Ragtime Episode FVE--Ish

[Joel Hooks]

This is from the 5-Stringer #83 published 1960.

Ragtime_Episode_83_1960.pdf

It is about as close as you are going to find.  It is the version most of us play at the ABF rallies.

[Daniel PEARCE]

Working through the Stahl method ... nice book and thanks for the recommendation. The excellent version you play of Ragtime Episode in the music library appears to have no pinches in the 2cnd/4th measure but others do (I think!!) such as Marc Dalmasso and Anthony Doryck .... aswell as Rob Mackillop's one on youtube .... Are you going by the 1960 musical notation copy you kindly forwarded me earlier in in this discussion? ..... or is this a version of your own?

[Joel Hooks]

The video I posted on YouTube some years ago?  I'm not sure what I was playing.  There was a transitional period where I was learning to read in C notation (I actually learned notation in the "A" system using the minstrel era tutors).  I might have used the SSS published Eno copy in A notation and then added the missing strain from somewhere else.  I also often "riff" on a piece and play around with it.

Now I play from the 1960 arrangement as I like it better.

[Daniel PEARCE]

I'd love to see a newer version .....there's a nice version of yours on this site in the videos .... all part of my learning process in any case!!

[Joel Hooks]

If you want to see an older version, here is Paul Cadwell playing on Rainbow Quest.  Paul learn to play from FVE.

Starts at about 26:12.  He plays some other pieces too-- worth it to watch the whole episode.

https://archive.org/details/RainbowQuest36#

[F. Chris Ware]

Now here’s a discussion I can actually add something to, or at least screw up; attached is what purports to be a copy of “A Rag Time Episode” in its original manuscript — see note at left edge for provenance. It certainly sounds less ornate, but the most interesting part(s) are the break (?) and the trio, which are unlike anything elsewhere published. A very basic cakewalk rhythm leads into a march-like section which at least modulates to another key like a real trio does unlike the more commonly heard version which is more or less just a harmonic restatement of the second strain. Very strange! Or interesting, or both, depending on how one looks (or listens) to it. (Eno leaves out most of the triplet markings and I believe the sixteenth notes in the fourth tier are a mistake — they should be eighth notes with a quarter in between; maybe he forgot he was writing in 4/4, not 2/4. Plus, of course, it’s in early “A” notation, so Joel can play it!)

Then again, maybe it's a "later" version, since the attendant description suggests it's how he was coaching the banjoist, R. D. Stevens, to play it in the 'teens, not the 1890s. But it sounds to me much earlier than any version I've ever heard.

Personally, the first four bars of the piece have always struck me as a vague steal of the first two chords of Horace Weston’s Celebrated Jig and the second is the basic circle-of-fifths chord progression that one hears in later African-American string recordings (or even later white country recordings) as a breakdown, or as “Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down” or “Pick Poor Robin Clean,” which along with its popularity suggests Eno was maybe onto something early on. The pastiche, fluid identity of it all seems to support he was revising it a lot, perhaps genuinely trying to get at something he’d heard African-American players do. It’s the piece I most annoy my wife and daughter with and the one everyone can play in their “own way” — Fred Van Eps, Ernest Jones and Sydney Turner all gave it their own take and there’s really no one right way to play it.

In addition to Joel’s great recording, elsewhere on the site there’s Jody Stecher’s fantastic one with Bill Evans, and here also attached is my favorite vintage recording: Fred Van Eps, Bill Bowen and Paul Cadwell with Robert Van Eps masterfully accompanying them in the early 1950s, if not even showing them all a little up; he really was a terrific, understated pianist.

The copy of Eno’s manuscript, like so much of what I’ve posted here, came to me via my good friend Pat Doyle.

Best wishes to all,

Chris W.

RAGTIME EPISODE FVE, Bowen, Cadwell and RVE

A Ragtime Episode — FVE, Bowen, Cadwell and RVE.mp3

[Jody Stecher]

Wow. Both the manuscript and the recording are unexpected and fabulous. And to clarify what I meant by the tab version being "wrong",  I meant it did not represent how Van Eps played it on the particular occasion to which I provided a link. In this version with Bowen and Cadwell, it's worth noting that once again the first beat of the second measure is not empty. And the same thing applies to the Eno manuscript.

[Jody Stecher]

After studying the manuscript more closely I see that the chords are written as if the banjo were tuned to C tuning. They make no sense for A tuning. So Eno was assuming that Stevens would be reading in A but tuned to C. We know this was common. Unless I'm really confused (possible because it's nearly midnight) the key change in the third part is simply a change from A minor to A major (which would sound like C minor to C major), something that already happens in the second part, even though the key signature does not indicate it. I can't read what is written for the chords in the third part; it is too faint.  A final thought: could this be the score for a second banjo part.... for an accompaniment?

[Daniel PEARCE]

Wow ... this has uncovered a lot more than I was expecting. Thanks for all for your help and ideas. It's turned out more interesting and instructive than I at first thought.

 I think I'll learn more if I figure out a number of ways to play or that are within the realms of possibility and see what feels the best. In the long run this will be better than just relying on tab. I am very surprised though that such an excellent and popular tune has NO reliable tab available that I can find.

As you said Jody, the one tab I found on banjo hangout doesn't sound like any of the versions I've heard and is pretty much unplayable. Ha ha .... feels like I'm going to learn the grown up way! Love your version with Bill Evans by the way ....

[Daniel PEARCE]

And I love the recording too!

[Joel Hooks]

And again Chris comes out of left field with an amazing play!!!  Here I thought I was being clever with the first published edition.

Thanks for posting this!  I plan of wearing out the groves in that recording. Incidentally I was listening to Hal Allert's Classic Banjo Radio and I had made a note in my memo book to track this down after it was played.  

Jody-  By 1882 banjos became commonly pitched to "concert C."  I am always careful to use the word "pitch" and not "tuning" due to the "old time banjo" tradition of scordatura.

By 1884 "C" was it.  Piano accompaniments had been published in "B flat" and "C" prior to that (starting in the mid 1870s the trend was to pitch the fourth to B flat).  Around that time (mid 1880s) SSS (one of the bigger publishers of music for banjo) announced that they would no longer offer new pieces with "B flat" piano accompaniment-- only "C" from then on.

Also about 1884 the instruction to pitch the banjo based on the size of the instrument started to go away.  The general agreement being that regular size banjos (11" to 12") sound best pitched at C.  Smaller banjos (10-10.5") were being pitched to "D" for the "sharp and brilliant tone" (Farland did this in the 1890s and that lead to SSS making him the "Special Thoroughbred" a "Special" sized (pitch to D) TB banjo). 

Music kept being published in A.  This was an argument that went on for at least 30 years.  I'm not sure there was a single issue of the Cadenza published between 1908 and 1914 that did not have an article for or against A notation.

I have a growing theory that this A/C thing was a small contributor to the 5 string falling out of favor.  Musical trends change and dance was a lot more fun than sitting and learning a instrument but the confusing system of notation might have convinced more than a few people looking to take music lessons to look elsewhere.

[Daniel PEARCE]

Hi Joel .... if I'm not mistaken my attached file should be a tab that is the same as your 1960 musical notation. Any help on this would be great. I'd just like to know if they are the same and secondly, as there are pinches in the 2cnd measure, how difficult you think this is to play at speed? Jody had a look at this tab and said it looked really tough to play at full tilt due to the timing/fingering etc. Forgive me if I've got something wrong as I'm learning away here and can happily play the first few bars in about 12 different ways just not with pinches!!

[Daniel PEARCE]

Sorry having trouble sending the tab as it has be under 5 mb !!! Bit sure what to do now