RAGTIME

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RAGTIME
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Ragtime

• Joplin played at the World's Columbian Exposition
  in Chicago 189327.5 million
• Ferris Wheel, Chicago, 189350 centsheight 250
  ft.2 revolutions

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Ragtime

• Ragtime is Piano music and did not contain blue
  notes
• It is intended to be played as written

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RAGTIME - origin of the term

• A MUTATION OF JIGTIME (PIANO DANCE MUSIC - EARLY
  1800S)
• FLYING A WHITE FLAG OR RAG AT HOUSES WHERE THERE
  WAS MUSIC OR DANCING
• A CONTRACTION OF RAGGED TIME OR SYNCOPATION
  BETWEEN THE PIANISTS LEFT AND RIGHT HANDS

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Listening to Rags

• Points to consider
• Form AA BB A CC DD
• 16 measure sections
• tempo not too fast
• BOOM-CHUCK style left hand later became known
  as stride
• plenty of room for improvisation

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PERFORMANCES

• Maple Leaf Rag, performed by Scott Joplin
• piano roll made in 1916
• played on a 1910 Steinway upright with footpump
• This is the only evidence of how Joplin played
• note how many young pianists learned the Joplin
  Rags

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PERFORMANCES

• Maple Leaf Rag (Scott Joplin), performed by Jelly
  Roll Morton
• recorded June, 1938 for the Library of Congress
• transformed Maple Leaf Rag into New Orleans style
• the basis was rhythmic

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PERFORMANCES

• embellished with a swinging intro. followed by
  ABACCDD with a hint of a tango in the first D
  section and a New Orleans stomp variation in the
  second D section
• Morton believed that piano styles should follow
  band styles

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PERFORMANCES

• Maple Leaf Rag (Scott Joplin), performed by
  William Albright
• the structure is the same as used in marches -
  AABBA (Trio) CCDD
• Sousas 50 published marches had an impact on
  Joplin

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SCOTT JOPLIN (1868 - 1917)

• Joplin was born somewhere in Texas, between June
  1867 and mid-January 1868
• realized school was the way out
• left home at age 14 but stayed in school until
  he was 18
• Smith College of Music in Sedalia, Missouri
• Joplin taught himself piano in a white-owned home
  where his mother worked in Texarkana. In the
  1880s he moved to Sedalia and attended Lincoln
  High School. In 1896, he attended music classes
  at George R. Smith College in town, a black
  institution established by the Methodist Church.

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SCOTT JOPLIN (1868 - 1917)

• 1st instruments were guitar and bugle
• first published in 1895
• moved to Sedalia, Missouri in 1897 - Sedalia was
  the center of ragtime
• Sedalia music store owner and publisher, John
  Stark published his signature composition, The
  Maple Leaf Rag, in 1899. Sales that first year
  were slim (400 copies), but by 1909,
  approximately 500,000 copies had been sold.
• We are the storm center of high-class
  instrumental rags. The whole rag fabric of this
  country was built around our 'Maple Leaf'
  'Sunflower' 'Cascades' 'Entertainer' 'Frog Legs'
  Etc.
• We have advertised these as classic rags
  and we mean just what we say. They are a
  perfection of type. They have lifted ragtime from
  its low estate and lined it up with Beethoven and
  Bach.

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SCOTT JOPLIN (1868 - 1917)

• Maple Leaf Club (Maple Leaf Rag (1899) sold
  hundreds of thousands of copies)
• "The Maple Leaf Rag" published in 1899
• married Belle Hayden (1901-1903)
• Studied with Alfred Ernst in St Louis
• Alfred Ernst was the second conductor of the St.
  Louis Symphony

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SCOTT JOPLIN (1868 - 1917)

• Between 1901 and 1905, Joplin composed rags,
  waltzes, ballads, marches, cakewalks, a ballet,
  and an opera
• married Lottie Stokes (1909-)
• became obsessed with his opera

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SCOTT JOPLIN 1917

• Joplin contracted syphilis, and by 1916 his
  health had deteriorated
• He was working on a ragtime symphony when he
  entered the Manhattan State Hospital, where he
  died on April 1, 1917 of "dementia paralytica
  cerebral" .
• He was buried in St. Michael's Cemetery in New
  York City.
• Joplin composed 40 rags and about 24 other works

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Treemonisha

• Joplins opera Treemonisha
• financial and mental drain
• failed in 1915 performance
• called a Ragtime Opera
• Joplin said ragtime is an invention that is here
  to stay
• Performance by the Houston Grand Opera

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Tremonisha

• Midi site
• http//www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/Bayou/2314/
  treehome.html
• Tremonisha site
• http//www.midcoast.com/bog/treemonisha.html