Lily Queen

At a glance

• What it isa ragtime piece for piano in C major. It lasts only about three minutes.
• Who and whenwritten by Scott Joplin together with Arthur Marshall, and published in 1907.
• What to listen forthe even step of the left hand, the right hand slipping off the beat, and the moments when a new section begins.

Listen for

• The left hand's stepin a classic rag the left hand usually alternates a low note and a chord. That oom-pah, oom-pah stride holds up the whole piece.
• Right-hand syncopationsyncopation is rhythm that pulls a strong beat a little early or holds it back a little late. Notice where the right hand rubs against the left hand's beat, and whether your body starts to bounce on its own.
• When the section changes: rags are usually built from several short sections strung together and repeated. When a new one comes in, listen for how the height of the melody and the mood shift.

The other name: Arthur Marshall

Arthur Marshall was a young pianist who studied music with Joplin in Sedalia, Missouri. Joplin lived in that town in the 1890s, playing piano and writing music. Back in 1900 the two had already published a rag together, Swipesy. Lily Queen brought them together again a few years later. This piece will not try to say which passages belong to whom.

When it was written

Ragtime is piano music that grew up among African American musicians in the late nineteenth century. Laying syncopation over the tidy frame of the march, it sold widely as sheet music and became a huge craze. With no radio, anyone curious about a new rag bought the sheet music and played it on the piano at home.

Joplin made his name in 1899 with the Maple Leaf Rag, and around 1907 he moved to New York. The next year, 1908, he brought out School of Ragtime, a set of exercises on how to play the style. In 1911 he published the score of his opera Treemonisha at his own expense, but he never saw it properly staged.

Joplin died in New York in 1917. His music was forgotten for a time, then loved widely again after it was used in the 1973 film The Sting.