St Louis Tickle: New Arrangement for 3 banjos

[Jody Stecher]

I've made an arrangement of St Louis Tickle for 2 banjos and cello-banjo.  In the main score the cello-banjo part is entered using the bass clef so that the playback will be in the correct octave. I've also included a separate cello-banjo part using the treble clef as seems to be the norm. I hope the notation is in the correct octave.  

There are a couple of cello-banjo notes near the end that may sound odd. These got entered by mistake. I left them in because they sound good to me, even though they may be "wrong". 

The second banjo part is lively and active and may be occasionally surprising. . I created this part  by first notating what I might spontaneously play as an accompanist and then editing the disasters, of which there were several. 

The first banjo part is how I've been playing St Louis Tickle for years. The final section includes a few g naturals in place of the usual g sharps. These were entered by mistake but I left them in because they go so well with the 2nd banjo part in those measures. Anyway it's fleeting and the player is free to sharpen the g if the natural g sounds too sweet or insufficiently rag-ly.

If anyone finds errors or anomalies please let me know. I hope people will at least listen to the mp3 and  that they will enjoy listening. Maybe this will get played sometime by actual banjo players.. Real banjos will sound better than midi. 

[Shawn McSweeny]

Enjoyed listening to the mp3. Nice arrangement and at a relaxed tempo, as ragtime was originally intended. 

[Jody Stecher]

Thank you Shawn.   Ossman played it a bit faster and made it sound good, especially with the Ossman Dudley trio.  I set the speed at a quarter note/crotchet = 90/.  I found that the 2nd (and 5th) part sounded best slower yet but the other parts did not. So this is a good compromise.