A Breeze from Alabama

At a glance

• What it isa ragtime piece for piano.
• Who and whenwritten by Scott Joplin and published in 1902, the very year The Entertainer came out.
• What to listen forthe oom-pah step of the left hand, the off-beats of the right, and the moments when one section gives way to the next.

Listen for

• Left hand and right hand: in a classic rag the left hand usually alternates a low note and a chord, walking evenly in two. The right hand creates its lilt with syncopation, deliberately pushing ahead of or holding back from that beat. Look for the moments when the two hands drift apart and meet again.
• Several sectionsclassic rags are usually built from several sections of around sixteen bars that follow one another and repeat. Listen for how the height of the melody and the mood change when a new section comes in.
• TempoJoplin urged players not to play ragtime fast. Listen for whether the off-beats come alive more clearly in an unhurried step.

When it was written

Ragtime is piano music that grew up among African American musicians in the late nineteenth century. Laying syncopated rhythm over the frame of the march, it sold widely as sheet music and became a great craze. With no radio, people bought the sheet music and tried new rags at the piano at home.

Joplin made his name in 1899 with the Maple Leaf Rag, and around 1901 he moved to St. Louis and devoted himself to composing. In 1902 he published this piece along with rags such as The Entertainer. Joplin himself grew up not in Alabama but in Texas.

Joplin died in New York in 1917. His music was forgotten for a while, then loved widely again when his pieces were used in the 1970s film The Sting.