Sunburst Rag

At a glance

• What it isa ragtime piece for solo piano.
• Who, whenpublished in 1909 by James Scott, a Missouri musician.
• What to listen forthe oom-pah stride of the left hand, and the right hand jumping off the beat above it.

Listen for

• Left handit alternates a low note and a chord, keeping the beat as evenly as a march. Only because this walk never wavers can the right hand leap as freely as it does.
• Right handsyncopation, deliberately playing across the beat, is the flavor of ragtime. Notice whether your body starts to bounce when a note arrives just ahead of the beat.
• Sections in turna classic rag usually presents several melodies of about sixteen bars each, one after another, with repeats. Listen for how the mood shifts the moment a new melody begins.

When it was written

Scott was born in Missouri around 1885. As a teenager he worked in a music store in Carthage, Missouri, where he would also play pieces from the sheet music for customers. There was no radio yet, so people bought sheet music and enjoyed new songs on the piano at home, and the sound of a piano in the store was itself an advertisement.

From around 1906 the publisher John Stark began bringing out Scott's rags. Stark was also the publisher of Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag. Today Scott is counted, with Joplin and Joseph Lamb, among the three composers who represent classic ragtime. In 1909, ragtime sheet music had spread into homes all across America.