Felicity Rag

At a glance

• What it isa ragtime piece for solo piano.
• Who, when, whypublished in 1911, when Scott Joplin was living in New York.
• What to listen forthe even oom-pah walk of the left hand, and the syncopation of the right hand bouncing across it.

Listen for

• The left hand's walklow notes and higher chords alternate, keeping an even beat like a march. This is the floor that ragtime stands on.
• The right hand's syncopation: a rhythm that deliberately lands just off the beat. In the small gap where the two hands slip apart, ragtime's lilt is born.
• Several sectionsa classic rag usually strings together a few sections of about sixteen bars each, and each section is repeated once. Try to catch the moment a new tune begins.
• TempoJoplin often wrote on his sheet music a reminder not to play ragtime fast. Listen for how clearly the syncopation comes through at an easy pace.

When it was written

Ragtime is piano music that arose among African American musicians in the late nineteenth century. It sold widely as sheet music and rang out from the pianos found in many homes. Joplin made his name in 1899 with the Maple Leaf Rag, and he sought to shape the piano rag into music to be listened to seriously, beyond dance music.

Around 1907 Joplin moved to New York. The year this piece appeared, 1911, was also the year he published the score of his opera Treemonisha himself. He worked hard to get the opera staged, but he never saw it properly performed, and he died in 1917.

After that, ragtime's popularity gave way to jazz. Joplin's music was forgotten for a while, then loved widely again when his pieces were used in the 1970s film The Sting.