It’s been a while since the last time I posted a video on YouTube. Today I want to share with you an original ragtime piece for piano solo performed by Maestro Emanuele Stracchi.
It was way
back in 2006 when Matteo Bruno, owner of Slim Dogs, asked me to write a short
piece for a black and white commercial video. It looked like a silent film from
1910 so I decided to compose a ragtime.
It was the first time I wrote ragtime music, but luckily I knew Scott Jopin’s
style well enough since I had played some of his masterpieces before.
Matteo asked me 30 seconds of music for the commercial, so I started throwing around some ideas. I really loved the tune I came up with, it was so pounding and it stuck in my head. So I decided to do two versions of it, one for the spot and an extended one to be kept on hand.
I had at my disposal a great performer specialized in ragtime, so I was free to compose 30 seconds of music that were really hard to play and I would have liked him to play both versions in the same recording session. Unfortunately quite an ill fate befell me: the pianist had a car accident the day before the recording session – nothing serious, just a broken leg. So I had to record the piano myself!
That piece was too hard for me and I practiced it a lot. I spent most of my time home practicing it and my neighbours were really unhappy about it, especially the guy living upstairs, who worked at night and slept during the day. He got so annoyed by my repeated practice that we ended up fighting… more than once! That is the reason why I named this music “Dude! Let me play louder”.
Now, in 2020, a dear friend from my Conservatory, Emanuele Stracchi, an awesome and very talented pianist, called me to ask if I had an original solo piano piece for him to play during his concerts. Obviously I’ve proposed the ragtime!
It is with great satisfaction I can finally hear this piece performed by a professional! We both had fun recording it in my studio: he even used the same upright piano I had originally played for the commercial.