In case you ever wondered what the word “Ragtime” means, it has nothing to do with an era. It means Ragged Rhythm, referring to syncopation. Generally, this means that (in terms of the piano) the right hand plays a syncopated melody against a steady beat with bass and chords as accompaniment. I have found it challenging because the chords have to be played using both hands, sometimes in the right and sometimes in the left, while also carrying both the bass line in the left and the melody line in the right. Most rags were generally written in four strains, with the first strain repeated after the second, a form adapted from the March. This is the first genre of music in which the “off-beat” is dominant. Never before had such rhythms been played or heard as far as we know. Today it is all very standard and familiar, But, in the last decade of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century, it was new. Well, so far as we can verify by recorded history.
(Below is a “Roll” recording, a paper roll designed for Player Pianos, of The Maple Leaf Rag played by Scott Joplin himself in 1906. The tempo is surprisingly fast in light of his complaint that others often played it “too fast.”)
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