Spinach Rag - Nobuo Uematsu - 植松伸夫 - sight-read by Tom Brier

By popular demand, here's Tom Brier sight-reading Spinach Rag. He has read through this once before, about six years ago, so technically this is his second and third time playing it.

Some fun ensues as a customer at the Sutter Creek Ice Cream Emporium, where this was recorded, talks to Tom in awe of how he can do the long left-hand jumps without looking at his hands.

That this tune is in sharps instead of flats makes it a bit more difficult to read, since very few rags are in sharp keys. I've been meaning to make a new score of this but have not gotten around to it, so what Tom is reading is this more primitive score that I made in Encore about 10 years ago after receiving an email with MIDI file attached from someone in Japan saying, "My friend makes music for video games. He wrote this rag."

That original, primitive score I made, which Tom is reading, is here:
http://www.keeper1st.com/spinach.pdf

It wasn't until recently that I learned what game this was from (Final Fantasy VI). This was the first piece of ragtime from a video game that I had ever come across.

After this recording, Tom said that he had forgotten what a good rag it was, and that he should dig out the copy I gave him so many years ago and really learn to play it. So maybe there's an actual performance of this to come in the future...

This was recorded at the July meeting of the Mother Lode Ragtime Society, which meets in every odd-numbered month (except November) on the evening of the second Saturday at the Sutter Creek Ice Cream Emporium, 51 Main Street (old Highway 49), Sutter Creek, California.

The town of Sutter Creek also hosts an annual ragtime festival every August with dozens of musicians (yes, including Tom). See http://www.suttercreekragtime.com for details.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• ragtime
• piano
• 植松伸夫
• ファイナルファンタジ
• ファイファン
• nobuo
• uematsu
• nobuo uematsu
• videogame music
• brier

[Genralix]

this man must have sold his soul to the devil

[Keeper1st]

@Genralix Well, ragtime was known as "the devil's music"...

[gabbyfromTX]

"It's right under the fingers." Hehehe..yeah....I need to start taking whatever Tom does before he plays. I took one look at the score to this and my hands started hurting.

[Keeper1st]

@gabbyfromTX Well, I can tell you what Tom had before playing this: A rootbeer float!

[vanwyk555]

His power comes from the 70's outfit. Nonetheless, amazing player thanks for sharing

[Keeper1st]

@vanwyk555 '70s outfit? Let me guess: You weren't around in the '70s.

[Keeper1st]

@jere3416 No; I just got email from one way back when the internet was a much, much smaller place.

[TheGuajiroo]

bueno bueno bueno buenísimo!!

[stolenrims]

The second play-thru definitely was improved, but still pretty remarkable to have done this on a sight-read (1.5). I tried to get my mom to play this. I got her some sheet music for it, but I think it was a little more than she could handle. I believe if she dedicated more time to it, she could probably do it, but I guess she doesn't care that much about video game rags. Oh well. This will have to do, and it's well done.

[gabbyfromTX]

@Keeper1st

Ironically, I hate rootbeer. :P Perhaps a cok-float would work?

[Henry1993bc]

"the keys move so that they land underneath my fingers"

[iamprocrastinating]

Tom Brier, you just brightened up my day no end! completely awesome, thanks man