Ragtime Intermezzos

The Latest Gamelan and Marimba Arrangements

Our Gamelan Ragtime Intermezzos are all free and you can hear a streamed selection by following the link and then download the complete piece.

These intermezzos are perhaps amongst the more pretentious of the Ragtime genre with their references to a pastiche of Native American Indian music - definitly of their time and place.

Our arrangements are based on MIDI transcriptions of the original sheet music most of which was published ten years either side of 1900 in the USA. Many of the transcriptions in this selection were produced by John Cowell and have been put into the public domain without restrictions on thier use. They use a digital sample based version of the Indonesian Gamelan together with a selection of digital Marimbas. Through trial and error a consitant set up was developed and then adapted for each recording. We have sought to emphasise the contrast between the two voices of the piano music whilst emphasising the rythmic content.

One-step, two-step and Cakewalk and possibly even the reel are expected ragtime dance formats but Eygiptia and Dublin Daisies are exceptional developments.

These arrangements are based on MIDI transcriptions of the original sheet music most of which was published ten years either side of 1900 in the USA. Many of the transcriptions in this selection were produced by John Cowell and have been put into the public domain without restrictions on thier use.

The arrangement used the digital sample based version of the Indonesian Gamelan together with a selection of digital Marimbas. Through trial and error a consitant set up was developed and then adapted for each recording. We have sought to emphasise the contrast between the two voices of the piano music whilst emphasising the rythmic content.

There are more Gamelan Ragtime tracks on the Rags, Dances, Marches and Novelties pages.