Harder than Art Tatum's Tiger Rag but still playable
Art Tatum is largely considered one of the greatest and most technical Jazz Pianist of all time. Tiger Rag is among his harder improvisations. My question is are there any classical compositions or Jazz songs even harder than Art Tatums Improvisations but still playable? I mean I consider his work to be harder and more technical than Lizt or most Advant-Garde Classical. Just curious and here's a link to the song in question.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaPeks0H3_s
Comments
In my experience, there is an inherent difference between improvised and through-composed music when it comes to evaluating technical difficulty. The best way of demonstrating this: sit at a piano and bash around the keys randomly around as fast as you can for 20 seconds. Nothing hard about that, and it took you exactly 20 seconds to do it. But now get someone to transcribe what you played, then try to learn it note for note. It might take you weeks to be able to learn that same 20-second improvisation, and chances are you will *never* capture the exact nuance of the original performance. Which is to say, it is easier to play *the exact same music* when you were improvising it the first time than it is to reproduce it later.
Same thing applies to recreating someone else's improvisation. It would be much harder for you to recreate Tatum's improvisation than it was for him to play it in the first place. Indeed,
Tatum himself would have struggled to re-learn his own improvisations note for note, even putting aside the issue of being blind and thus not able to benefit from printed notation. Well, he might benefit from the fact that some portion of his performances were not really improvised but largely worked out in advance; that much of course would be easy to reproduce. But again, easier for *him* because they came from his own initial improvised impulse rather than reading them after the fact.
Bottom line: technically complex improvisations often *seem* harder than actually are. Which makes comparison to through-composed music misleading.
Of course, if you just want to talk about classical music that would hard for someone else to learn as it would be to learn one of Tatum's improvisations, then it's rather easier to compare. I'd say a good amount of Liszt's piano music is of a similar level of sheer technical difficultly. Much of Bach's music is difficult in an entirely different way - coordination of multiple independent lines as opposed to speed - but could easily take as long to master technically.
In reply to In my experience, there is an by Marc Sabatella
You make an interesting point and back it up well. When I hear something by say Xenakis, Alkan, or John Cage as well as pieces like Islamey by Balakirev, I think difficult but not mind-blowingly so. When I hear Art Tatum, I just look at the screen awe-struck and intimidated. To my ears anyway, Tatum's music is on a whole other level of difficulty than those guys. That's what made me ask.
So do you know anything that would top his most ridiculous performances? Thanks for your reply by the way.
In reply to In my experience, there is an by Marc Sabatella
You make a great point. Personally, it's been always fun to improvise on no particular theme, just playing streams of extremely fast, personalizes arpeggios, runs, leaps, etc. However it's far more difficult to 'perfect' actual pieces note-for-note; which explains why so many pianists have a grueling time in their (often) futile attempts to reproduce Tatum's 1933 rendition of 'Tea for Two' - the runs are inhumanly fast, and most are never linear (quintuplets everywhere IIRC!). But they were improvised; this explains how Tatum could manage to insert so many notes within a single bar and such.
Gyorgy Cziffra, a Hungarian classical virtuoso, is another remarkable example. His 'Warm-up Improvisation' video is downright scary. However, like Tatum, that whole thing he did wasn't really pre-planned. It's much easier to make up a series of extremely flashy runs than to COPY those same flashy runs later on.
I haven't really stated my point yet; Tatum, in his early 30's recordings apparently came up with "head-arrangements" of the tunes he recorded. This is different from being asked to perform a song on the spot, in a way you have never played before (extemporaneous improvisation in the literal sense). Although an undoubtedly an excellent improviser, I can imagine he probably 'refined' his improvisations to the extent of almost making them sound like organized arrangements. The 3rd paragraph of your comment basically explains this.
'Tiger Rag' is no exception. Tatum made four recordings; a 1932 version, the 1933 version (his most famous one), a 1935 version (much faster than the preceding ones), and the 1940 version, the video the OP posted. Interestingly, if you listen to all of them, they sound extremely similar, albeit some changes in tempo and variations of the whole-tone scale based introduction. But the runs, the passages, the leaps; are almost perfectly alike. This means Tatum DID actually 'reproduce' his improvisations - an awfully hard thing to do. But for Tatum, nothing seemed difficult at all.
If one is used to hearing Tatum being revered like a divine figure and such, it wouldn't be surprising to hear of such virtuosity in the technical sense.
In reply to Turns out 'Tiger Rag' was a reproduced 'head arrangement'... by Lonious
Good points. I realize you are not literally saying he was reproducing his own improvisations, but I feel it important to make a distinction. What the similarity of the recordings show is that that he worked things out in advance, not that he improvised once then copied later. There is a huge difference. The former is *infinitely* easier than the latter.
My same example would apply here. Sit down at the piano, and instead of bashing randomly, think for a few seconds, set your hands carefully on the keys, and work out a flashing way of wiggling your fingers through those notes. Spend a few minutes repeating that until you can reproduce it more or less the same every time. Again, this will not be particularly difficult, but try to play a transcription of someone *else's* worked out passage and it will be much harder.
That is, while improvisation / random playing allows one to play the most notes per second (if you don't care too much how good it sounds), playing something *you worked out yourself* gets you almost to the same point in terms of being able to play many notes per second, and has the advantage of also helping make sure it actually sounds good. Tatum, Oscar Peterson, and Cecil Taylor are pretty well-known examples of pianists who rely heavily on this approach. Many other jazz pianists would work out less in advance, with the result that their improvisation are either less technically impressive if they do take the care to make them sound good, or else don't sound as good when they do get as technically impressive.
This has been an interesting topic, but are there any classical compositions harder than Art Tatum's "Tiger Rag". I mean his virtuosity is astounding and I'm wondering if there's an even harder song that isn't impossible. I personally haven't found one but maybe one of you have.
Good day.
In reply to This has been an interesting by RonaldPoe
Well, yes, as I explained above, actually, quite a lot of pieces are considerably more difficult in many ways. Certainly there are pieces harder for you or I to play than it was for *Tatum* to have played Tiger Rag, but also, I'd say anyone of nundreds of pieces would be harder for you or I to play than it would be for *you or I* to play "Toger Rag". Which is to say, however long it might take me to learn "Tiger Rag" to a given level of accuracy' it would take longer to learn any number of other pieces. For different reasons. Some might have denser passages, some less predicrable harmonic structure, some require more independence of the hands, etc.
In reply to Well, yes, as I explained by Marc Sabatella
"Harder" is so ambiguous. Playing a lot of notes is not necessarily harder than playing a simple piece very well or playing a wide variety of different musics. Tatum was remarkable with a lot of technique. Quite exciting.
In reply to "Harder" is so ambiguous. by xavierjazz
I meant "harder" as in just as fast/faster and more complex/technical. I'm curious if one of you could name a piece. Yes I'm aware that Moonlight Sonata (Beethoven) is hard if you're trying to be very accurate, precise, and emotional (that's the difficulty in his compositions). I can't think of a piece that's harder than the above in technicality.
I'm a little stubborn and curious, if you can't tell. Sorry, I just want a general answer that I can check out.
In reply to Here's what I meant by RonaldPoe
I'd challenge you name to name a Liszt piece that *isn't* more difficult. Or a Bach fugue with three or more voices. For that matter, while the first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata is obviously not as technically difficult as Tiger Rag, I wouldn't be so sure about the third movement.
In reply to I'd challenge you name to by Marc Sabatella
I concur with the "Moonlight Sonata" (3rd movement), it's just as bad as "Tiger Rag" but I looked at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=352qLWqKN-U this version. However the only Lizt pieces I consider worse are the Mephisto Waltz (1st one can be found https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prnW7UA-K8E here). Got any more.
In reply to Good point by RonaldPoe
Curious, how much of Liszt's music have you actually mastered? I don't think most would mention that piece as any more difficult than a dozen others of his. Similarly, while the third movement of the Moonlight is indeed difficult, it is again not particularly out of line with the difficulty of other first or last sonata movements of Beethoven's.
In reply to Curious, how much of Liszt's by Marc Sabatella
I chose the Mephisto Waltz because it's as complex as his other works but much faster. I don't even play piano, I'm actually a guitarist and not good at classical at all. I made the assumption based on my ears alone. I started this topic out of curiosity and challenges for my ears. I'm still curious, if you can list pieces that are/sound harder (faster, more complex, technical, ect) than
"Tiger Rag" (Art Tatum) and "Mephisto Waltz" (Lizt) but aren't impossible.
In reply to Well, I don't play piano by RonaldPoe
Ah, that explains thibgs then. I guess I can't really tell you what will sound more impressive to you. All I can do is point out that there is not necessarily an obvious correlation between what *sounds* difficult versus what actually *is*. There are things about Tiger Rag that are not as hard as they sound (virtually nothing in the RH would be unusually difficult for a good pianist), as well as things that are harder than they sound (portions of the LH). Whereas a number of Bach pieces are nowhere near as flashy but equally difficult to play because they don't separate so neatly a RH melody over LH accompaniment but instead require far more complex interaction between the hands, and make less use of repetition to boot.
In reply to I'd challenge you name to by Marc Sabatella
No offense intended, but I worry that the fact that you claim to be "not so sure about the third movement" somehow suggests to me that you don't know much about piano technique at all. Please do prove me wrong.
Again as I said I do not mean the slightest slight against you but seriously? We do not mention stuff like that when comparing technical giants like the Mephisto Waltz, Transcendental etudes, or even Bach's Gouldberg variations...to name a few. What technicalities are there in the Moonlight? Fast broken arpeggios? *sigh*
Ronald Poe: 'list pieces that are/sound harder (faster, more complex, technical, ect.) than
"Tiger Rag" (Art Tatum) and "Mephisto Waltz" (Lizt) but aren't impossible.
Allow me to work backwards;
Impossible - http://www.findmyed.com/deathwaltz.php
Technical - Paganini Violin Concerto No. 1 In D Major, Op. 6 --- I attended a lve performance and was duly impressed by the volinist's bowing, pizzicato, and swift passages.
Complex - Segovia playing Debussy's 'Claire de Lune' on guitar. (You are a guitarist, yes?)
Faster - 'Flight of the Bumblebee' - as performed by any number of people pushing the speed envelope.
Regards.
In reply to Virtuosity by Jm6stringer
I'd like a mixture of the three types of difficulty but thanks for the advice. Usually Liszt gets dumbed down on guitar and I'm looking for something difficult to transcribe.
Beethoven and his compositional genius was no joke, but the fact that you're including Moonlight Sonata (3rd movement included) into this discussion is a ridiculous one. It is nowhere near as hard as 'Tiger Rag', 'Mephisto Waltz', or the renowned TE etudes.
I'd say there are lots of classical pieces there with technical difficulties that can't be found in the Tiger Rag, but I bet no one living can play the Tiger Rag like Tatum does - except perhaps top virtuosi. Hamelin anyone?
In reply to MOONLIGHT SONATA? Don't kid me by Lonious
As someone who is capable of playing any of the pieces mentioned (not that I actually *have*), I don't find it a joke at all to include the third movement of Moonlight in this discussion. Not that I would seriously claim it is *more* difficult than Tiger Rag. The point is that there are different *types* of difficulty, and that it isn't always the case that what *sounds* the most difficult actually *is*. Most of Tiger Rag is not *that* difficult either from what I can tell either - just a few LH passages. Much of it - like the third movement of Moonlight - *sounds* harder than it actually is.
Anyhow, I didn't bring up the Moonlight sonata in the first place but once someone else (did as an example of an obviously easy piece), it seemed natural to point out that if you only know the first movement, you'd get a misleading picture of its difficulty. Just as if you are not a skilled jazz player and stride piano player in particular, you might get a misleading picture of the difficulty of Tiger Rag.
In reply to As someone who is capable of by Marc Sabatella
The "MOONLIGHT SONATA? Don't kid me" comment was directed towards RonaldPoe. The "The third movement? Are you serious?" was the one directed towards you, Marc. Just FYI.
Anyway, I had to reply that way plainly because you claimed you weren't so sure if the 3rd movement was as difficult as the Tiger Rag. For any pianist who is well aware of technique it is very obvious that it is by no means at all as technically difficult as the Tiger Rag. Of course some pianists might be able to play it as well as Tatum does with Tiger Rag, but that's out of the discussion.
The third movement's difficulties lie in quick arpeggios and a fast tempo. But it is by no means comparable to the almost-64th note runs near the end of 'Tiger Rag', not to mention leaps in the left hand consisting of tenths and chords a wide distance apart.
In reply to Re Moonlight... by Lonious
To be accurate: I didn't say I *wasn't* so sure - I said "I *wouldn't be so sure". Meaning - *if I were the OP* and were judging difficulty only by what "sounds" hard on account of sheer speed. There is no doubt in *my* mind that moonlight 3rd movement would be considerably easier. Nor would I actually claim that each and every Liszt piece is harder than "Tiger Rag" - I was just trying to ascertain from what frame of reference (experience) the OP was speaking.
I must confess now that I speak out of sheer awe of Tatum's skill. As a Tatum fan I feel the need to mention his 1940 version of 'Tiger Rag'.
Just look at the inhuman tempo he plays it - I am not sure if it is either 200 beats, or 400 beats per minute; the speed and clarity of every note he plays - the fact that he does little to no recognizable mishaps during the entire thing (side comment: all of this considering he was nearly blind! I challenge you to replicate those LH leaps without looking at the keyboard!).
I understand there are perhaps lots of other compositions out there that have technicalities that go beyond what 'Tiger Rag' may have to offer, but question - have you tackled 'Tiger Rag' yourself? I am eager. Try to play it at the same clarity and syncopation Tatum did - without necessarily being as fast. After that tell me if you still find Balakirev's "Islamey", Liszt's "Chaisse-neige" or Cziffra's disturbingly virtuosic rendition of 'Flight of the Bumblebee' harder than the 'Tiger Rag'.
In reply to Try it out, perhaps? by Lonious
I usually do not comment on musescore.org, but I could not resist the urge to say something about this subject. What annoys me is ignorance...
How are speed and difficulty related?
Would it not be more difficult to play 6 note chords in both hands at 100 notes a minute than play a chromatic scale at 300 notes a minute (that's quite slow for a chromatic scale...)?
Why should all these supposedly hard pieces be fast?
Having played the piano for a long time, and having researched pianism, I can only say that the most difficult pieces are those that are excessively contrapuntal.
There is a huge difference between every added voice. For instance, a fugue in 3 voices at a very fast tempo is far easier than a slower one in 6 voices. The flexibility required in the latter is simply a rare gift for pianists, while the first is simply the product of practice.
Accordingly, I believe the most difficult pieces in all the history of music are avant-guarde classical. The music of Sorabji, exemplified by his transcendental etudes, is a firm testimony to this. Tatum's Rag is not even comparable in difficulty. To begin with, it's still strongly rooted in tonality, giving the pianist a more solid foundation unto which he can base his memory, his fingerings, etc. Sorabji, on the other hand, is simply a sprawl of notes, where one floats without real direction for a long time, until one finally masters the piece.
Furthermore, Sorabji's pieces make use of an enormous amount of unorthodox technique, using all three pedals, sustaining up to 5 staves, etc. The sheer range of skill required far exceeds that used in Tatum's pieces.
Sorabji's pieces aren't even considered the most difficult, because the rhythm is still orthodox... Finissy is simply a mess to play.
Liszt's Chasse Neige, Cziffra's transcriptions, etc. are simply bad examples of difficult pieces...
These pieces have all been recorded several times, with ease. Nobody have even managed to pull off Sorabji's pieces without having to simplify them....
Is it easier to play 2 staves of music, or 5 staves?
In reply to Difficulty and speed not at all related by Haotian Yu
Indeed, contrapuntal textures increase the difficulty of a piece dramatically, all else equal, and in a way that is not at all obvious to causal observer - a point I made earlier. And it's also a great observation that atonality increases difficulty by an amazing amount that wouldn't be the slightest bit obvious to most. Good call there too.
But it *is* true that chords with large leaps between them are difficult to execute accurately at fast tempos because they involve arm movement, not just finger or wrist movement. That's why I also also observed that a few portions of Tiger Rag *are* pretty hard to pull off accurately at that tempo, almost entirely because of the LH.
Actually, there is another element at play here that hasn't been discussed. I already mentioned the extent to which comparing improvisation (even largely-worked-out improvisation, as this is) to playing a composed piece is misleading. So there already is a bit of an apples-to-oranges aspect to any comparison here. But also, there is the fact that we are comparing the classical pieces in "abstract" (how hard is it to play a given piece of sheet music with a tempo and interpretation of our own choosing) versus the jazz piece in a more concrete form (how hard is it to copy every nuance of a particular recording of the piece).
In other words, it is hard to factor out Tatum's own pianism here. Part of what we are respond to when we hear Tiger Rag is not that it is especially difficult (although to be sure it is by no means easy), but that Tatum plays it especially well. We perceive his piece to be especially hard because we imagine we have to play it identically - as fast, as well, and with the same interpretation - to be playing it at all. But listen to some other pianist play the same piece and we may well get a very different impression of it. Conversely, listen to Tatum struggle to play some of the more difficult classical repertoire (not that there is any way to hear this) and we may get a different impression still (both of the difficult of the classical piece and of Tatum's pianism). Or find a recording of Liszt playing his own music and get yet another perspective.
If you really want to compare pieces *as piece* and not as performance, you wouldn't listen to any recordings. You'd simply try to play both and judge for yourself. You could possibly listen to a few recordings of each *if* you can find recordings of the same pianist playing each (in this case, someone other than Tatum for sure, because again, it was easier for him to play the piece than it would be for someone who didn't create it).
As it turns out, when I did a search on YouTube to find other versions of Tiger Rag, the very hit to come up was a recording by Steven Mayer, a classical pianist of some reknown who teaches three doors down from me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPMjtuWsZV0
I might try to pick his brain about this next time I run into him.
In reply to Indeed, contrapuntal textures by Marc Sabatella
Interesting you mentioned that. Steven Mayer did a rather ugly interpretation of 'Tiger Rag' - of course, he isn't really a fine stride/jazz pianist I presume.
If you want a more accurate, more justified interpretation check out Martin Spitznagel. A great stride pianist. Plays it at the proper tempo as well, though with some changes.
As it turns out, I believe Tiger Rag is by a fair amount harder than Alkan's 'Grand Etude op. 76' just because a man in Youtube named Chris Jordan (look him up!) seems to be struggling with the former while being rather comfortable with the latter. You might also want to check out Brian Leahy - another Youtube pianist who has recorded some Transcendental Etudes while managing to keep up with the 'Tiger Rag's' tempo, and ask him about the piece.
Although I agree completely with your comments about tackling a piece and playing our own interpretation of it, versus attempting to emulate how another pianist plays it. The latter is more difficult, especially if the pianist in question has a more developed technique. This is why Tatum emulators are always criticized for not playing at his speed, but then again who could? And why should we?
As a side note, in his time there was one who transcribed Tatum's version of 'Elegie' (another virtuoso recording), and played it in front of Tatum on the piano. IIRC in the middle of the performance Tatum seemed uninterested, left, and ordered a drink. When asked why he ignored him, Tatum said something along the lines of "Yeah, he knows how, but he doesn't know why."
In reply to Steven Mayer? Three doors from you? by Lonious
Interpretation, though, is entirely subjective, and the perceived quality of any individual pianist's interpretation of a piece really has little or no bearing on the question of the inherent difficulty of the piece itself. No, as far as I know, Mayer is not a jazz player or a stride specialist. Which perhaps makes it all the more remarkable he plays the piece at all. The point is, Mayer plays the piece accurately and really does not appear to struggle technically at all. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to teach on the days I do this semester, or perhaps he is on tour right now - in any case, I have not seen him in the building yet since I brought his name up.
As for whether someone else struggles more with piece A versus B in any given performance, that of course can also come down to how much time they devoted to preparation or what standards they held themselves to in deciding how well they needed to master it before performing.
Anyhow, clearly Tiger Rag is difficult to play - no one is claiming otherwise. It's just even more difficult to accurately assess difficulty from listening to a few recordings, and it's subjective as well in that hand size and shape plays a role. And at some level, after a certain point, difficulty becomes a non-issue. You practice a piece until you master it to your satisfaction. Different parts of different pieces might take different amount of practice for different pianists to master to their satisfaction for different purposes. So it seems to me that many of the blanket statements being made throughout this discussion are somewhat naive.
In reply to Difficulty and speed not at all related by Haotian Yu
It's basic knowledge that it becomes increasingly difficult for one to play at faster tempo. The faster a piece is, the more difficult it is. That's always the case.
Of course there are other factors. You mentioned them - the difference between 'thick' (chordal, octaves, fugual etc.) technique and 'thin' technique (chromatic runs, arpeggios, etc.).
Sorry this is a bit late (been years since the last reply was posted)
Tiger rag is probably the hardest jazz song I've ever seen, but some Liszt and Alkan songs I know are more difficult. And example is Liszt's early Paganini etudes (especially the fourth one) and one called "Grande fantaisie de bravoure sur La clochette" Alkan also composed "comme le vent" which is also one of the most difficult songs ever composed
Other songs such as feux follets is harder in a different way, as in "slowly and painfully tiring down you finger" sort of way.
Hope this helps
In reply to Sorry this is a bit late by Eric Da
Why does no one mention Godowsky in the "difficult piano" repertoire? His Studies after Frederik Chopin is not something that I would even remotely consider "easy". No. 42 (Op. 25 No. 11) has your hands leaping all over the piano, at a hell of a tempo to boot. Toss in a rather fun tempo (common time for the melody, 12/8 for the rest), and an almost perpetual ff dynamic, and you're left with a piece that, despite its repetition, is stupidly difficult.
And that's not even bringing up some cases where he took an entire Chopin etude and consolidated it into one hand. Or, even more fun, when he merged two etudes into one.
In reply to Sorry this is a bit late by Eric Da
Tatum's Tiger Rag is phenomenal - but. I reckon Johny Guarnieri's version of Stealin' Apples runs it pretty close.
Yes, We should also mention the chopin etude arrangements, most of them are definitely harder than most of art tantum's songs.
While I'm here I should also mention Balakirev's islamay. It is definitely harder than the tiger rag, and I should mention Gaspard de la nuit and the trois mouvements de petrushka.
Take away some of the speedy parts of the tiger rag, and even Chopin's ballade or sonatas would be of similar difficulty.
But of course you have to keep in mind that art tantum improvise his songs while many other virtuosos took time and a lot of thought to create their own insane songs
any concerto by rachmaninoff is harder than the tiger rag. I've played the tiger rag and its nothing compared to some of prokofievs or ligeti's works for the piano. anyone who says liszt is easier than the tiger rag, doesnt know the Liszt repertoire.
Maybe Cadenza by M. A. Hamelin, it was for Hungarian Rhapsody and was pretty hard for me, like really hard