to transpose by thinking in terms of chord relationships. One time at a ragtime festival venue, there was a piano that was a semitone flat, but he had to play with the Raspberry Jam Band. They were not able to get their instruments to play flat, so he transposed everything on the fly as he read the music. It was pretty amazing to witness. Sure there were some clunkers now and again, and he didn't add as much embellishment as he normally would, but still blew our minds. Afterward he said it was good practice, pointing out that it's exactly the sort of thing vaudeville pianists had to do when accompanying singers who may not have the range for a song's original key.
Incredible! Nowadays an electronic keyboardist can just hit a transpose button, I expect. NOT the same! I never could get it right during piano lessons in the original key. ;-)
The flute part in the beginning reminded me of "Funfair Fever" from Cuphead, and then I got sad that we won't likely get to see Tom sightread all the amazing music from that game.
I love ragtime fast, despite what Scott Joplin says. Of course, some of his rags do lose the melody when played even slightly fast. But this is wonderful.
I believe there are recordings of Scott Joplin himself playing some of his stuff on RUclips and around the internet, and I wouldn't say he played slow by today's standards. I think he meant it by ragtime standards cuz back in the day many people would try to play everything as fast as they possibly could to try and show off to the point that the songs lost their musicality That being said, I think he would've considered this fast for sure, but I like how Tom just breaks into it for a sort of climax instead of just blazing through the whole piece so I think it was used to quite an effect. Especially with that "calm before the storm" bit, that was a great performance overall. I loved it, and I think if one is to play ragtime fast, this is the way to do it. A huge part of music is playing it so those listening enjoy it, after all, and it's almost always a crowd pleaser to play fast at key moments. Whenever you play fast all the time, though, more often than not it just gets boring and the music loses what makes it pleasant, be it melodically, rythymically, harmonically, what have you. Some music is meant to be played fast, though, like the third movement of "moonlight" sonata, but again that's contextualized within the piece. Sure the 3rd mv. sounds good on it's own, but not nearly as good as the climax to movements one and two.
John Harlowe For Eugenia in 1906, Joplin gave a metronome marking of quarter=72 and called it “slow march time”, so that can be used as some basis as well
@@littlefishbigmountain Sadly there are no known audio recordings of Scott Joplin playing anything at all or even singing or talking. He could well have made some (certainly, anyone with a recording attachment/head on their Edison home cylinder phonograph, could have made a one-off cylinder recording of him, and someone *might* have) but for a variety of reasons (primarily racism) it appears that Mr Joplin didn't get any _commercial_ recording opportunites. Joplin was considered one of the best ragtime pianists in Sedalia Missouri, in 1901, but by the time he moved to St. Louis around 1904 he was already eclipsed in piano technique by Louis Chauvin and others, in the opinion of other musicians who were there and heard them play. However everybody who was 'in the know' hugely respected Joplin as a _composer_ as is proper. By the time Joplin moved to New York several years later, he was already among many other virtuoso ragtime pianists who outclassed him in technique. But he was already making some money from royalties on his compositions, as well as through teaching music, so hopefully this didn't bother him too much. Joplin was a multi-instrumentalist who not only played piano, but also sang, and played cornet and reportedly several string instruments like mandolin and guitar (?). So piano was only one of several things he could do, but by far his metier was composition and arranging. However, Joplin *did* get a recording opportunity of a sort, while in bad health, shortly before he passed away; he got to make 6 hand played piano rolls for the Connorized Music Co of New York. They had a modified Autopiano upright piano they used for recording which was tubed to the recording machine in the other room which either cut holes or drew lines on paper to indicate which notes the pianist played (we're not sure which because we roll historians don't have or know of any photos of the recording equipment they used; only the recording piano itself. Other roll companies used either method). Then, this master was used as a template or guide by another human roll arranger at the company to make a new roll master in strict rhythm according to their tempo/rhythm scales at the factory on their arranging table. This allowed for perfect copies to be made without sounding jerky, but sacrificed fine detail in rhythms and any subtle swing. The arranger, who was most probably William Arlington, also added many bass runs and embellishments in octaves that Mr. Joplin probably didn't play, PLUS did some triplings of the melody or harmony in places that are actually physically impossible for one person to play (this was common on many rolls of the era to strengthen the melody, although they did it sparingly for these). This doctored and re-arranged quantized version was then duplicated into a production master and sent to the perforator to be run off to make production copies of the roll to be sold to the general public (these are the versions that survive in very limited original numbers today, plus numerous modern re-cuts made since the 1970s; the Connorized master rolls or recording specimen rolls are sadly not known to exist today for any tunes by anyone; when a company went out of business or was bought by another firm, it was very common for all of this material to be destroyed). We think that Arlington was the arranger because his "solo" rolls for Connorized of other tunes (including some other Joplin rags) are in much the same style as the "Played by Scott Joplin" rolls with similar bass runs etc. Not _exactly_ the same style, mind you; there are some very original and funky features to his roll of "Ole Miss Blues" by W. C. Handy (a piece published by Handy which some of us feel Mr. Joplin arranged or even had an uncredited hand in composing), which do not show up in those Arlington rolls I've heard. Interestingly this is the only one of the 6 rolls he made not credited to him as composer on the sheet music. We think maybe he was trying to promote Mr. Handy's piece or play it in a certain way. Joplin got one more "recording" opportunity on piano rolls: he also re-did "Maple Leaf" again for the Aeolian company, issued on their Uni-Record label. This is a true hand played roll without any known editing and was cut from what may have been merely a punched-out version of the originally recorded master. However, this process meant that the production perforator wouldn't always read the rhythms correctly (since they wouldn't be in perfectly quantized lockstep with the up-down of the punch ram), and so while the recorded master roll, if it still existed and could be heard today, would doubtless sound highly rhythmically realistic, minus the dynamics; the production rolls all sound 'jerky' due to the incompatibility of fine timings with the recorded roll and the perforator ram. If the ram was run at a much faster speed and the roll read much more slowly, then truer rhythms and much less jerkiness could have been gotten in the final production copies sold to the public. However most companies didn't consider this economically practical or feasible since it ate up a lot of production time. this 'jerky rhythm' problem endemic to nearly all hand played rolls of this period, was 'solved' by simply having people read the recording roll and arrange a new master from scratch, which was simpler and more cost effective. At any rate Joplin's Uni-Record "Maple Leaf Rag" roll is the most authentic we'll ever hear him play, most likely, as it represents the true chord voicings etc with which he played that piece, plus something of the original rhythms, albeit choppy. One more postscript here: there are rumors that while at the 1904 World's Fair, in St Louis, Joplin was recorded AND filmed both playing piano and talking(?) by a German-American early filmmaker and experimenter with sound movies. But if this short movie were ever really made, there has been no evidence of it surviving. The person who supposedly recorded him WAS real and I think some of his other footage of other people exists. But we're not sure if he really recorded Mr Joplin one day, or that was a rumor/fabrication which came along MUCH later, like after 'the sting' ragtime revival.
@@andrewbarrett1537 Interesting! I didn’t know all that about piano rolls. Even if at the very worst the piano rolls got even the tempi completely wrong, surely we could still rely on his own notated tempi and comments about them, right?
Well yes, and especially the tempo markings printed in his scores such as "quarter = 100" are very important. We don't know for certain, but those are very likely his tempo markings. Typical Scott Joplin tempo markings include "tempo di marcia" (march tempo); "slow march tempo" (slow, but still able to literally march to it without falling over!"; "moderato" (I *think*), and on "Scott Joplin's New Rag" he puts "Allegro Moderato" (moderately fast). On I think "Wall Street Rag", a piece with great pathos, is printed "very slow march tempo"; and on "Stop-Time Rag" is "fast or slow". Two very notable things stand out to me about his sheet music: 1. on all or most of his later publications, from 1907-1914, is a box with the notation saying something to the effect of "Notice! Do not play this piece fast. It is never right to play 'ragtime' fast. -composer". It's really notable that this exhortation is printed on late scores published by MULTIPLE different publishers, including Seminary Music, Joseph Daly, and Joseph W. Stern, which tells me it is Mr Joplin's own advice and not something added by the publishers. 2. Having looked at and played literally thousands of original ragtime-era sheets of songs and instrumentals, I will say that most of the pop publishers of the day employed arrangers (for example J. Bodewalt Lampe and George Botsford at the Jerome Remick publishing co) who were thoroughly versed in counterpoint, harmony, and voice-leading. The average songwriter or pop composer of the day was not so well-schooled, and (as recounted in numerous historical anectdotes and magazine articles), inevitably, whatever manuscript they submitted to the publishing house, or even just came in and played or sang their tune for them, would need "fixing" or arranging, to get it to conform exactly to the rules of Western classical music theory, counterpoint and voice-leading. With the major pop publishers, who were under a perpetual time crunch for turnaround to get pieces on the market and in print while they were still popular, this usually ended up becoming highly stereotyped, "stock" chord voicings, inversions and bass lines. Particularly the bass and alto lines were inevitably similar-looking for a given publisher, regardless of the original composer. BUT- one can tell the more schooled composers (like Joplin, and for that matter Felix Arndt and Hugo Frey), because they DON'T always use "stock" chord voicings and bass lines in tunes, but instead had so much schooling that they could rise above that mundane level and yet NOT have their manuscripts "fixed" by the arrangers on staff (who would go over them carefully and find they ALREADY conformed to Western classical tonal harmony, but often with BETTER, more creative and original, voice leading than what the arrangers themselves typically employed!). Thus, when a highly schooled composer sent something in, it was typically never changed but just typeset and printed as-is. Thus, Mr. Joplin's unique musical "voice" is preserved through all his different publishers. The sole original-era exception of which I'm aware is when Will Tyers was hired to make some simplified editions of 2 or 3 of his rags. Those were noticeably changed.
in the desc. it actually says that this song was an inspiration for one of the songs in the game, with the three people in this video being credited in the game as inspirations.
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
I think Tom's left hand should get a ticket for speeding.
Where's a cop when you need one
+Morganthe In 2001, at the Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival, they actually got the Sutter Creek Police Department to "arrest" Tom for speeding during a performance!
+Keeper1st Literally?
+Morganthe Of course not literally; it was a gag. This was after instances of people coming up and roasting hot dogs over the piano, frying eggs on the piano, and so forth -- all playing up a "Hot-Rod Tommy" persona. Having the police arrest him was the denouement.
I wonder what he was playing at the time...
Careful, Tom. You're going to melt that poor piano.
He is taking tickling the ivories to a whole new level !!!
I once saw a guy light a cigarette off the strings after he played.
@@Ace1King1 it was a movie "The Legend of 1900"
I’m thinking if he plays just a little faster he will accidentally time travel.
tom brier is the closest living relative of black midi.
They should've gotten him to play the Organist in the great gatsby, just imagine him hammering away on the keys, playing all the instruments of an entire band on the piano.
@John Dough do you know what black midi is?
Confusing Dalek he doesn’t
John Dough if you think everything with the word black in front of it is pertaining to african americans then you may be the racist my friend ;)
@@-.__. thats not a wooosh buddy
2:41 When you start your third lap in MarioKart
Heh
😂😂😂😂
So true😂😂
while you and a buddy are fighting for first place
then the blue shell comes
That poor poor casio watch just went for a hell of a ride!
BrockFenton LMAO best comment
Never wear a watch on the left side while playing ragtime
After this the only thing you could read on it was "50000 bpm"
Think of the extra speed of unlocks if he took it off. It's like weighted training clothes.
If it has kinetic battery than it will have unlimited battery
This music sounds like it belongs in an N64 game, and I mean that in the best possible way.
psychoticmortacarn fits in a Mario game tbh
King Reiux koji kondo was actually really inspired from ragtime when he wrote songs for mario such as the athletic theme
psychoticmortacarn you mean super Mario world
I'm your 420th like 💀
psychoticmortacarn banjo kazooie possibly
You know he's playing fast when you see the key still pressed down after he moves his hand... Seriously, look at some of the lower bass notes. They're still down as he hits the next note...
wow... i didn't even notice that. i just saw the blur of his left hand!
It’s a type of pedal on the piano that will hold keys down while others don’t
Lag
@@realminecraftnub3682 I doubt it's the pedal, but that could very well be a possibility. I think it's the after touch of those particular keys (where the hammer has double action if you press it slowly, the felt is creating after touch. I'm not a piano tuner, so I'm not explaining it well, but in many cases, this is a good thing as it provides a bright timbre to the piano and allows for a wider range of dynamics).
Similar to a flute, however, the "pads" could be sticking. Translating that to a piano, sometimes my keys stick on my classic grand. It's very rare since my last tuning, but depending on the force and velocity in which I strike the key, it sticks.
I really hope I'm explaining this well. 😅
@@realminecraftnub3682 No, there's no pedal that holds keys down. There are pedals that hold dampers, but the keys themselves still return to the upright position.
Haha lady with the washer board is a legend
479 likes 1st reply
@@OliverLMinecraftMachine you ruined this 5 year old comment you absolute piss plated shitlord.
Wunder Waff lol and true
@@iiopas9739 And your rudeness made it any better?
@@ackarcue203 awe did feeling get hurt,funny and true.
So did anyone hold a cigarette to the piano strings afterwards?
ZFFM ..the heat could just be obviously felt from whatever distance
Legend of 1900?
@@carter2007 ef ya babeh
ZFFM no
wooosh
The washboard lady is really good
Needs more coconut shell, otherwise pretty bangin'! ( ಠ ͜ʖಠ)
Yeah except for the awful pocket.
Interestingly enough, part of the washboard instrument is called the wooden boob.
I can’t stand when she plays. It’s always just a little behind and drives me crazy.
@@hutzman7664 yeah but how do you keep up with Tom Brier lmao
It is a wonder the piano didn't start to smoke and to smolder.
+Steven Campbell Or become a nuclear bomb.
+Steven Campbell Must be water cooled.
that piano is built specifically for the type of music he's playing. it's sound and flavor isn't meant for anything else.
That's a rather silly suggestion. No piano is made for a specific type of music. It's just old so it has a certain sound to it, is perpetually out of tune a little bit.
That tip jar should be full to overflowing constantly.
I love how towards the end his left hand just more or less floats there and shit gets done under it
RUclips frame rounding be like: " Why you bully me?"
Perkele
it's like a fucking Neon Genesis angel
Tom has said, "The keys move to be underneath my fingers."
It's so beautiful how Tom artfully slows down the tempo at 2:03. Seems like Julia and Kitty weren't fully expecting it, but they perfectly locked onto that swung, slow groove. Such great musicianship.
Tom loved to mess around with them!
Note that the title says "heard," not "played," "by mere mortals."
+Bears 'n' Eagles Entertainment Well spotted. That was intentional -- the joke being that we're not sure if Tom is one of us mere mortals...!
+Keeper1st Exactly...!
If you are immortal and play a faster rag in the forest, does the piano actually make a sound? 🙃
More like "Breakneck Rag"
I thought this said beardneck rag when I first read it.
underappreciated pair of comments
scottxproducts
Agreed
Yes 😂
more like *BORE RAGNAROK*
2:40
That's his clock clinging on his wrist to save it's life...Like "DON'T WANNA FALL, I LIKE IT HERE =(!!!!"
klawdstraif I almost died laughing hahaha!!!
that must've been so traumatizing for the watch..
LIGHT SPEED IS TOO SLOW KEEPER1ST. WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO GO STRAGHT TO *LUDICROUS SPEED!*
Accept no Substitutions we've gone past plad!
He's gone plaid!
Spaceballs and ragtime--who'd a thunk it?
Accept no Substitutions Y’know there are lots of comments here... but I think this one takes the cake for best comment
So cool to hear this video inspired cuphead. I absolutely heard it immediately and even had to double check this wasn't just the same song. May Tom's legacy live on.
Where did you hear that?
@@josephkim3223comments of 'funfair fever' so admittedly it could be bs but the two songs sound so similar I find it believable, apparently Tom and the other two in this video are in the credits.
It's also in the description of this video now
They should be paying him royalties
Haha, I was just talking to my brother about that it sounded like Funfair Fever in Cuphead, and then I read the description. That's really cool!
Legend has it this guy practices even more than ling ling
The forbidden 50 hours a day
twoset fan EVERYWHERE
@Thomas Daly that's what happens when you go over 40 hours a day. The old ones of the universe prevent you in one form or another, in the case of poor Tom it was a truck.
@Miri Nannestad lingling sabotaged Tom, #DownWithLingLing !
Alec McCready
#DownWithLingLing
Why is this man not filling concert halls in New York and London?
Dennis Neo I think they only need to call...
+Dennis Neo Because there is more to musicianship than playing fast.
+Uisce Preston Like this? ruclips.net/video/nwM1y5kqlY8/видео.html
Or, if you're more of a classical snob, this: ruclips.net/video/THL710QZ32s/видео.html
@@uiscepreston
That's true, but it shows that you aren't familiar with Tom's playing as he is capable of much more than just playing fast
The Washboard: "Greatest Old Timey instrument EVER
By the way, I would literally PAY to see this GUY PLAY LIVE.
I speak for so many, it's true.
It's too late for that now.
@@picarn803 When found out about his health, I felt so sad. What happened to him? Can he still play music? I have so many questions.
@@kimjong-un1136 he has brain damage and can play simple stuff I think and he got hit by a truck. There's a whole page about it including updates about his condition
@@picarn803 This literally hurts me so much to know. To think that such talent may now forever more be wasted. That's damn heart-breaking. I sincerely wish him the best.
Kitty's washboard used to have two such "knockers" so strategically placed.
yeah i got that, sounds nice
I tried to have my wife place her "knockers" over the washboard, but she said they were too small.
I had no idea Tom had been in an accident that caused him to suffer neurological damage, preventing him to play music furthermore. Having found out about this accident in 2016, this has broken my heart.
It's tragic, I hope one day he can recover enough to at least know that he's had a profound impact on millions..
Sadly, he won’t recover.
This world is cruel.
@@andybaldman Brother, may I ask if you have any news on Tom's position? Is he still with us? As a literal fan, I would like to know the honest answer friend. aww, Tom. If only you knew how many people could love you as they do now.
@@kimjong-un1136ruclips.net/video/Be782LvlsOc/видео.html Here's a video of him playing the piano with some help after the accident.
I’m glad to see Kim Jong-Un is so worried about Tom Brier. Lol
I've been binging Tom's videos and he really is an amazing musician. I'm terribly sorry to hear about the accident, and I hope he has a steady recovery over the next few years. Thank you so much for sharing these awesome videos!
Fantastic, what a great pianist to learn from and idolize. I heard about his accident, and I pray for his full recovery. This man would make an excellent teacher
This may be my favorite quarantine find.
The girl on the washboard deserves more credit for keeping up. Amazing playing by her
Me: oh hey this sounds like a cuphead level
Me: checks description
Me: Huh. Neat.
It's a Tom Brier kinda day. This guy! Making Mondays awesome. WOOOO!!!
Tom's piano is insane, but I also really like the piccolo part in this piece too
This man was and hope one day again in the future will be a brilliant player with a huge talent that was tragically taken from him as well as us. I really hopes he gets back somewhere to a place he can play again. I'm sure that will give him some sort of Peace and happiness within himself.
God Bless you Tom from a Stride Pianist living in Chester, England.
I've been playing ragtime since the 70's and my teacher was real fast, but I've never seen anything like that. His left hand swing base is ridiculously fast! Fantastic! Love the rhythm and woodwind sections! My teacher used to play a song called The Crazy Otto Medley with white gloves on and a silk scarf over the keys, and could still play it nice as fast as I could. But it's not as fast as this!
I can listen to this all day. Amazing.
As a metalhead, it brings me such glee to see other genres being played at higher tempos. Love it.
This is why they had to start making piano keys out of ivory.
In this case, the guy walking around in the background is an employee at the Ice Cream Emporium, so he has to be moving around to prepare people's sandwich orders etc.
When the wifi shuts off for more than 5 minutes
What a legend.
I pray for his recovery so that we may see him behind the keys again.
The reccomended feature on RUclips is the only feature that has gotten better as time goes on
praying he recovers as soon as possible :(( i think he’s finally in physio now thank goodness. he really is an amazing player
Respect ,Sir. That was phenomenal. Kudos to the two ladies as well!
dat reference to spaceballs! "Prepare for Ludicrous speed!"
...and the reference to The Jazz Singer!
This is an absolute gem. Glad to know it will be on the internet forever!
I’m one year into learning piano as an adult and I just dont get how anyone can play that well that fast.
feels like a time capsule from a Wisconsin home in the 60's, what a trip!
Whatever the case may be, Tom is immortalized with these videos.. thanks keeper
When you're running out of time on Mario.
Tom is amazing! (Even after 2016, a man's soul simply does not change) But can we get a shoutout for his accompanying washboard and flautist? If Tom is the immortal lord of the ragtime piano, then surely these fine ladies are the angels that carry his song! Just phenomenal.
Being fast itself is easy, but being THAT precise the whole time. Man, such talent.
I would listen to this over and over back in 2017 before doing some post-school activities in the afternoons, while waiting for my classmates to show up (I was an early comer). I didn't know anything about Tom's accident back then. I miss those days when I would think Tom was fine and still playing.
Jesus Henry Christ on a bicycle, the guy's bionic or something.. Mr Brier, you Sir are a legend.
it wouldn't surprise me if Tom was an inspiration for Cuphead. This sounds exactly the style and tone the lads creating the game were going for.
Tom and Kitty are both mentioned in the Cuphead soundtrack credits as inspirations. Why Julia was left off the list is a mystery!
Keeper1st thats incredible
Man, Kitty Wilson plays a damn fine washboard. I love what she's done with hers.
I hope people know how difficult ragtime is, on top of playing that fast. You have to be so incredibly accurate- you can see how his left hand seems to flail but makes no flaws. This is jaw-droppingly amazing talent
When he hit ludicrous speed I legitimately cracked a big wide grin. That was awesome
I thought the title said: "Fastest ragtime piano yet BEARD by mere mortals". True story.
Where did his left hand go... All I see is a blur...
It's a lot like my right hand.
The sound is impressing..terrific music..I'm enjoying ..thank you
Scott Joplin: *Wait that's illegal*
His fastest song is nowhere near the speed of this at its end.
The fastest song of the top of my head I could think of that is played by him is Something Doing ruclips.net/video/MeRL5CDeJ9s/видео.html
Not saying it’s his fastest tune, but it’s up there.
He would have killed himself if he was rebirthed today.
The fastest tempo marking I’ve seen in a Joplin rag score is “fast or slow” on “Stoptime Rag” from 1910. The second fastest is “Allegro moderator” in “Scott Joplin’s New Rag” from 1912. The rest are marked slower.
@@andrewbarrett1537 wow, i didnt see my reply for a year now
God, sometimes I wish I could just go back and re-experience times like these
How anyone can play this fast greatly amazes me.
That is one extremely talented ragtime pianist there. He's now inspired me to play ragtime.
I was waiting for a “Yeehaw” and I was not disappointed. Dixie is strong with these ones.
Thanks Tom. You rock! Your piano skills have, and shall continue to, get me through all times. Good bad or different.
Was his left hand on cocaine? :D
The only reason I clicked on this is because this guy's last name is my first name (spelled right, no less), and boy am i glad I did, this is amazing!
The piccolo and percussion players are also great.. 😊🙏
Wow, I really really hope he recovers to be able to play like this again, he's such an inspiration 😞 amazing :)
In the far future, we won't have this going around anymore :/
张子良 Who knows, he may recover nicely and maybe get to play the piano again...
张子良,
Yeah, who knows. I love many types of music, including anything from ragtime to heavy metal, but don't like much modern mainstream music.
There will always be poor people with access to nothing but an instrument and a tip jar, so don't forget about them
Strongly disagreed. I knew this tune... From the videogame Cuphead. :D
Internet will popularise these genres immensly, no need to be worried. I mean, look at how many people watch these videos.
This video never fails to make me smile
How... He went on my scale of flipping amazing to literally a piano God. That left hand is faster than anything I could dream of doing!
Yeah, guys like Tom (before his accident) and Jeff Barnhart can play that oom-pah left hand faster than I can even move my left arm back and forth -- never mind hitting the right notes!
Keeper1st I thought my left hand was fast, when I play the staff roll stride from Mario land 2, but that's just unbelievable.. I hope tom recovers, it's such a shame.
2:38 Holy Crap!! Super fast, super clean, and smooth as butter!!
This reminds me of cuphead way more than usual
It should; it was a major inspiration to the Cuphead composer.
I actually enjoyed the slow play of it more than the rest, that summer evening laid-back feeling, mmm!
Bloody Cuphead and Super Mario World got me doing some intense foot tapping to some amazing pianist.
I've began to start properly learning rags over the past half a year or so and I swear I cannot move my hands as fast as that period, let alone getting all the notes right. I'm sure speed will come with time but Tom is really superhuman
Cuphead fans: Yo is this Funfair Fever
Wow, just, wow
Everytime I watch this video, I'm amazed.
*thats what 40 years of piano will get ya huh.... yeah no, not in a million years would I be this good*
Tom, you are amazing. One of the best piano "technicians" I've ever seen. I knew a guy who won second place in an international organ competition and said he could transpose ANY key to ANY other key, virtually without effort, and I saw him do it, even sight reading.
I'm curious as to how you do this. Is it just knowing what the song will sound like in the different key and your fingers do it, or are you constantly transposing, visually on the staff, or the keyboard? It can't POSSIBLY be note for note, I wouldn't think. You must be operating at some higher level, like a typist who moves from thinking about individual key strokes to whole words and eventually phrases, where the intervening translation or interpretation is somehow automated (sub conscious?).
He (Rick) also had a great sense of humor. One day our director said something like "When Bach wrote this, he intended it to be done like...!", and Rick said, how do you know, were you there? The age old age joke. ;-) Roger (the director) fell off the podium laughing.
Tom was able to transpose by thinking in terms of chord relationships. One time at a ragtime festival venue, there was a piano that was a semitone flat, but he had to play with the Raspberry Jam Band. They were not able to get their instruments to play flat, so he transposed everything on the fly as he read the music. It was pretty amazing to witness. Sure there were some clunkers now and again, and he didn't add as much embellishment as he normally would, but still blew our minds. Afterward he said it was good practice, pointing out that it's exactly the sort of thing vaudeville pianists had to do when accompanying singers who may not have the range for a song's original key.
Incredible! Nowadays an electronic keyboardist can just hit a transpose button, I expect. NOT the same! I never could get it right during piano lessons in the original key. ;-)
The power of the neckbeard, folks.
The flute part in the beginning reminded me of "Funfair Fever" from Cuphead, and then I got sad that we won't likely get to see Tom sightread all the amazing music from that game.
This video inspired Funfair Fever. That tune is basically a rewrite of this one, as an homage.
I can't even hit the wrong notes that fast
Lol this made me laugh.
He hits the next keys before the keys he previously hit come up!
That pianos gonna need a cigarette after that
Tom is the dude in the back of the bar shredding the piano during the bar fight scene in a Wild West movie
That cord in the beginning be lookin mighty sus
WHYYYYYYY
I CAN'T BE SAFE FROM AMOGUS FOR 1 SECOND
Dude he makes it look so easy! Just amazing
2:40 Prepare the Warp Drive
Health/running clock : You reached your daily goal of 10km!
I love ragtime fast, despite what Scott Joplin says. Of course, some of his rags do lose the melody when played even slightly fast. But this is wonderful.
I believe there are recordings of Scott Joplin himself playing some of his stuff on RUclips and around the internet, and I wouldn't say he played slow by today's standards. I think he meant it by ragtime standards cuz back in the day many people would try to play everything as fast as they possibly could to try and show off to the point that the songs lost their musicality
That being said, I think he would've considered this fast for sure, but I like how Tom just breaks into it for a sort of climax instead of just blazing through the whole piece so I think it was used to quite an effect. Especially with that "calm before the storm" bit, that was a great performance overall. I loved it, and I think if one is to play ragtime fast, this is the way to do it. A huge part of music is playing it so those listening enjoy it, after all, and it's almost always a crowd pleaser to play fast at key moments. Whenever you play fast all the time, though, more often than not it just gets boring and the music loses what makes it pleasant, be it melodically, rythymically, harmonically, what have you.
Some music is meant to be played fast, though, like the third movement of "moonlight" sonata, but again that's contextualized within the piece. Sure the 3rd mv. sounds good on it's own, but not nearly as good as the climax to movements one and two.
John Harlowe
For Eugenia in 1906, Joplin gave a metronome marking of quarter=72 and called it “slow march time”, so that can be used as some basis as well
@@littlefishbigmountain Sadly there are no known audio recordings of Scott Joplin playing anything at all or even singing or talking. He could well have made some (certainly, anyone with a recording attachment/head on their Edison home cylinder phonograph, could have made a one-off cylinder recording of him, and someone *might* have) but for a variety of reasons (primarily racism) it appears that Mr Joplin didn't get any _commercial_ recording opportunites. Joplin was considered one of the best ragtime pianists in Sedalia Missouri, in 1901, but by the time he moved to St. Louis around 1904 he was already eclipsed in piano technique by Louis Chauvin and others, in the opinion of other musicians who were there and heard them play. However everybody who was 'in the know' hugely respected Joplin as a _composer_ as is proper.
By the time Joplin moved to New York several years later, he was already among many other virtuoso ragtime pianists who outclassed him in technique. But he was already making some money from royalties on his compositions, as well as through teaching music, so hopefully this didn't bother him too much. Joplin was a multi-instrumentalist who not only played piano, but also sang, and played cornet and reportedly several string instruments like mandolin and guitar (?). So piano was only one of several things he could do, but by far his metier was composition and arranging.
However, Joplin *did* get a recording opportunity of a sort, while in bad health, shortly before he passed away; he got to make 6 hand played piano rolls for the Connorized Music Co of New York. They had a modified Autopiano upright piano they used for recording which was tubed to the recording machine in the other room which either cut holes or drew lines on paper to indicate which notes the pianist played (we're not sure which because we roll historians don't have or know of any photos of the recording equipment they used; only the recording piano itself. Other roll companies used either method). Then, this master was used as a template or guide by another human roll arranger at the company to make a new roll master in strict rhythm according to their tempo/rhythm scales at the factory on their arranging table. This allowed for perfect copies to be made without sounding jerky, but sacrificed fine detail in rhythms and any subtle swing.
The arranger, who was most probably William Arlington, also added many bass runs and embellishments in octaves that Mr. Joplin probably didn't play, PLUS did some triplings of the melody or harmony in places that are actually physically impossible for one person to play (this was common on many rolls of the era to strengthen the melody, although they did it sparingly for these). This doctored and re-arranged quantized version was then duplicated into a production master and sent to the perforator to be run off to make production copies of the roll to be sold to the general public (these are the versions that survive in very limited original numbers today, plus numerous modern re-cuts made since the 1970s; the Connorized master rolls or recording specimen rolls are sadly not known to exist today for any tunes by anyone; when a company went out of business or was bought by another firm, it was very common for all of this material to be destroyed).
We think that Arlington was the arranger because his "solo" rolls for Connorized of other tunes (including some other Joplin rags) are in much the same style as the "Played by Scott Joplin" rolls with similar bass runs etc.
Not _exactly_ the same style, mind you; there are some very original and funky features to his roll of "Ole Miss Blues" by W. C. Handy (a piece published by Handy which some of us feel Mr. Joplin arranged or even had an uncredited hand in composing), which do not show up in those Arlington rolls I've heard.
Interestingly this is the only one of the 6 rolls he made not credited to him as composer on the sheet music. We think maybe he was trying to promote Mr. Handy's piece or play it in a certain way.
Joplin got one more "recording" opportunity on piano rolls: he also re-did "Maple Leaf" again for the Aeolian company, issued on their Uni-Record label. This is a true hand played roll without any known editing and was cut from what may have been merely a punched-out version of the originally recorded master. However, this process meant that the production perforator wouldn't always read the rhythms correctly (since they wouldn't be in perfectly quantized lockstep with the up-down of the punch ram), and so while the recorded master roll, if it still existed and could be heard today, would doubtless sound highly rhythmically realistic, minus the dynamics; the production rolls all sound 'jerky' due to the incompatibility of fine timings with the recorded roll and the perforator ram. If the ram was run at a much faster speed and the roll read much more slowly, then truer rhythms and much less jerkiness could have been gotten in the final production copies sold to the public.
However most companies didn't consider this economically practical or feasible since it ate up a lot of production time. this 'jerky rhythm' problem endemic to nearly all hand played rolls of this period, was 'solved' by simply having people read the recording roll and arrange a new master from scratch, which was simpler and more cost effective.
At any rate Joplin's Uni-Record "Maple Leaf Rag" roll is the most authentic we'll ever hear him play, most likely, as it represents the true chord voicings etc with which he played that piece, plus something of the original rhythms, albeit choppy.
One more postscript here: there are rumors that while at the 1904 World's Fair, in St Louis, Joplin was recorded AND filmed both playing piano and talking(?) by a German-American early filmmaker and experimenter with sound movies. But if this short movie were ever really made, there has been no evidence of it surviving. The person who supposedly recorded him WAS real and I think some of his other footage of other people exists. But we're not sure if he really recorded Mr Joplin one day, or that was a rumor/fabrication which came along MUCH later, like after 'the sting' ragtime revival.
@@andrewbarrett1537
Interesting! I didn’t know all that about piano rolls. Even if at the very worst the piano rolls got even the tempi completely wrong, surely we could still rely on his own notated tempi and comments about them, right?
Well yes, and especially the tempo markings printed in his scores such as "quarter = 100" are very important.
We don't know for certain, but those are very likely his tempo markings.
Typical Scott Joplin tempo markings include "tempo di marcia" (march tempo); "slow march tempo" (slow, but still able to literally march to it without falling over!"; "moderato" (I *think*), and on "Scott Joplin's New Rag" he puts "Allegro Moderato" (moderately fast). On I think "Wall Street Rag", a piece with great pathos, is printed "very slow march tempo"; and on "Stop-Time Rag" is "fast or slow".
Two very notable things stand out to me about his sheet music:
1. on all or most of his later publications, from 1907-1914, is a box with the notation saying something to the effect of "Notice! Do not play this piece fast. It is never right to play 'ragtime' fast. -composer". It's really notable that this exhortation is printed on late scores published by MULTIPLE different publishers, including Seminary Music, Joseph Daly, and Joseph W. Stern, which tells me it is Mr Joplin's own advice and not something added by the publishers.
2. Having looked at and played literally thousands of original ragtime-era sheets of songs and instrumentals, I will say that most of the pop publishers of the day employed arrangers (for example J. Bodewalt Lampe and George Botsford at the Jerome Remick publishing co) who were thoroughly versed in counterpoint, harmony, and voice-leading.
The average songwriter or pop composer of the day was not so well-schooled, and (as recounted in numerous historical anectdotes and magazine articles), inevitably, whatever manuscript they submitted to the publishing house, or even just came in and played or sang their tune for them, would need "fixing" or arranging, to get it to conform exactly to the rules of Western classical music theory, counterpoint and voice-leading.
With the major pop publishers, who were under a perpetual time crunch for turnaround to get pieces on the market and in print while they were still popular, this usually ended up becoming highly stereotyped, "stock" chord voicings, inversions and bass lines.
Particularly the bass and alto lines were inevitably similar-looking for a given publisher, regardless of the original composer.
BUT- one can tell the more schooled composers (like Joplin, and for that matter Felix Arndt and Hugo Frey), because they DON'T always use "stock" chord voicings and bass lines in tunes, but instead had so much schooling that they could rise above that mundane level and yet NOT have their manuscripts "fixed" by the arrangers on staff (who would go over them carefully and find they ALREADY conformed to Western classical tonal harmony, but often with BETTER, more creative and original, voice leading than what the arrangers themselves typically employed!).
Thus, when a highly schooled composer sent something in, it was typically never changed but just typeset and printed as-is.
Thus, Mr. Joplin's unique musical "voice" is preserved through all his different publishers.
The sole original-era exception of which I'm aware is when Will Tyers was hired to make some simplified editions of 2 or 3 of his rags. Those were noticeably changed.
Very good! I appreciate the little nod to Al Jolson as well
0:02
GET OUT OF MY HEAD
GET OUT OF MY HEAD
GET OUT OF MY HEAD
GET OUT OF MY HEAD
GET OUT OF MY HEAD
did they just predict among us?
Kinda sus
Absolutely wonderful.
This guy must be cool at parties
This guy IS the party
I’m glad that all of these people have existed and done what they have done
he has ultra instict
Sounds like it could be in cuphead as maybe a cowboy desert run n gun. Anways, this is great!
in the desc. it actually says that this song was an inspiration for one of the songs in the game, with the three people in this video being credited in the game as inspirations.
@@JoopiterGD Funfair Fever