Keeper's long-lost MIDI files

My own music listed in approximate order of composition

Sheet music scores of Conversation Pieces, Affinity Rag, Infernally Unnamable Rag, The Scorcher, To the Nines (OUT OF PRINT individually), Fast Cat Rag, Mad Scientist Rag Puppy Dog Rag, Skunk in the Parlor, and A Rag-Time Hullabaloo are available for $3 each. Also, a ring-bound folio all the first nine of the above plus eight more (all the titles listed below down to Skunk in the Parlor with the exception of the Happy Birthday arrangement and the Angelina theme), 17 Rags by Ron O'Dell is available for $20. Send check or money order to Ron O'Dell, 3340 Dog Leg Dr, Minden, NV 89423. Please specify which tune(s) you want.

• Spontaneity Rag -- Level 1 -- 25 February 1992
  My first attempt at composition. Originally four strains, but I deleted the second. The final two strains are improved over how they originally were written. The name is a reference to how I'm always coming up with fully orchestrated music in my head, and often whistling a spontaneously created tune. I decided I should try to write down something that I'm spontaneously coming up with, and this was the result of the first attempt. There are several odd things about this harmonically. Obviously, I was still in need of refinement. This MIDI file is out of date; I have since removed the first strain and written two new opening strains.
  
  
• Happy Birthday ragtime arrangement -- Level 3 -- Updated December 1996
  I fixed up this arrangement to make it sound more hand-played, and improved the ending. The person whose birthday I used as an excuse to write this never heard it. Ah well.
  
  
• Conversation Pieces -- Level 1 -- 23 July 1992
  My most ambitious and probably best work. I originally wrote the first strain (oddly at only 15 measures) and thought it would be nice to make four simple strains and call them Conversation Pieces, but the next three strains ended up being the most complicated music I had written, despite the fact that they came straight from mind to simulated paper almost immediately, writing out several measures at a time without playing them. The minor strain of this is the only piece of my music I can actually play. Tom Brier said it was "exquisite" when I played it for him. It doesn't sound so exquisite in the MIDI file. I've started to work on a better arrangement of this, to make it sound hand-played, give it shading and pedal, but there's no guarantee I'll ever get around to finishing that. Click here for live performance by Tom Brier (streaming MP3 sound file, 619K).
  
  
• That Crotchety Old Rag -- Level 1 -- 7 December 1992
  
  
• Greasy Spoon Rag -- Level 3 -- 15 July 1994
  I thought up the first strain of this while sitting on the runway in an airliner at the Atlanta airport. During my trip to Georgia, I had eaten at a rather expensive cafe which served the greasiest foods imaginable. So it was obvious what I should name the rag I ended up with.
  
  
• Affinity Rag -- Level 1 -- 8 September 1993
  My first completely cohesive rag. All the parts feel right with one another. Frank French said this was good piano roll material, though I've never gotten around to making a piano-roll arrangement. Note how I recall the intro near the end of the second strain. Unfortunately, I was not aware when I named this (by looking in the dictionary for a descriptive noun that seemed to fit!) that there had been an "Affinity Rag" (composed by Irene Cozad) published during the classic ragtime era. Click here for live performance by Tom Brier (streaming MP3 sound file, 612K).
  
  
• Infernally Unnamable Rag (tentative title) -- Level 1 -- 10 December 1993
  I like early folk ragtime and cakewalks, so decided I'd try to write something that sounds like it could have been composed in 1899. I succeeded quite well. Upon hearing this piece, Tom Brier said, "This sounds like it's from 1899!" I tried writing lyrics for the folksong style melody in the third strain in an attempt to find something to name this rag, but the lyrics were stupid so I erased them from my master copy, and have pretty much decided on this for a title. This was my first completely cohesive composition. Click here for live performance by Tom Brier (streaming MP3 sound file, 474K).
  
  
• Fast Cat Rag -- Level 1 -- 5 January 1994
  Probably the most untraditional of my compositions. I let my affinity for baroque keyboard music filter through in the third strain. It created an interesting fusion, sort of like Scott Joplin's "Euphonic Sounds." This was named both for my own cat, who had an unbelievably fast pounce even later in her life, and a friend who had a username of "katze" and aspired to be a race car driver.
  
  
• The Scorcher -- Level 2 -- 28 December 1994
  I saw a mention of "scorchers" on a television program about the history of the bicycle, and figured that these pre-combustion-engine Hell's Angels types should have a rag about them, so I wrote one. Click here for live performance by Tom Brier (streaming MP3 sound file, 571K).
  
  
• To the Nines -- Level 3 -- 6 November 1999
  My first new composition in nearly five years! The title of this novelty is an expression for being dressed in fancy clothes ("dressed to the nines"). However, in this case the music is a tribute to the year 1999. The music in this composition is Y2K compliant!
  
  
• Mad Scientist Rag -- Level 3 -- 6 September 2001
  I came up with the title while lying in bed after waking up one day. This rag has some interesting things in it. While the first strain is decidedly in E minor, the second strain starts like it might continue in that key, but then quickly switches to the relative G Major, only to fall back into minor chords. Then it begins to modulate again and -- this is the strange part -- it ends on a G minor chord, though it works as a transition back to the beginning, rather than feeling like an ending. The C strain is really a pair of 8-bar ideas which lead into the D strain. The first of these utilizes diminished and augmented chords to evoke the scene of the mad scientist's laboratory, like Dr Frankenstein's with big electrical arcs and such. The second has a series of tremelos in the left hand with a lot of diminished chords, meant to evoke the evil experiment coming to life, and that life is represented by the more traditional, lighter D strain which spends its time definitively in C Major until the cadence which ends it in A Major (really A minor -- lots of baroque music in minor keys end on the parallel major; I'm doing the same thing here). Then it goes back to repeat the A strain one last time. That strain ends on a root-position chord with a 4-3 suspension, so the last note played is the third degree of the chord -- again typical of baroque music, and very effective for the mood here. If all the musical terminology doesn't make sense to you, it's no matter; the music sounds just fine without all the analysis! Click here for live performance by Tom Brier (streaming MP3 sound file, 611K).
  
  
• Fiancée Rag -- Level 3 -- 9 July 2003
  I had been working on this a little bit at a time over the course of a year. I wanted to write something for my girlfriend, Linda, and by the time I finished this, she wasn't my girlfriend anymore. That's where I got the title from. It has some highly unusual things in the second half.
  
  
• Tattle-Tale Rag -- Level 2 -- 9 July 2003
  I had come up with the title a while ago, and a notion of some kind of descending chromatic figure in the first strain. As soon as I had completed my Fiancée Rag, I began to experiment with the notion. Five hours later, this entire composition was complete. Chromatic figures ended up being used throughout, providing a cohesiveness while also making this something of a show-stopper. Click here for live performance by Tom Brier recorded at the Sutter Creek Ice Cream Emporium in Sutter Creek, California (streaming MP3 sound file, 551K).
  
  
• Priority Rag -- Level 3 -- 1 May 2004
  Usually, I spend what little free time I have driving racing simulations instead of writing music. On the evening of April 30, 2004, I'd just acquired a new long-awaited simulation, but instead of installing it, I decided to write down the tune that was going through my head. Music is always being made up inside my head, but I usually do other things (like play racing games) instead of write music. Writing music should have a higher priority than simple entertainment. Because for once in my life I got my priorities straight, I named this piece Priority Rag. Click here for live performance by Tom Brier (streaming MP3 sound file, 593K).
  
  
• Frivolity Rag -- Level 3 -- 2 May 2004
  A day after composing Priority Rag, I wrote this, still determined to give up my usual frivolous activities in order to write music! Click here for live performance by Tom Brier (streaming MP3 sound file, 573K).
  
  
• Bird-Bath Rag -- Hand-Played -- 31 May 2004
  I was bored, not really in the mood to write music, when I composed this. It's certainly not close to my best work, but I guess it has its charms. There was a dead blue jay in my driveway when I was thinking about a name for this rag, and it reminded me of watching one of them splash around in a puddle a few days before. That's when I came up with the title. This marks the first time I have hand-played a MIDI sequence on this site, though it was done in several takes and only one hand at a time. I had to quantize the notes to get my poor playing into some semblance of rhythm. Click here to view a live performance by Andrew Barrett (YouTube link).
  
  
• Puppy Dog Rag -- Level 3 -- 8 June 2004
  I was definitely back on form when composing this. After finishing the first strain, I said out loud, "OK, let's save this puppy," then stared at the screen for several minutes wondering what to name it. The fact that I called it a puppy and spoke it out loud struck me. View the first page (PDF file). Click here for live performance by Tom Brier (MP3 sound file, 783K).
  
  
• Theme to "Angelina" -- Level 3 -- 2 August 2004
  NOTE: This is an orchestral/choral file with portamento controls on the voices and so forth which probably will not play properly on anything but another Yamaha XG SoftSynthesizer, with which I composed it. Angelina is a cartoon series concept with a 36-episode storyline by an extremely talented Italian animator friend of mine, Federica Giulietti. Between jobs on various TV shows and at graphics arts studios, she has been working on this concept for close to 10 years, and finished the animated title sequence in 2003. I decided that it should have an original theme, so I wrote this music. It's my first attempt at writing for orchestra. You can view the animation matched with the theme by clicking here then choosing on the left side which size file to download. Because of the compression, the sound quality isn't so great. You can hear a clear MP3 of this music the way it should sound and with most sound effects removed by clicking here (the laughing voice is my own!).
  
  
• Skunk in the Parlor -- Level 3 -- 15 November 2004
  The Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival is known for having rags inspired by it, and in 2004, I was encouraged to add an effort of my own. All the obvious titles were taken, so I had to think of something original. Myself and other composers stay the weekend in a Victorian house fondly nicknamed "Skunk Hollow" in the parlor of which is a piano which gets played late into the night and early in the morning. Of course, Skunk Hollow already has a rag named after it. But I thought about the parlor piano, and came up with the link between skunks and piano keys -- both are black and white! So then, what if a skunk wandered into the parlor, attracted to the piano? Thus I came up with the title, and began writing music to match.
  
  
• Osawatomie -- Level 3 -- 23 January 2007
  This is in the "Indian Intermezzo" style that also was popular during the ragtime era. The style was created accidentally in 1901 by Charles N. Daniels' tune "Hiawatha" (using one of his pseudonyms, Neil Moret). That tune was supposed to be about a train ride to the town of Hiawatha, Kansas, but through misunderstanding its sound became recognized as "Native" American music. Many other tunes in this style were written, and several also were named after towns in Kansas. Most of my ragtime friends have composed an Indian Intermezzo, so I thought should give it a try. When I saw the town name of Osawatomie, I thought it was perfect for my situation, because it sounds similar to saying, "Oh, so what o' me?" The town's claim to fame is being where John Brown's abolitionist uprising began. I actually composed this in 2006.
  
  
• Fly-Swatter Rag -- Level 3 -- 6 February 2007
  The title came to me in an instant when pianist Andrew Barrett accidentally blew his sheet music right off the piano while trying to shoo away a fly during a performance at the 2006 Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival. Realizing that there was no known rag by this name, I knew I had to write one.
  
  
• Morgan Hill Rag by Ron "Keeper" O'Dell -- Hand-played -- 25 October 2007
  This was one of the few occasions when I completed a tune without having a title in mind. Finally, I realized that the town I was living in had celebrated its centenary a year earlier. Since 1906 was right in the middle of the ragtime era, I decided to name this rag after the town. Click here to view a live performance by Tom Brier (YouTube link).
  
  
• Lucky Number Rag by Ron "Keeper" O'Dell -- Level 2 -- 10 March 2008
  I have often had ideas for strains in 7/8 time signature in my head, but never sat down to write anything, and had given up on the idea. One day, I had the first strain of this rag in my head, thinking it was in 2/4, but only when writing it down did I realize it was in 7/4. I added an extra beat to make it 2/4, but then had to come up with a title. Seeing that the tempo was set to 88, which is my lucky number, I decided on this title. Then I realized that 7 is a lucky number for many people, so re-wrote the first strain back in 7/4 time. A couple of normal 2/4 strains followed, but then I decided it had to end in 7/8.
  
  
• A Rag-Time Hullabaloo by Ron "Keeper" O'Dell -- Level 3 -- 6 August 2008
  After Lucky Number Rag, which I wasn't sure I'd even show to anyone, I decided I needed to write a more traditional rag, so once I came up with this title, it was off to the races. I stopped after two strains and four measures of the third strain, stuck. Several months later, I finally found a way through and completed this. I even made a cover so it can be sold as an individual sheet.