Ragtime: the piano that swung before jazz

In 1890s America the piano was everywhere: in family parlours, bars, dance halls, the riverboats steaming down the Mississippi. African American pianists in the Midwest invented a lively music on it, in which the melody seems to stumble joyfully over an unshakeable accompaniment. It was called ragtime, probably from "ragged time".

The ragtime recipe

• The left hand marks a perfectly steady march pulse: a low bass note on the beat, a mid-range chord between beats. This is the "oom-pah" bass.
• The right hand plays a syncopated melody (see syncopation): notes struck between the beats and held across them, which sound as if they are "early".
• The form comes from the military march, very fashionable thanks to John Philip Sousa: several 16-bar themes in a row (AABBACCDD, for example), often with a "trio" in another key.

Compare a "straight" bar and a syncopated bar in this example written for the lesson: in the second, the short-long-short figure shifts the accents.

M:2/4
L:1/16
Q:1/4=80
K:C
c2e2 g2e2 | c e2g2 e c2 | c2e2 g2e2 | c e2g2 e c2 |]

Scott Joplin, King of Ragtime

Scott Joplin (c. 1868–1917), the son of a formerly enslaved man, learned the piano in Texas and became an itinerant pianist. Settled in Sedalia, Missouri, he published the Maple Leaf Rag in 1899, named after a club where he played. It was a huge success: the sheet music sold hundreds of thousands of copies and supported both Joplin and his publisher, John Stark. Here is the opening, as Joplin wrote it:

M:2/4
L:1/16
Q:1/4=90
%%staves {RH LH}
V:RH clef=treble
V:LH clef=bass
K:Ab
[V:RH] z A[Ee]A c[Ee]2G | [Ee]GB[Ee]- [Ee]4 | z A[Ee]A c[Ee]2G | [Ee]GB[Ee]3 z [Ee] |]
[V:LH] [A,,A,]2[E,A,C]2 [E,A,C]2[=A,,=A,]2 | [B,,B,]2[E,G,D]2 [E,G,D]2[E,,E,]2 | [A,,A,]2[E,A,C]2 [E,A,C]2[=A,,=A,]2 | [B,,B,]2[E,G,D]2 [E,G,D]2[E,,E,]2 |]

Joplin saw himself as a serious composer, not just an entertainer. He had a warning printed on some of his scores that ragtime should never be played fast; he wrote a book of exercises, School of Ragtime (1908), and an opera, Treemonisha, which he never saw fully staged. It was only properly premiered in 1972, and Joplin was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize in 1976.

Around him shone other composers of "classic" ragtime: James Scott and Joseph Lamb, as well as Tom Turpin, whose Harlem Rag (1897) was one of the first rags published by an African American composer.

The player piano

Ragtime also thrived thanks to a machine: the player piano (or pianola). A roll of perforated paper, driven by bellows, operates the keys: the piano plays by itself. In the early 20th century millions of rolls were sold, and ragtime, fast and rhythmic, suited them perfectly. Joplin himself recorded a few rolls late in his life. Together with the phonograph, it was one of the first ways to spread a performance without the performer.

From ragtime to jazz, and back

Around 1917–1920 ragtime went out of fashion. But it had prepared the ground: the Harlem stride pianists (James P. Johnson, Fats Waller) extended its left hand and added improvisation, and the New Orleans bands adopted its syncopations. European composers took an interest too: Debussy wrote Golliwogg's Cakewalk (1908), Stravinsky a Ragtime (1918), Satie a Ragtime du paquebot in Parade. In 1970 the pianist Joshua Rifkin recorded Joplin's rags like chamber music; in 1973 the film The Sting used The Entertainer, and ragtime was back on every piano.

What to listen for

• A solo piano (or a small band), with a left hand bouncing between bass and chord.
• A syncopated melody, often in repeated notes or bright octaves.
• A moderate march tempo, in two.
• Clearly cut 16-bar sections, like a march.

Listening list

• Joplin: Maple Leaf Rag, The Entertainer, Solace, Elite Syncopations.
• Turpin: Harlem Rag; James Scott: Frog Legs Rag.
• Period player-piano rolls, often reissued.