Location (grandparent | parent | this page): RodMer Arts Home Page | Rod's Rags | Rag from Little Piano Suite Program Notes

If you've already read the program notes immediately below, or want to skip them for now, you can click --> to be taken immediately to the MP3 and MIDI files.

Table of Contents (TOC) of these Program Notes

• The Basics
  • Introduction
  • Instrumentation
  • Duration
  • Composition date
  • Brief comment
  • Ragtime Elements
  • First Performance
  • Computer performer (when human one is absent)
  
  
• Structure notes
  
  
• Computer-played MP3 and MIDI files
  
• Live-performance MP3 files
  
• Score package
  

The Basics

Instrumentation

Duration

Composition date

This short rag is actually just the third movement of my Little Piano Suite, composed in December 2003. This piece was a study for me in using Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique -- at least, the early form of it as he presented in his 1925 piece Suite for Piano, Op.25. Yes, I know -- dodecaphonic and serial techniques have evolved much since that year -- but my piece is based on this early starting point. If you want to hear (and read about) the whole suite click on --> the whole Little Piano Suite. But if you just want to hear the ragtime movement (the 3rd movement of the suite) -- perhaps you've never heard dodecaphonic ragtime? -- carry on below.

First performance

The premiere performance was given here at a house concert here at SwallowHill (Cobourg, ON) with Cecilia Ignatieff on piano.

Computer performer (when human one is absent)

Like all the MIDI files here, it is in General MIDI form. The General MIDI patch (on the 0-127 numbering system) is:

	Part	General MIDI patch
		name	#
	Piano	Acoustic Grand Piano	0

How it sounds will depend on your own playback software.

On my own synth I used the following patch:

	Part	Sound Module	Patch
			name	#
	Piano	Roland RD500	Gr Piano A1	0

This is what you hear on the mp3 files.

Structure notes

The basic tone row

"Prime forms" of the tone row

"Prime form tetrachords"

Compositional approach

The piece is composed solely of these 12 prime-form tetrachords -- according to the following rules:

1. No notes should occur except these tetrachords
   • there are no non-tetrachord notes in the piece (but note rule 3)
2. The notes within a tetrachord should occur in the proper order or, alternatively, simultaneously.
3. for example, repeated single notes occur in measures 40 and 41 of the Rag
4. Schoenberg had many repeated notes (particularly in his Opus 25)
5. The tetrachords themselves need not occur in order but tetrachords of the same form should usually be reasonably contiguous.

These rules seem to me what can be inferred from Schoenberg's 1925 Piano Suite, Op.25. Actually, he went further and used not only the 4 prime forms of the original tone row but the same set also transposed by a tritone (theoretically one could use up to 12 different transpositions making 144 potential tetrachords). To start off simply, I have used only the 12 tetrachords above without transposition. The application of the foregoing rules is exhibited in the "marked" scores provided in addition to the performance scores. The "marked" scores (provided in addition to the performance scores) have the "prime form tetrachords" all marked throughout. This aids analytical understanding but would be visual clutter for the performance scores.

Of course, following the twelve-tone rules does not in itself ensure any worthwhile music as outcome any more than merely getting the rhyming scheme right in a Petrarchan Sonnet ensures any worthwhile poem as outcome. The issue is to attempt to work artistically within that system of constraints (i.e., that tonal universe). This was my attempt.

Further structure notes

In general, each movement begins and ends with the O1-O2-O3 tetrachords.

In this third movement (the Rag), the initial theme is the whole tone row (O1O2O3) and the movement ends with O1 in the treble and O3 and O2 in the bass.

Because this is just one small movement in a suite it can't do justice to the full ragtime format of classical Joplin rags (which tend to have the form AABBACCDD). Here we simply have an intro plus six 8-bar phrases: AABBAA. Or, in more detail:

Section	Measures	Main Tetrachords
Intro	1 & 2	R1 & R2
A1	3 to 10	O1O2O3, O1O2O3, I1I2I3, R3, & IR1IR2IR3
A2	11 to 18	O1O2O3, O1O2O3, R3, & O2O2O1O3O1
B1	19 to 26	R1R2R3 & O1O2O3
B2	27 to 34	same as B1
A1	35 to 42	same as A1
A2	43 to 50	same as A2

Back to TOC

MP3 and MIDI files

Year	Title ... Instrumentation ...... Excerpts	Min: Sec	Complete MP3 files (better sound)** file size	MP3 file excerpts (better sound)** file size	Complete MIDI files (not as good sound but quick)**
	The complete movement (computer-played):
2003	'3. Rag' from Little Piano Suite ... piano solo	1:14	1.4 MB
	The rag begins with a 4/4 bass based on R1 and R2 while the treble plays a syncopated figure (initially O1,O2,O3). A middle section is based on R1,R2,R3. Then the O1,O2,O3 melody returns (with various tetrachords in the bass).
	Short excerpts (computer-played):
	...... start	0:25		0.2 MB
	This mp3 excerpt of the beginning of the rag starts with an O1,O2,O3 melody (over an R1,R2,R3 bass) and then moves into an I1,I2,I3 melody -- the whole phrase being repeated again.
	...... ending	0:22		0.2 MB
	This mp3 excerpt of the ending of the rag starts with the syncopated O1-O2-O3 melody (over an R1-R2-R3 bass) ending with an I1-I2 figure and I3 chords -- the whole phrase repeated.

** If you have a high-speed connection, forget about the MIDI files and just use the MP3 files (better). If you have a dial-up connection, consider the faster (but not as good) MIDI file only if the MP3 files seem to be taking too long to play or download.

Live-performance MP3 files
(Click on icons below to play and/or download MP3 files)

Year	Title ... Instrumentation ...... Excerpts	Min: Sec	Complete MP3 files (better sound) file size	MP3 file extracts (better sound) file size
	The complete movement (live performance Apr 2/05):
	Here finally you have a human performer at the piano (Cecilia Ignatieff).
2003	'3. Rag' from Little Piano Suite ... piano solo	1:11	0.7 MB
	The rag begins with a 4/4 bass based on R1 and R2 while the treble plays a syncopted figure (initially O1,O2,O3). A middle section is based on R1,R2,R3. Then the O1,O2,O3 melody returns (with various tetrachords in the bass).
	Short excerpts (live performance Apr 2/05):
	...... start	0:25		0.3 MB
	This mp3 excerpt of the beginning of the rag starts with an O1,O2,O3 melody (over an R1,R2,R3 bass) and then moves into an I1,I2,I3 melody -- the whole phrase being repeated again.
	...... ending	0:22		0.2 MB
	This mp3 excerpt of the ending of the rag starts with the syncopated O1-O2-O3 melody (over an R1-R2-R3 bass) ending with an I1-I2 figure and I3 chords -- the whole phrase repeated.

Score Package
(Click on icons below to download pdf and rtf files)

Year	Title ... Instrumentation	Description	No. of score pages	Score (pdf file) file size	No. of text pages	Text (rtf file) file size
2003	Little Piano Suite ... piano suite in 4 movements	text			4	0.2 MB
		Piano score Mvt 3	3	0.1 MB
		Piano score Mvt 3 marked	3	0.1 MB
	The "marked" scores additionally provided above have the "prime form tetrachords" all marked throughout. This aids analytical understanding but would be visual clutter for the performance scores.

(you will need the free Stuffit Expander for decompressing the rtf.sitx files)