Piano Solo - Level 4 - Digital Download
SKU: A0.1427036
By Billy Williams. By Fred E. Ahlert and Joe Young. Arranged by Martyn Clive Johnson (aka Martycli Piano Guy). 20th Century,Broadway,Comedy,Jazz,Musical/Show,Ragtime. Score. 8 pages. Martyn Johnson #1007767. Published by Martyn Johnson (A0.1427036).
My arrangement is a tribute to the old Fat's Waller recording. It's not copied from that rendition at all but I have arranged it as a stride piano piece and hope it exudes some of the joy that Mr Waller brought to it.
I take it through three iterations in C, Db and D major, going up a semi-tone each time - so plenty of practice in trickier keys.
I don't include dynamics in my notation nor fingering and pedalling as I prefer to leave these to the discretion of the individual pianist. You will never get two piano teachers to agree on these things. I like to give the reader the notes as simply as possible and leave the interpretation up to them. Similarly with voicings - some notes will be held longer instinctively by the pianist than others and do not need to be placed in separate voicings to make them difficult to read.
The stride piano left hand often contains 10ths which can be too large a span for some pianists. The solution is to roll them or to just play them as a single bass note on the root of the chord or as an octave.
This is a wonderfully joyous piece and I hope you get as much pleasure from learning and playing it as I did arranging it.
