Palm Leaf Rag

At a glance

• What it isa ragtime piece for solo piano, in B-flat major.
• Who and whenwritten by Scott Joplin and published in 1903.
• What to listen forthe steady walk of the left hand, the right hand slipping off the beat, and the moment each new section begins.

Listen for

• The walking left handin a rag the left hand usually alternates a low bass note with a chord in the middle of the keyboard. Oom, pah, oom, pah. The playfulness up top only works if this step stays steady.
• The slipping right handthe right hand dodges the place where a strong beat should land, coming in a little early or a little late. This is called syncopation. Notice where your foot starts tapping on its own.
• The changing sectionsrags are usually built like marches, from several short sections that follow one another and repeat. When a new tune arrives, listen for whether the mood brightens or settles down.

When it was written

Around this time Joplin was living in St. Louis. The Maple Leaf Rag, published in 1899, had sold widely as sheet music and made him known, and in 1902 he published The Entertainer. Ragtime grew up among African American musicians in the late nineteenth century and became a huge craze in sheet music.

Joplin is known for urging players not to play ragtime fast. In 1908 he even put out a book of exercises on how to play it, School of Ragtime. For him a rag was not something to rush through for a quick thrill, but music to be played with care.

Scott Joplin

Joplin was born in Texas around 1868. His father, who had been enslaved, worked on the railroad, and his mother did domestic work to help support the family. As a young man he wandered the Midwest playing piano, and in the 1890s he spent time in Sedalia, Missouri.

Even after ragtime made his name, he reached for something bigger. In 1911 he published his opera Treemonisha at his own expense, but he never saw a proper performance of it in his lifetime. Joplin died in New York in 1917, and only in 1976 was he given a special Pulitzer Prize.