Maple Leaf Rag at Walt Disney World

This is Maple Leaf Rag by Scott Joplin played by Grayson at Walt Disney World. Special thanks to him for playing this amazing rendition of this song.
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#waltdisneyworld #wdw #scottjoplin

[@robschaffer2189]

So many people that maybe haven’t been to Disney that miss the whole point of the piano on Main Street. It’s Fun and light.
Buncha fun sponges.

[@mrmr_1469]

BRO THAT KEY CHANGE WAS SICK LOL

[@matthewjohnson6938]

I played this song as a kid. Somehow it didn't sound like this... dude had amazing chops

[@asjbfjbkaw]

Wow this guy is really good, I just wish he could have played a little slower in the first half so I could enjoy the song a little more. So many people in the comments are always so harsh when I bet they couldn't even do half of what this guy can do. The second half of the video I enjoyed though it was quite fun!

[@davef.2329]

Good show, kiddo!

[@leonida257]

Sick

[@markf4720]

Quitw a few negative comments but this obviously isnt supposed to be an exact rendition of how the piece was composed. This guy is obviously an incredible pianist and is showing off his skill and some improvisation... I bet very few could play Maple Leaf at that tempo! I thought it was great, don't be music/ ragtime snobs!!!!

[@clementpoon120]

he will forever be damned by scott joplin for the speed

[@AnternoGD]

X0.75, thanks

[@raymondchan9802]

Scott Joplin is going to wake up from his grave and give this silly pianist a piece of his mind.

[@dragorn3212]

No he isn't. It's not a funeral march or an opera. go back to classical nerd

[@techinoneminute]

0.75 is best

[@StagnantGravy69]

"Amazing rendition", more like "horrendously fast rendition". I personally don't mind certain ragtime pieces being played a little quickly, but all I could hear were the mistakes.

[@thomashenden71]

Scott Joplin spesifically states in the sheet music, that his compostitions should be played slowly. Why is that difficult for Disney to understand, do they think that their audience is too impatient, or something?

[@bsomers7587]

Way too fast 😮

[@c1pianist]

please dont play this piece fast...

[@davidcavalari226]

1. The Maple Leaf Rag sheet music does not say that
2. Recordings of ragtime from the period all show the music being played fast
3. Later interviews with ragtime pianists of the day, such as Eubie Blake and Luckey Roberts, show the music being played fast. Jelly Roll Morton in his 1939 Library of Congress interviews also describes this piece as being fast.
4. Scott Joplin was in no way the primary authority on how ragtime "should" be played - he didn't invent the style, and in his day he was not considered to be a particularly great pianist.
5. During the ragtime era, the older generations despised ragtime because young people went out and danced to it. Scott Joplin was a composer who wanted to sell sheet music. Upper class white people with pianos in their parlors didn't want their daughters rocking out a hit tune to get the whole house dancing - they wanted their daughters to play something nice and respectable so the adults could sit there and sip their tea, and then golf clap when it was over. So what's a composer of hot dance music to do? Easy: Put things like "ragtime intermezzo" on the cover, and write "this isn't supposed to be played fast." See, this is respectable music that won't turn your daughter to the devil! Also, it's like when you buy a piano/vocal book of popular songs nowadays - what's written there isn't exactly what's on the recording, and you're free to jazz it up as much as you want.
6. I'm not knocking Scott Joplin here. He was a great composer and a national treasure.

[@master-class8888]

@@davidcavalari226
Right time for a rabbit hole.
Firstly all the sheet music is marked as tempo di Marcia which is 80-100 bpm, which is hardly the slow respectable speed for what you were saying about the high society of the time.
All his piano rolls that he recorded are marked 90bpm (Connorized 10265 and Aeolian Uni Record Melody Maple Leaf Rag)
That means that he played it somewhere around that tempo or requested for it to be played at that speed, seeing as Connorized hand played records seem to be rather intent on capturing how the pianist plays, why change the tempo if you can ask the composer himself.
Joplin also wasn’t likely to care what people thought of the speed, he was always extremely certain on the fact that his ragtime should never be played fast, he also reportedly disliked the saloon style of ragtime, which featured faster tempo among other differences.
How other people played his rags is also completely irrelevant as they did not compose them, whereas we have the means to see how he played.
All the evidence that is directly connected to him says this piece is not supposed to be played at this breakneck speed, you lose so much of the character at this speed either way.