Tidal Wave Rag

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Tidal Wave Rag is one of my earliest pieces and the earliest that I am still proud of enough to show people.  I fell in love with ragtime and Scott Joplin's music in particular when I was in middle school.  I was surprised that my piano teacher let me learn this music as it wasn't “classical” and was really fun to play.  My mother then bought me two collections of Joplin's music and I spent countless hours reading through them.  When I started composing, I tried my hand at writing a rag in the style of Joplin and I composed the first strain while I was a 13-year-old in the 8th grade.  I composed the rest while in high school and completed it in 2004.

This piece was originally engraved in the first notation software I ever had (Cakewalk Score Writer which I bought for $20 while in middle school) which I no longer can find.  I still think this is one of my best early works and an enjoyable rag, but I realized recently that I couldn't find any copies of the work, neither digital or hard copies.  I figured I should make a new edition of it while I still had it in my memory (both within my fingers and mind.) This Sibelius-engraved edition was created in 2015, and the details are most certainly not exactly the same as when I first notated it, although I tried my best to remember them.

Premiered May 2005 with the composer at the piano in Marlborough, MA.