Recent Observations and Ramblings

This has been an interesting week already, and it's only Wednesday! I have done a whole lot of thinking this week about Fred Hylands' music and playing style. I already do this very often, but I have had the interesting new finding of this piece to keep me wondering:

It's a very interesting piece of music and if just looking at it at a glance, one could potentially miss this thing here:

Fred. Hylands. Hmm, that's interesting.  It's odd to think that he was already doing arrangements and playing around the Milwaukee area, by 1896 that is. Oh! That's another thing about this piece of music is the publishing location, which can be seen here:

Milwaukee, Wisconsin? Wow, that's queer. My first question about the publishing location was; what was Hylands doing there? That really confused me. I have always thought(as long as I have known of Hylands) that he lived in Chicago from 1893 to early 1896, and moved straight to New York from there. I guess that isn't so. He must have been living in Milwaukee temporarily in 1896 before he moved off to New York in mid-1896. Somehow, this notion that he lived in Milwaukee doesn't really surprise me too much, as this city isn't very far away from Chicago. He really did travel quite a lot for a studio pianist and pretty heavy set chap, just in general, not in the 1890's specifically. Other than the publishing location, the actual arrangement is fascinating, certainly some thing that Trebor Tichenor would take a fondness for. There is actually some syncopation in there! And even Ragged lyrics!(Take a look to see it)  This proves my point of saying that Rag-Time became a popularized part of the musical vernacular in 1896, not 1897. This not only proves that point, it proves also that Hylands was playing Ragged music before his time at Columbia, I just need to find another piece by Hylands that's older, which might be buried in a sheet music collection somewhere. By how convoluted and ragged Hylands' playing was in 1897 and 1898, I just knew that he was an early specimen to catch on to the Rag-Time trend, by early, I mean 1893 and 1894. 

Heh, Hylands was arranging "Rags" at the same time as  this guy:

"Baron" Adolf Eugene Victor Maximilian Hoffmann.

Or just Max. Hoffman for short. 

Hoffman was arranging these so-called "rags" by 1896 just as Hylands was, but in two different places. Hoffman in New York, Hylands in Milwaukee and Chicago. Hoffman was a highly classically trained pianist without a doubt, as he was born in Poland(or was it Germany? I can't really recollect as of now, but it's probably Poland) two years after Hylands, in 1874. Who knows how he got into the Rag-Time fad. He obviously caught the bug early on, but how he did, must have had something to do with Ben Harney, just like Mike Bernard. He caught on quick, and must have also heard Hylands play too, as by 1897, Hylands was all over the place in New York, playing at the highest class of stages, to the stomachs of the saloons. Much of what Hoffman's Rag medleys sounded like were the Ragged styles of Hylands, Ben Harney, Burt Green, and Ernest Hogan(composer of "La Pas Ma La" and "All Coons Look Alike to Me").

You can hear the two biggest hits of his here.

His first one from 1897 "Rag Medley"(the present day fad)

Here is his less famous one  from 1898 "Ragtown Rags"

I swear, I hear lots of Ben Harney and Fred Hylands in there! It's so odd. John Reed-Torres first pointed out to me a while back that Hylands' solo at the end of this cylinder here, sounds an awful lot like the syncopation which makes up a majority of the medleys above. Since this is true, there is very little of a possibility that a classically trained Polish immigrant could play exactly the way that he heard the mid-western piano fiends play, he just happened to be better at notating the way they played better than the masters themselves. Not that the other "Rag" pianists he worked alongside weren't very proficient in notating music, Hoffman was just much more traditionally trained than Harney or Hylands. 

Another record that I should have mentioned to John was this one here from 1898. This is probably the best example of Hylands' very ragged and mid-western "Rag" style, with all the things that he did that distinguished him. It's either this cylinder, or it's Hylands and Spencer's "Whistling Rufus", from the year after the one in the link. If Hoffman's intent was to imitate Harney and Hylands' styles, he must have been at a loss of how to notate the broken octaves in their left hands. Both of them had this feature in their playing(it's only obvious speculation with Harney though...), as it must not have been something easy to attempt to write down, considering how music was written in that time period. Combining this feature with highly syncopated patterns full of rests must not have been an easy venture for any arranger at that time. Not even the masters of this art could really do it very well, Harney said he was at a loss of how to write down his syncopated ideas in the mid-1890's, and I'm sure Hylands had the same issue. 

If Hylands wrote out his music the way that he would have actually played it, it would be very hard to read, as there would be dotted notes everywhere to indicate lagging time, broken walking octaves all over the place in the left hand, single-noted trills in syncopated patterns, tenths everywhere(in both hands!), and Gottschalk-like trills! 

That would really be a pain to try to read. So just stick to listening to the records for all of these things. Transcribing this music is important, but it is not and easy task.

I hope you enjoyed this!