Ragtime (1895–1920)

Ragtime was born in the 1890s in the American Midwest, among African American pianists playing in bars, dance halls and parties. The name probably comes from “ragged time”: the melody is full of syncopations, notes that fall between the beats.

The recipe is simple and brilliant: the left hand plays a perfectly steady march pulse, alternating a low bass and a mid-range chord (an “oom-pah” bass, ancestor of stride), while the right hand plays an off-beat melody. The form comes from the military march, very popular thanks to Sousa: several sixteen-bar themes in a row, often with a trio in another key.

Ragtime was first of all written and published music, sold by the hundreds of thousands as sheet music for family pianos. In 1897 Tom Turpin published Harlem Rag, one of the first rags published by a Black composer; in 1899 Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag became a huge hit. Joplin, the “King of Ragtime”, wanted it played like classical music: never too fast.

Around 1920 ragtime gave way to jazz, which it had helped to create. It came back strongly in 1973, when the film The Sting used The Entertainer.