x An overly-simplistic explanation might be, “the piano rag music of Scott Joplin and those directly influenced by him” (e.g. The next style is what Jasen & Tichenor called, “The Joplin Tradition,” and what Harriet Janis and Rudi Blesh called “Classic Ragtime” in the first book documenting the history of this music, They All Played Ragtime. viii An example of this style is Buffalo Rag by Tom Turpin, the first black American to publish a piano rag, as performed by Fred Van Eps, the leading banjoist of his day, in 1905. Jasen & Tichenor call the first manifestation of ragtime, which is less sophisticated than many of the later styles and shows influence of folk music, as “Early Ragtime”. they state that Novelty Piano Ragtime stops at 1928, however, there are a number of composers, such as “Zez” Confrey and Arthur Schutt, who both wrote and/or performed Novelty rags in the 1930s). vii In my opinion, having played and listened to this music for over 45 years, I can see the usefulness in these sub-categories, even though I sometimes question the apparent arbitrariness of some of the dates (e.g. The book, Rags and Ragtime, creates a division of seven major styles of ragtime. v As a syncopated piano style, it was also associated with dancing. As Blake said to pianist, composer, and historian, Max Morath, it had to be arranged for the “girls in the five and ten-cent store.” iii Parenthetically, the five and ten-cent stores were where you could buy popular sheet music, and a young girl would demonstrate it for a customer on the piano.Ĭontrary to modern belief, during early ragtime’s initial prominence, the general public associated the music with songs – vocal music – and with military bands, iv in addition to guitars, mandolins, and banjos. ii And when ragtime eventually became a published form of music, it was, most often, greatly simplified. Ragtime pianist Eubie Blake (1887 – 1983) said in interview that he didn’t know where it came from, but that he had heard it all his life. piano works which cruelly parody black people in America (such as Thomas Hindley’s Patrol Comique, published by New York Publishing Company in 1886). One can find some elements of ragtime (such as the “boom-chick” march-like pattern in the left hand, and untied syncopation) in early published U.S. What can be said with certainty is that it originated sometime before the 1890s, most likely in the United States. As to the origins of ragtime, too much is often left to speculation.

Ragtime songs