Infernally Unnamable Rag (Ron O'Dell) sight-read by Tom Brier

Tom had read through this once before, in about 2002 or so I guess.

This was one of my early rags, but the first of them that really feels cohesive all the way through. Originally it was written with the Trio section as a song, but the lyrics were lame so I deleted them, but that also meant it no longer had a title.

Usually, I come up with a title before I write music. I have difficulty coming up with titles for music already written (in one case I just perused a dictionary until finding a word that suited the tune). I couldn't think of a title that felt right for this piece, so it ended up being published as the Infernally Unnamable Rag -- complete with spelling as "Unnamable" instead of "Unnameable" (which to me would have an extra syllable, like "judgement" versus "judgment").

This was my first attempt to write something with a bit of a folk-rag feel. I wanted it to sound like an early rag, like ones you hear that were composed in 1899.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• ragtime
• piano
• folk
• rag
• sightread

[dialectgirl]

I think you succeeded with the old-time feel. How about "hot coals" rag? :) Anyway, maybe you can think about that image when writing the next one.

[Keeper1st]

@dialectgirl Fascinating. I really expected to find that there already was a "Hot Coals Rag" but a search through the Ragtime Compendium (a list of over 14,000 known rags) suggests that there isn't. Plenty of titles with "coal" in them (or misspelled for cute effect, e.g. "Cole Smoak"), and "charcoal", or songs about a "coal black" girl, but no Hot Coals. Yet.

[jebeebus]

lol best rag title ever

[Keeper1st]

@jebeebus It has a subtitle too, which Tom laughs at as the video begins. "A tentatively titled folk rag"

[Quartrez]

Excellent rag, and Tom is just phenomenal.

[jebeebus]

@Keeper1st haha nice... also I love the part where tom seamlessly repeats the measure waiting for the page turn, nice save

[lbrown21494]

Hmmmm, how about the mysterious hornpipe.

[pianorags]

exellent i like this 5/5