UGMiner Banks wrote:
Sounds like an old school player piano
Banks,
Yes, I have often heard that said. That is because Ragtime was popular in a day and age when the player piano was also in vogue.
In fact in a time (generally between 1895 and 1915 or '20) before there was radio, TV, or even high
quality record players, the player piano was often the only method that a person could use to reproduce the music at home. Unless, of course, they were good enough pianists to actually play it. Most couldn't. It's hard! Trust me !
I could say a little more about Search Light Rag. Ragtime enthusiasts believed for years that Scott Joplin named the piece as a dedication to two other Ragtime composers who decided to take a break from music and went out West to mine gold at a mine near Searchlight Nevada. Hence the mining connection and the picture I shared with the group. In more recent years, however, some Ragtime enthusiasts believe they have turned up some evidence that purports to show that his might not have been the case after all and Joplin might've had something else in mind. Who knows for sure? Anyone who could have told us is not only dead but has, in fact, been dead for a long time!
Another possible mining connection is that Ragtime has often been played proffesionaly in more recent times as a nostalgia thing in historic mining towns like Virginia City, NV, Cripple Creek,CO and Whitehorse, Canada.
Regards,
Fred M. Cain,
One-time amateur piano player.
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