Tag: ragtime

Australia

Enoggera Ensemble

I have just discovered the videos with the Enoggera Ensemble from Brisbane, Australia. This Classical Folk Quartet is composed of four instrumentalists playing different kind of guitars, ukuleles, banjos and also mandolin. The repertoir includes music that was popular and has been played in Australia at the end of the 19th century, including Ragtimes, Dances, Serenades or popular pieces for the piano.

The Enoggera Ensemble recreates Australian colonial music for a modern audience, led by guitarist Duncan Gardiner with mandolinist Marissa Carrol, banjoist Joel Woods, and guitarist Dominic Ward. 

Duncan Gardiner is a guitarist, composer and teacher. He is researching about the history of the guitar in Queensland from 1842 until World War Two.

The Enoggera Ensemble has many great videos of their repertoir, including some complete concerts from last year. I have compiled the best videos in my playlist.

Playlist Enoggera Ensemble

Additional Information

Interview: https://www.thecreativeissue.com.au/day-in-the-life-duncan-gardiner-from-enoggera-ensemble/

TCI: What is the story behind Enoggera Ensemble?

DG: I started my research in 2017, looking into the history of the guitar in Queensland, since earliest colonisation. I was organising some concerts of historical guitar music in Queensland. Looking through the newspapers from the late 1800s to the 1920s-30s, I found the guitar was often paired with other plucked instruments, like mandolin and banjo. Queensland was home to many, like 20 or 30 or more large banjo, mandolin and guitar (or BMG) clubs, mandolin orchestras, guitar ensembles, and even Hawaiian groups with ukuele.

I wanted to put on a recital of music for guitar in an ensemble setting. I knew many guitarists, and I found someone who could play the banjo and mandolin, so I gathered the group together. We just went to do one concert, but it was so successful that everyone was telling us to form an established group and keep going. So, that’s basically how it started.

Website Duncan Gardiner

guitar

Famous Ragtime Guitar Solos * Ton van Bergeyk *…

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When I searched  for pieces by  Abe Holzmann  I have found a video of a ragtime guitar solo by Ton van Bergeyk – Smokey Mokes. This piece is contained in the collection Famous Guitar Ragtime Solos that has been produced in the 1970s by Stefan Grossman.

The complete Album is available at youtube – you can use the following playlist to listen to it:

Famous Ragtime Guitar Solos

Von Ton van Bergeyk – Produced by Stefan Grossman

Additional Information

Keepswinging Blog about Ton van Bergeyk: http://keepswinging.blogspot.com/2008/07/fingerpicking-wizard-still-kicking.html

Website with discography of  Ton van Bergeyk: http://www.wirz.de/music/bergefrm.htm

Many more ragtime videos can be found in the youtube channel RagtimeDorianHenry

Sheet music – trascriptions for guitar – Stefan Grossman: http://www.classclef.com/category/genre/acoustic/stefan-grossman

favorite tunes

South Car’lina Tickle by Adam Geibel – A nice…

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Recently I have discovered a nice piece for the mandolin – the cakewalk South Car’lina Tickle by Adam Geibel.

I found this when I played through  a collection of mandolin pieces that was published as the Majestic Collection at the beginning of the 20th century.

Adam Geibel lived from  1855 until 1933, so the copyright for his works has expired.

Some of his compositions can be found in the IMSLP library, but not the South Car’lina Tickle.

I have found a scan of the sheet music for piano from a link on the website  Classic Ragtime Piano.

The scan was made by the Duke University and can be found on the following page:

http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/scriptorium/sheetmusic/b/b03/b0376/

This is the page with the South Car’lina Tickle from the Majestic Collection that I have found on the Nakano website (click image for full size):

A Midi file of the South Car’lina Tickle is available here:

http://pitt-payne.com/component/remository/?func=fileinfo&id=3400

Another famous song composed by Adam Geibel is Kentucky Babe. I have found several versions of this song, one of my favorites is this great performance by the Voices of Liberty in historical costumes. More versions are contained in my playlist below.

Voices of Liberty singing Kentucky Babe

The Lawrence Welk Show: Kentucky Babe

This is a version of Kentucky Babe played on two guitars:

Two Oldtimers – Kentucky Babe

Instruments used: Epiphone Casino,
Gibson ES 135, Custom made Tenor Banjo,
Roland Keyboard, Spider 2 – Line 6 30 watt amp 12″ speaker, Fender FM 210R 65 watt amp two 10″ speakers

Playlist Adam Geibel

Playlist Kentucky Babe – Adam Geibel

Additional Information

Works by Adam Geibel at IMSLP:

Religious compositions by Adam Geibel (midi):

A great blog about ragtime music with more links to sheet music:

Free download of my version of the South Car’lina Tickle for mandolin and guitar:

Sweet Kentucky Babe – Sheet Music in the Levy Collection

Timeline Adam Geibel – Levy Collection

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favorite tunes

Russian Rag – by Robert Linus Cobb – Interpolating…

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The Russian Rag by Robert L. Cobb has been made popular in the Mandolin World by the recording made by Dave Apollon in the 30s. David Grisman has published the recordings by Dave Apollon in the 70s (The Man with the Mandolin). The transcription of the Russain Rag for mandolin has been published in the Mandolin World News at the same time.

Since then the Russian Rag is a favorite tune also for mandolin players, bluegrass bands, mandolin ensembles and even big mandolin orchestras. I have studied the Mandolin World News transcription and like to play the tune every now and then. So it was much fun to search through youtube to find many other versions of the Russian Rag.

Originally this ragtime was composed for the piano, and we still can listen to some early piano rolls with the Russian Rag:

Ampico Lexington – 88n – Russian Rag

The Modern Mandolin Quartet with Mike Marshall has played the Russian Rag, the mandolin orchestra of the Mandolin Symposion Orchester in 2009 has played it (sheet music for the orchestra version was available as free download…), the European Guitar & Mandolin Youth Orchestra conducted by Carlo Aonzo has played it,  and even mandolin ensembles in Japan enjoy playing this music.

This Russian version of the Russian Rag is played with Balalaika and Piano – especially interesting is the slower middle part (does anyone understand what they are singing?):

Russian Rag

This is one of  the versions from Japan:

トゥクトゥクスキップ – Russian Rag (ロシア民謡～Dave Apollon, Sam Bush)#

The following thread in the Mandolin Cafe gives some information and also a link to the Indiana University where a scan of the original version for piano is available as free download.

Mandolin Cafe: http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/showthread.php?53213-Russian-Rag-for-quartet

Try here for the piano sheet music
http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/inha…&queryNumber=2

If that doesn’t work, go to http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/inharmony/welcome.do
then enter russian rag in the search box at the top.

Enjoy!!

Playlist Russian Rag – Robert L. Cobb

With versions for piano, mandolin solo, mandolin quartet, mandolin orchestra, banjo ensemble, banjo and washboard, bluegrass and, ragtime band – enjoy the Russian Rag by Robert Linus Cobb!

Addtional Information

Some links about Ragtime:

Tabs for the Russian Rag are available at:

Sheet music is available in the Petrucci Library:

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