Pass the Butter!

This foxtrot dates from 1917, composed by H. Stanley Haskins.

Here, Tom Brier plays it at the March 2010 meeting of the Mother Lode Ragtime Society in Sutter Creek, California.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• foxtrot
• piano
• ragtime
• rag
• 1917
• butter

[Beafteck89]

Tom is a wonderful pianist. It's been years since I sat in front of a piano... I used to be quite good. Your videos inspired me to go back and play. Thanks

[blossomblizzard]

Tom Brier + Piano = ♫

Amazing! :D

[speshalx00]

@Keeper1st well ok thats right but it does come priit darn close and ya your right it wont feel the same but heck its cheper and to the untraind ear it will sound perfect...

[Keeper1st]

Yeah. And public places like this aren't going to have great instruments in them. This piano, while being rather rinky-tinky and quite worn out, is nevertheless somewhat special in that its innards have been autographed by a couple dozen ragtimers, some of whom are no longer with us.

[Keeper1st]

@speshalx00 A keyboard does not sound or feel like a real piano. You can the real feel of the piano with a very expensive high-end one, but you'll never get the sound of the piano's sympathetic vibrations.

[Mattteus]

that's a cute little piece

[speshalx00]

@spitzfire1138 why not just get a keybored??? like same sound plus more functions mine cost me like 150 dollers

[coollein]

What can I say...just great. You don't need to say more than that to describe Tom

[AceWissle]

@blossomblizzard I second that : )

[spitzfire1138]

@BachScholar Amen to this. The challenge, of course, is the prohibitively high cost of renting the pianos. It's thousands of dollars just to get a crummy piano for a few days, and many are needed for multiple venues. Some festivals have it better than others, but frankly bad pianos and their unfortunate association with ragtime is an epidemic that all us modern-day players have to deal with.

[BachScholar]

For someone of Tom's abilities I think it is a shame that all he is able to play on is shitty pianos. Maybe one reason I haven't been crazy about his playing is that the pianos are atrocious. If this were a Mozart or Beethoven festival, would any worthy pianist even consider playing on instruments such as these?

To be taken seriously, these ragtime festivals and societies should really have decent pianos to play on, don't you think?