Scott Joplin rag pieces

[stormx]

Hi !!

i have been listening recently to a CD containing Scott Joplin most popular rag pieces (around 20 of them). I like them 

I have several questions:

1) Is this style of music a creation of Scott Joplin?

2) Is Rag an antecedent of Jazz?

3) From a compositional point of view, what are its key elements that make it sound so different from other music types?

4) What grade are this pieces? (they sound pretty difficult, completely outside the reach of a beginner).

[pianohopper]

I have quite a bit of Joplin under my belt and have studied ragtime for skool, so I'll try to answer those questions as best I can.

1)  Joplin did not "invent" ragtime, merely popularized it.  At the time he was writing, ragtime had already been established (particularly in St. Louis, where many publishing houses were) by other composers such as Tom Turpin, Joe Jordan, Artie Matthews, Louis Chauvin, and others.  In fact, romantic composers had already been experimenting with the ragtime rhythms!  Chopin's Op. 25, No. 9 etude seems to me to have many of the qualities of a ragtime piece, minus the l.h. octaves... Brahms and Debussy wrote some pieces almost like ragtime, although they didn't gain popularity then.  In 1919, after the heyday of ragtime, Stravinsky wrote his Piano Rag Music.  But undoubtedly, Joplin was the self-proclaimed "King of Ragtime Writers," and the one who got it off the ground...

2)  Certainly the roots of jazz exist in ragtime, which was largely a "black" music spawned from slave songs.  Jelly Roll Morton, whom I consider to be a ragtime composer because of the clear l.h. meter and traveling octaves, called himself the "inventor of jazz."  His music had the distinct rhythm, form and chord progression of ragtime.  Without ragtime, there may never have been jazz, and everything that developed from that point onward, including blues, rock, r&b, et al. 

3)  Ragtime has a distinct chord progression that repeats itself throughout.  (e.g., The Entertainer has a  repetitious C, C7, F, C, G7, C, G7, C C7, F, D7, G7, C, C7...etc, etc, etc.)  Then there are the aforementioned l.h. traveling octaves.  Also the syncopation is a factor.  The form is similar to sonatas: the first melody is repeated once, then travels to a variation (however distant), which is repeated, and then loops to the original melody.  When you think that's the end, the composer adds another theme that repeats, followed by another that repeats...then the end. 

4)  I'm not sure what the grade is, but they might be acheivable if you have the hand span to grip all the octaves.  As an added bonus, you can take it slow, and it will sound better than if sped through.  So I find it easy to sight-read through most ragtime pieces.  With practice, it is definitely possible!

enjoy

[jeremyjchilds]

In addition to pianohopper's excellent advice, I would say that the rags are not really all that hard...

If you can handle a disjunct L.H. stride and are not put off by "ragged" syncopation, there is nothing really else too technical about most of them.

If you have the support of your teacher, go for it.

[stormx]

Thanks you very much, great info !!!

 

[JPRitchie]

Some other Joplin facts may be of interest. "Maple Leaf Rag" was quite popular in the early 20th century. It is frequently claimed to be the first piece of sheet music to sell over a million copies. "The Entertainer" became a top 40 hit during the 1970's Joplin revival and Marvin Hamlisch got an Oscar for adapting J.'s stuff to the movie "The Sting". "Original Rags" was Joplin's first rag and is one of my favorites. Most Joplin compositions are now in the public domain, having been published before his death in 1917. But, "Silver Swan", although attributed to J., was discovered after his death in a garage in Los Angeles and then published. So, it's still protected by copyright.

As noted above, ragtime seems to have sprung from a slave tradition, but as something of a caricature of the European tradition they no doubt heard in or from slaveowner's residence. You can notice the similarity of the transitional repeated high-notes phrases with that of a European waltz. Also associated with ragtime are cakewalks - music for a dance competition having some pastry as a prize - and another parody of European coutesans.

In addition to rags, Joplin composed waltzes, marches, cakewalks, and a syncopated form similar to a tango in "Solace".

-Jim Ritchie
P.S. If you are just starting with Joplin you might be interested in a CD I made. It's at https://www.cdbaby.com/ritchie .
jpr
P.P.S. One of Gershwin's earliest pieces was "Rialto Ripples Rag", giving evidence of the connection between ragtime and jazz.
jpr

[claudio]

ragtime like music is much older. i remember that even "classical" pianist louis m. gottschalk wrote ragtime concert pieces. i believe he got the idea for this rythm from
his extended travels to cuba and central america. he died in 1869, two years after
scott joplin was born.

as he was a contemporary of chopin, i bet that chopin and liszt knew his music. why
they didn't take it up ... don't know. maybe l.m.g. was before his time 

i also know ragtimes from eric satie and even heard that prokofiev played them (at
least for fun as i have never discovered any scores).

[pianohopper]

Some other Joplin facts may be of interest. "Maple Leaf Rag" was quite popular in the early 20th century. It is frequently claimed to be the first piece of sheet music to sell over a million copies.

Yes, well, I believe Joplin only made a penny on each copy sold of one of his earlier rags -- either Original Rags or Maple Leaf Rag...also, he continued to support one of his old teachers with the royalties he received,modest as they were.

about Original Rags -- when first published by Carl Hoffman in 1899, it was credited as "Picked by Scott Joplin -- Arr. by Chas. N. Daniels," suggesting that Daniels had written it, and Joplin merely selected the melodies from previous sources.  Most undoubtedly this stemmed from the prevalent racism in America at that time.

Joplin was probably the most underrated composer in American history.  It was not until recently, when his music was featured in the 1973 movie The Sting and he was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for "his contributions to American music" that he finally got some of the recognition he deserves.

[JPRitchie]

Hi pianohopper,

     Most of the things you mention are discussed in a brief composer bio./music commentary in my CD package, which was created in part to call attention to the work of Joplin and to provide some material for learning to play them. But, for biographical information, E.A. Berlin, "King of Ragtime: Scott Joplin and His Era", Oxford University Press:New York, 1994,  is the most detailed work.

    In the course of a year, I don't hear an original Joplin piece played in full ( usually about 3 min.) on the radio but, maybe, once. Considering the musicality of all and popularity of some of Joplin's work, that's too bad.

Regards,
Jim Ritchie
P.S. The attribution for "Original Rags"(1899) appears as you say, but that's not the whole story. Such atrributions weren't uncommon, nor their slight limited to blacks. But, Joplin didn't publish through Hoffman, or any of his earlier publishers, again. "Maple Leaf Rag" was also published in 1899, but with Stark; it was the first of their many releases establishing Joplin as a significant composer.
jpr
P.P.S Joplin may not only have been one of the most underrated composers in America, he is I believe the earliest American predominantly piano composer to achieve critical recognition. John Philip Sousa was popular throughout the late 1800's and G.M Cohan was popular in the early 1900's, but neither was a pianist. But, both these composers lived past the end of WWI.
jpr

[mimiji]

I have a question regarding the difficulty of Joplin's rags.
Does anyone know or at least consider certain rags to be easier than others?
I want to start working on one of them, but wasn't sure how to determine their difficulty.

[slobone]

ragtime like music is much older. i remember that even "classical" pianist louis m. gottschalk wrote ragtime concert pieces. i believe he got the idea for this rythm from
his extended travels to cuba and central america. he died in 1869, two years after
scott joplin was born.

as he was a contemporary of chopin, i bet that chopin and liszt knew his music. why
they didn't take it up ... don't know. maybe l.m.g. was before his time 

i also know ragtimes from eric satie and even heard that prokofiev played them (at
least for fun as i have never discovered any scores).

Yes, and Gottschalk's "The Banjo" is a wonderful showstopper that more pianists, especially Americans, should play.

[slobone]

And by the way, don't jump to the conclusion that just because ragtime pieces were written down and published, that they were always played as written. If you listen to Jelly Roll Morton's recordings, for example, you'll hear that he used to improvise a lot on his own published rags. So in that sense they belong more to the world of jazz than to classical music. And later pianists would use them as the basis for improvisation, as Eubie Blake did for the Maple Leaf Rag.

[teresa_b]

Hi stormx,

I think some rags are easier than others, although I haven't played them all by any means.  I would say the Entertainer is fairly easy, and the Maple Leaf more difficult.  Personally I believe the most beautiful rag is by William Bolcom, the "Graceful Ghost". 

Have fun!
Teresa

[slobone]

Heliotrope Bouquet is easier than most of the others, mostly because it's usually played at a slower tempo. And it's quite lovely.

By the way, please remember to heed Scott Joplin's own injunction "ragtime must never be played too fast."