Can anyone here point me to a source of printed music for Eubie's Blakes's
"Charleston Rag"? Every book on ragtime mentions it as an important work,
and a dozen different people seem to have recorded it, but I've not been
able to find any printed copy. Is everyone really learning it by ear?

Come to that, I've seen very little of Blake's work in print anywhere.
I have ragtime collections that feature any number of obscure composers,
and pretty much everything Joplin wrote that still exists, but Eubie
seems to have been pretty much neglected.

Any pointers would be appreciated. Thanks.
(E-mail replies are OK.)

Dr H

Hi,

I can help you with finding sheet music.
Send your requests to:

Joel@sheetmusiccenter.com

Joel
http://www.sheetmusiccenter.com

http://www.mdhs.org/eubieblake/subs/detail.asp?cat=Sheet%%20Music&id=753&mult=1
has the handwritten score by Eubie on 4 pages, with a subtitle. You
can download it as a pdf file or as individual images. That is as
original a score as you will ever get.

OR you can go to http://www.trachtman.org/ragtime/ and download the
midi file of the Charleston Rag, then bring it into a program such as
MidiNotate Composer, and print it to a PDF file yourself, which will
create sheet music of the midi file for you. You can combine staves in
Composer if it is more than 2 staves, or split a piano roll single
stave score into a two stave score, with a Treble and a Bass stave, to
match the piano scores you are used to.

You can then simplify the score yourself if it is too complex for you.
The fact is that most of the printed scores of the day were simplified
from what the composer actually played, since otherwise most found the
music too hard to play themselves. Few players, even today, have the
spread that Eubie Blake had...

FWIW

RsH

On Tue, 23 Oct 2007 12:26:47 -0700, Dr H efn.org> wrote:

Greetings.

The difficulty of the rag and finding it is part of the history. It
dates back, reportedly, to 1903 when Eubie was 16 (if you tend to
believe the large body of official government census, marriage,
military...

On Tue, 23 Oct 2007, robert.heuman@alumni.monmouth.edu flamboyantly asserted:

}On Tue, 23 Oct 2007 12:26:47 -0700, Dr H efn.org> wrote:
}
}>
}>Can anyone here point me to a source of printed music for Eubie's Blakes's
}>"Charleston Rag"? [snip...]
}
}http://www.mdhs.org/eubieblake/subs/detail.asp?cat=Sheet%%20Music&id=753&mult=1
}has the handwritten score by Eubie on 4 pages, with a subtitle. You
}can download it as a pdf file or as individual images. That is as
}original a score as you will ever get.

Thank you! This is fabulous; I had no idea this collection existed.

}OR you can go to http://www.trachtman.org/ragtime/ and download the
}midi file of the Charleston Rag, then bring it into a program such as
}MidiNotate Composer, and print it to a PDF file yourself, which will
}create sheet music of the midi file for you. You can combine staves in
}Composer if it is more than 2 staves, or split a piano roll single
}stave score into a two stave score, with a Treble and a Bass stave, to
}match the piano scores you are used to.

On Wed, 24 Oct 2007, Bill Edwards flamboyantly asserted:

}Greetings.
}
}The difficulty of the rag and finding it is part of the history. It
}dates back, reportedly, to 1903 when Eubie was 16 (if you tend to
}believe the large body of official government census...

On Tue, 23 Oct 2007, smctr@sheetmusiccenter.com flamboyantly asserted:

}Hi,
}
}I can help you with finding sheet music.
}Send your requests to:
}
}Joel@sheetmusiccenter.com
}
}Joel
}http://www.sheetmusiccenter.com

Thank you; I'd be very interested to see what music of Eubie's is
actually in print. I will contact you directly at the e-address
you give.

BTW, appologies for just barging into the newsgroup like this. I'm a
long time Usenet denizen, and have lurked in this group occasionally,
but I don't believe I've posted here before.

On Wed, 24 Oct 2007 16:49:58 -0700, Dr H efn.org> wrote:

On Oct 24, 7:49 pm, Dr H efn.org> may have carefully typed
out:

I am not the person to give you a definitive answer. Much of the
knowledge I have collected is through the efforts of others, which I
then place in a central repository (my brain or my website) and
perhaps 20%% of what I have written about is original research. Based
on my experience I can surmise or suppose, but please take it only as
that since there may be someone here with a more coherent answer.

On Thu, 25 Oct 2007, Bill Edwards wrote:

}On Oct 24, 7:49 pm, Dr H efn.org> may have carefully typed
}out:
}> Why is so little of Eubie Blake's music published? That he was a seminal
}> figure in the history of ragtime is acknowledged...