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Was wondering if someone knew the most likely speed this 1906 victor should be played at

The answer is, whatever speed puts the music in the correct key of the particular arrangement of Maple Leaf the band is playing. The original piano sheet music starts in Ab major (four flats), with the trio in Db major (five flats), but this is not necessarily the key of the band version, for which you would need to see the score.

Checking this audio source for Victor 4911, https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/ ... _leaf_rag_ , the band in is the key of E, a highly unlikely band key (four sharps), which puts the Bb instruments---clarinets and cornets/trumpets---in the key of F# (six sharps). Scott Joplin, in his School of Ragtime essay, cautioned against playing ragtime too fast, and the tempo of this recording, as played in the link, seems unreasonable: the band is clearly scrambling to play the notes, and it does indeed sound quite "ragged" in many spots. Unfortunately, the only tempo indication Joplin has given in the sheet music is "Tempo di marcia," march tempo, which itself is a highly variable rate. (Formally, the rag as a genre is a march: it follows the same formal pattern as well as key relationships.)

My best guess, based purely on practical musical grounds, is that the key of the band arrangement of Victor 4911 is Bb major (two flats), modulating to Eb in the trio. On playback, that would bring the tempo down to a reasonable and probable level consistent with musical values. The key of Bb is an extremely common key for band. OTOH, Bb and E are exactly a half octave apart, so when you think of what that means for reducied playback speed it would make the tempo way too slow to drop the speed down that far.

As always, due caution must be observed with respect to recording, as opposed to playback, speed! That's a wholly other discussion....

Sometimes it's necessary to live with suspended judgement in these matters.

Victors of this era can play as slow as 73 RPM and as high as 80 RPM. There's no rule of thumb, really. I use a pitch pipe. Generally speaking, I usually start at 75-76 and go from there. It's pretty easy to find the correct pitch and thus playing speed if you have a pitch pipe.

Sean

WOW!!! Who knew it would be this complicated to play a record... Not to be critical, but I think the original poster just wanted a simple answer... However, I admit that I could be wrong...
I'm sure that most people, like me (old school, without a Masters Degree in music), just play them at whatever speed sounds good...

OK, I woke up this morning and realized that I really overthought this one. To me, the answer is simple: slow down the playback enough to drop the tonic key to Eb (from E), IOW, a half step. That will slow the tempo so that it's a tad more reasonable (although of course the band will still be scrambling in spots, because that's the way they recorded it!). This is the probably key of the arrangement the band played. The key of Eb major (three flats) is a very common band key (it puts the so-called transposing instruments, clarinets and cornets/trumpets, in the key of F, one flat, which is even better for them!); the key of the trio then is Ab (four flats), also a reasonable key for band instruments. In terms of RPMs, I can't tell you what speed to set your phonograph to achieve this result; you'll need a tuner or pitch pipe to determine the key (unless you have pitch recognition), and that will give you the RPM indirectly. If you're not a musician, it gets harder to do all this measurement and determination.

Again, this answer does not address the issues of recording speed, or pitch standard in 1906. I'm using today's pitch standard of A = 440 Hz.

Henry wrote:OK, I woke up this morning and realized that I really overthought this one. To me, the answer is simple: slow down the playback enough to drop the tonic key to Eb (from E), IOW, a half step. That will slow the tempo so that it's a tad more reasonable (although of course the band will still be scrambling in spots, because that's the way they recorded it!). This is the probably key of the arrangement the band played. The key of Eb major (three flats) is a very common band key (it puts the so-called transposing instruments, clarinets and cornets/trumpets, in the key of F, one flat, which is even better for them!); the key of the trio then is Ab (four flats), also a reasonable key for band instruments. In terms of RPMs, I can't tell you what speed to set your phonograph to achieve this result; you'll need a tuner or pitch pipe to determine the key (unless you have pitch recognition), and that will give you the RPM indirectly. If you're not a musician, it gets harder to do all this measurement and determination.

Again, this answer does not address the issues of recording speed, or pitch standard in 1906. I'm using today's pitch standard of A = 440 Hz.

Henry,
I hope you realize that I was just kidding...

No problem, Curt. Matter of fact, my Ph.D. in musicology is from UNC-Chapel Hill!

Henry wrote:No problem, Curt. Matter of fact, my Ph.D. in musicology is from UNC-Chapel Hill!

I knew it had to be from somewhere... I learned a lot from your post, mainly that I didn't know what I didn't know about music and playing records...

I'd like to credit Greygull78s for asking the original question! Clearly he/she heard that something was not quite right and reached out for assistance. I hope I haven't made life harder for Greygull with my convoluted responses!

Just thought I would revive this thread, as I remember doing an inquiry on this topic years ago. Apparently Henry is correct, the USMC Band historian says it was scored in the key of E flat.

Now if I can get a pitch pipe and play Eb with my copy of MLR playing, then the rpm could be known using a strobe disc. Email chain from 2017 follows:
------------------------------------------------
Good Afternoon Mr. Biering,

After consulting with our historian and narrowing down the edition that we likely would have used at the time, we think it is in the key of E-flat.

Best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Mills
GySgt, US Marine Corps
Librarian, US Marine Band
(202) 433-4298
(202) 433-2221 fax
[email protected]

8th and I Sts SE
Washington, DC 20390

-----Original Message-----
From: David Biering
Sent: Friday, March 10, 2017 12:46 PM
To: Mills GySgt Jennifer L
Subject: [Non-DoD Source] Marine Band and The Maple Leaf Rag

Hello,

Per our phone call today, here is my question:

The Marine Band has played the Maple Leaf Rag now for over a century.
Please see this:

http://music.minnesota.publicradio.org/ ... 5_ragtime/

I am hoping the library has a surviving score. Can you tell me what key the score was written in?

Thank you,
David Biering
Rainier, WA

http://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/m ... _leaf_rag_