![]() It was the keen ear that these amongst other composers of the time possessed, that created a compelling style of music that we still enjoy over a century after its invention. That said, Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, Joseph Lamb, or James Scott to highlight the key Ragtime composers, were not in any way confined by the tonal system, they exploited and employed it in colorful and imaginative ways. This gives a very solid harmonic feel to the piece without stepping very far out of familiar tonal boundaries. The harmony also underpins this phrasing and even though many Ragtime melodies are quite chromatic in parts, the harmony is decidedly tonic/dominant based. This regularity makes the music easy to connect with as it provides a gently predictable pattern that has appealed for many centuries. Regular ‘phrasing is another feature of many ragtime pieces, each adhering to a four-plus four-bar phrase length. Joplin also cleverly splits the melody into two different registers of the piano with the first bar-and-a-half marked ‘piano’ (soft), then the higher register marked with a ‘crescendo’ (getting louder), to ‘forte’ (strong). Notice that the right-hand, in this case, is also playing in harmony. Here you can see the ‘stride’ in the left-hand and the melody in the right-hand. This is the opening of the famous composition ‘The Entertainer’. ![]() In the extract above it is easier to understand the characteristics of Ragtime I mentioned in the earlier paragraphs. This was in part due to the syncopated rhythm, but also the careful construction of the tune combining a compelling mix of movement by leap and step. The melodies, especially those of Scott Joplin, were extremely appealing and catchy. It is not an easy technique to master but this is one of the key elements of Ragtime piano music. Stride playing involves the bass note of the chord sounding in the lowest part of the piano, on the main beats of the bar, whilst the chords are on the weaker beats towards the middle register of the instrument. The left-hand style I refer to is also known as ‘stride’ piano technique designed by pianists at the turn of the century to give the impression of a piano re-creating the sound of a larger jazz ensemble. This fusion of cultures came most commonly in the form of piano pieces that would characteristically have the steady march-like pattern of accompanying chords in the left-hand of the piano, whilst the right-hand played the syncopated melody. When this music was fused with the more traditional and somewhat straight-laced marching band music of the Western cultural tradition, the music of Ragtime was formed. This means music that does not play on the beat of any given bar, but instead ‘off the beat’ creating a sense of lilt, swing, and forward motion. A characteristic of African American music was a rhythmic feature called ‘syncopation’. What can perhaps be considered to be part of the enduring appeal of Ragtime is the fact that it is a combination of music from both African and Western cultures. Ragtime music is essentially an early form of jazz music that dominated the American Jazz scene from the late 19 th to the early 20 th century. ![]() One of his most played and adored pieces, ‘The Entertainer’, composed in 1902 for piano solo, demonstrates so many of the characteristics of this style of music that we will explore in this article. ![]() This is because he is perhaps the most celebrated composer, and performer, of the style of music that came to be known as Ragtime. Read the rest of the 1975 review by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt in The New York Times.To many people, the mere mention of the word Ragtime prompts the name, Scott Joplin. Morgan and a Henry Ford get together in a mansion on New York’s West 36th Street, exchange their respective thoughts on reincarnation and ‘found the most secret and exclusive club in America, The Pyramid, of which they were the only members.'” He congratulated him on the invention of the airplane.’ Or of the scene in which a J. Of the passages in which one Harry Houdini, grown dissatisfied with being ‘a trickster, an illusionist, a mere magician,’ sails to Europe, learns to fly a biplane and performs a few turns before the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who ‘gazed.with stupid heavy-lidded eyes’ and ‘didn’t seem to know who Houdini was. And the reviewer is tempted to dispense with heavy breathing and analysis and settle down to mindless celebration of the pure fun of the thing. But the first thing to be said about it is that it works. It works so well that one devours it in a single sitting as if it were the most conventional of entertainments. Doctorow’s ‘Ragtime’ is a highly original experiment in historical fiction. ![]()
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