Original Rags

At a glance

• What it isa ragtime piece for piano in G major.
• Who and whenwritten by Scott Joplin and published in 1899. It is known as the first rag he published.
• 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 rag the left hand usually alternates a low note and a chord, walking oom-pah in two. It is a step inherited from the march. Because that step holds steady, the right hand is free to play.
• Right-hand syncopationsyncopation means striking just ahead of, or just off, the place where the strong beat should fall. That feeling of a familiar beat slipping now and then is the lilt of ragtime.
• Where the sections change: rags are usually built from several short sections joined together. Listen for the spots where the height of the tune or the mood suddenly shifts, and see if you can say, here a new section starts.

When it was written

Ragtime is piano music that grew up among African American musicians in the late nineteenth century. With no radio, people bought sheet music and tried new pieces on the piano at home. A rag appearing in print meant it could travel into many living rooms.

Joplin was born around 1868 in Texas, worked as a travelling pianist across the Midwest, and settled in Sedalia in the 1890s. After publishing this piece in 1899, he brought out the Maple Leaf Rag that same year, the rag that would make his name, and in 1902 he published The Entertainer.

The composer, Scott Joplin

Joplin thought of ragtime as music to be played with care. In 1908 he published School of Ragtime, a set of exercises on how to play it, and he urged players not to rush. In 1911 he published his opera Treemonisha at his own expense, but never saw a proper staging of it in his lifetime. He died in New York in 1917. His music found a wide audience again through the 1973 film The Sting, and in 1976 he was given a special Pulitzer Prize.