Hilarity Rag

At a glance

• What it isa ragtime piece for solo piano.
• Who, whenpublished in 1910 by James Scott, a Missouri musician. In the same year he also published Ophelia Rag.
• What to listen forthe right hand bursting out a step ahead of the beat, and the left hand walking without a wobble.

Listen for

• Laughter in the syncopation: when a right-hand note pops out just before the beat, it is like a laugh you could not hold back. Try clapping lightly along with those off-beats.
• The unshakable left hand: however much the right hand leaps, the left hand walks as evenly as a march. The fun of ragtime comes from the mismatch between the two hands.
• Changing melodiesa classic rag usually presents three or four melodies in turn, each one repeated. Listen for how the brightness and force change when a new melody begins.

When it was written

The name ragtime is often explained as coming from ragged time, a way of describing rhythm that deliberately plays across the beat. Its form was borrowed from the march, popular in America at the time. Its frame of several melodies joined one after another resembles a march.

Ragtime, which grew up among African American musicians in the late nineteenth century, became popular music across the United States in the early twentieth century. But not everyone welcomed it. Some critics and educators dismissed ragtime as vulgar music. Amid all this, Scott, born in Missouri around 1885 and trained there, is counted today with Joplin and Joseph Lamb among the three composers who represent classic ragtime.