Thanks to the aspirations of one of my students, I have been delving into and heavily researching saloon-style music that appears in old cowboy movies. While on this path, I have discovered a set of closely related piano themes: the honky-tonk piano style, ragtime music, and the famous piano roll music.
Here's a quick peek at the honky-tonk style of piano playing. While I'm not sure if this is an official term, it seems to be the way that the music community describes this style of playing...
According to Wikipedia, there is a small difference between the honky-tonk piano style and the ragtime piano style. Honky-tonk music focuses on rhythm, while the focus of ragtime is on the melody.
I used to press my ear to the upstairs living room floor to listen to my older brother play Scott Joplin's ragtime music on what is now the studio piano downstairs. Listening to ragtime always brings back good memories for me! Here is a video to The Maple Leaf Rag actually played by Scott Joplin and recorded on a piano roll used for player pianos.
Here is one of Joplin's most famous pieces: The Entertainer. You might just recognize it!
If you are interested in seeing a real player piano working on a piano roll, they have a beautiful one at the Burnaby Village Museum in the Music Shop: they have opened it up so that you can see the roll moving inside. Just remember to bring a few quarters to pop into the slot to make it play!
***If you are looking for great transcriptions of piano roll music, check out the Ragtime Piano Rolls webpage for free ragtime sheet music.***
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