Reviving Ragtime

Percussion professor spends years studying 100-year-old silent films to perfect timing of the sound effects

BY MANHATTAN ETHINGTON

Above from left to right: Darren Duerden, Jennifer Duerden, Perry Christensen, and Alex Wolfersberger who all played in the Ragtime Band concert on Oct. 6. The concert included a ragtime music, live music and sound effects played alongside a silent movie. Left: Darren Duerden spend years perfecting all the sound effects for the film. Photos courtesy of Darren Duerden.

The lights in the McKay Auditorium dimmed on a xylophone, piano, drum set, bass, and a circle of random objects, such as a yellow balloon and two small doors on a table. The Seaside Ragtime Band led by Dr. Darren Duerden walked out from behind blue curtains onto the stage, bowing to an audience dressed in a mix of 1920s and 2020s attire. Duerden began the concert by saying, “We are taking ourselves to a different time, a different era, a different place.” Then the piano keys tingled, the bass plucked out notes, and the xylophone rang as music known as ragtime filled the auditorium.

As instrumental music coordinator, music and theater program leader, and the percussion teacher for BYU–Hawaii, Duerden said he created the Oct. 8 and 9 “An Evening of Ragtime & Silent Film” program because he “thought it would be fun to do a whole program of ragtime music. I've never seen that done before.”

The show began with six different ragtime songs, each once composed between 1905 and 1938. Duerden played xylophone while his wife, Jennifer Duerden, played piano and his friend and colleague, Perry Christensen, played bass. Another BYUH professor, Mark Wolfersberger, was originally going to play the drum set, but he couldn’t attend the performance due to health issues. Luckily, his son, Alex Wolfersberger, was able to step in for him to add drumming and humor to the performance.

As Alex Wolfersberger came onto the stage, Duerden joked, “So you’re saying ragtime is in your genes?” Alex responded quickly, “Actually, I’m wearing my church pants.” This comedic tone extended throughout the performance, and Christensen even joined in with a bit of dancing while playing “The Hula Blues,” a mix between Hawaiian music and ragtime composed in 1920.

“It’s unique. You don’t see this every day,” said Christensen, a BYUH EIL, TESOL, and religion professor, about the performance. “We’re not a big city, so this is a cultural experience. … It’s easy to enjoy and nice to finally see performances live.”

Lilly Trent, a freshman majoring in elementary education from Pennsylvania, attended the performance and said while she doesn’t usually love listening to instrumental music, she loved watching Buster Keaton’s silent movie “The Playhouse” during the program. Duerden said he has been transcribing the music for the film through YouTube since 2009. He added he taught himself how to do the sound effects for the film, like slamming small doors to match the doors shutting in the movie, popping a balloon to replicate the sound of a gunshot, and shattering glass on the ground when the film showed glass breaking.

After watching the silent film with the added sound effects and music, Trent said, “The movie enhanced the music because it gave me something to focus on.” She added, “The music enhanced the movie because it replaced silence where we would have heard people’s breathing.”

Duerden said his preparation for the hour-long performance took him years of hard work to put it together. “This is the most extensive program of my career.” He said he watched “The Playhouse” many times, even using a movie editor so he could slow down the video and line up each sound effect. Just the set-up of all the sound effect objects took so much space Duerden said he had to practice in the band room during the summer so he wouldn’t be disturbed by students.

The choice of “The Playhouse” was not coincidental. Duerden announced during the program the film was released on Oct. 6, 1921, just over 100 years before the date of the performance. He also discussed the importance of listening to ragtime now. “It’s funny how we pass judgments on different types of music. … Ragtime music was originally seen as a musical poison. So it’s interesting to see how perspectives change.”

Trent drew further parallels between the 1920s and the modern day when she said, “The ragtime music made [the film] seem more like a regular movie because there’s always background music in a movie. It brought a greater connection between the 20th and 21st century.”

Aside from working on the silent film, Duerden also had to find and orchestrate each of the ragtime pieces so they would fit the instruments his group played. Each of the pieces featured Duerden on the xylophone, which Trent said was intriguing. “The xylophone is not a common instrument… I didn’t even know they made musical pieces for xylophones.”

Duerden added, “It’s a piece of history,” he said about the xylophone, ragtime music, and silent movies. “It’s like going to see a ballet. It’s not that you’re going to listen to it all the time. You’re just going to see a snapshot of history.” •