Jon Schmidt- Root Beer Rag

Jon Schmidt attempts to break Billy Joel's speed record of "Root Beer Rag" in which he celebrates by throwing "squishy balls". This is at a Jon Schmidt Concert on May 11th 2007 I had the opportunity to attend.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Jon
• Schmidt
• Root
• Beer
• Rag
• Billy
• Joel

[pianoperson12345]

I don't know if you realize, but playing root beer rag that fast is incredibly hard to do. For how fast Jon Schmidt went, he played this song amazingly well. I am sure he could play it better and give it more detail if he played it slower, but he wasn't going for that, he was going for a speed record, so do not try to say that he did not or does not play this song very well.

[psychoreaper]

No sir, you are. barely any notes were missed and he was playing +180 speed

[dawdlwtdw]

note.....he is on YOUTUBE playing it. You are on youtube commenting about it

[dawdlwtdw]

@p14n0m4n Note, He is on YOUTUBE playing it. You are on Youtube commenting about it

[unknownkingdom]

Hmm, while this is faster than the album recording, it's only slightly quicker than in the 1978 video of Billy Joel playing -- In fact, in a few places it's a little slower! This guy does play very fast at 1:57 though, but slows down again.

[brendalg4]

I guess you have never seen this.. Billy is much faster.

.com/watch?v=9D7CGsx_XCI

[brendalg4]

@p14n0m4n If Billy played it, he would be playing at top speed all the way through. It's a lot easier to start out slow and build speed.. than to keep the same speed all the way through.

I give him credit though, because most people mess up a lot more when playing it fast

[SpeedOfDark186Kmps]

Jon is an excellent pianist in his own right but he is an even better composer, in my humble opinion. I love his work and many songs. That being said, I would like to see how fast Hiromi Uehara can play it. Though it isn't her kind of music, she can play faster than anyone that I've ever seen and do it with absolute precision.

[19Hubbi89]

tooooooo...

fast =(

[qwinkly]

Wish we could have video of his hands - or rather the BLUR that might still be attached to the end of his forearms, LOL.

[Mikeg73070]

@ilovezebras1 What the hell was that for???, half the comments on here say the same thing; faster doesn't make it better. Sorry, I guess you didn't bother to read the other 2 years worth of comments, people are entitled to their own opinion.