In fact, by the early 1900s, ragtime had all but taken over the American music publishing industry.įour of a Kind (1909) | Projection of a desirable lifestyle-jackpot winner-was a common marketing technique for piano rags. The fact that this style was instrumental and piano based gave ragtime a larger audience outside Black communities than the blues, appealing to the parlor piano tastes of middle America. Ragtime was the first musical style to achieve widespread popularity beyond the African-American community, stepping boldly across both cultural and racial boundaries. Sugar Cane (1908) | Seductive cover art helped sell sheet music. The following year, Ben Harney (1872-1938) published a popular piano rag, You've Been a Good Old Wagon but You Done Broke Down, and so begins the flood of rags into middle America. Musician Tom Fletcher stated that Hogan was the "first to put on paper the kind of rhythm that was being played by non-reading musicians." †† Flectcher's words hint at the original improvisatory nature of the rag. The second title is too offensive to mention here but Victorian sensibilities were different than today and it became a hit-selling a million copies of sheet music! The curious may Google or visit Wikipedia. Witmark and Sons, Chicago) and a second piece with a controversial title. First out the gate, African-American entertainer and composer, Ernest Hogan (1865-1909), published the earliest known piano rags in 1895: La Pas Ma La (M. So there was a pent-up demand waiting to be fulfilled.īeginning with sheet music publication in the mid-1890s, ragtime catapulted into the musical mainstream. Sheet music wasn't available yet and commercial audio recording didn't exist. He was a sensation and Americans not only clamored to hear ragtime piano, but wanted to play rags themselves. Ragtime was introduced to middle America, and much of the world, by Scott Joplin during the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. Joplin's Swipesy First Page | Before audio recording, sheet music was the main method of distributing hit songs. There is no exact date for origin of the style, but celebrated ragtime composer Scott Joplin (1868-1917) claimed there has been "ragtime music in America ever since the Negro race has been here, but the white people took no notice of it until about twenty years ago. Folk ragtime was performed spontaneously for many years in supper clubs, saloons, gambling halls and bordellos. Louis, Missouri, and other US cities during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.īefore achieving widespread popularity, ragtime existed as an improvised solo piano style, influenced by jigs and marches played by African-American brass bands. Ragtime originated in middle class African-American communities in St. Home Entertainment | Ragtime piano was all the rage in middle America, raking in impressive revenue for music publishers | Dover Electronic Clip Art Indeed, the sound of ragtime eventually became irrevocably associated with turn of the century Americana. However, Americans were beginning to create their own repertoire, and ragtime or rags was the first truly American style to gain wide popularity both at home and abroad. During this era, music existed only as live performance and printed sheet music.Ĭhopin, Beethoven and Liszt were popular with pianists in the United States. While such practices may seem odd to a generation reared on streaming and smartphones, realize the earliest electronic media-radio and phonograph records-was decades in the future. When nineteenth century Americans wanted to hear the latest hit song, they bought the sheet music and played it themselves. Poker Rag Cover (1909) | Suggestions of alluring activities was a common marketing ploy for ragtime sheet music. Stateside, the piano also served as a home entertainment center and symbol of cultural and financial success. Music In The 19th Century American Ragtime PeterĪcross the Atlantic from Europe, US residents were just as enthusiastic about the piano as their Old World counterparts. The Romantic Era | Music for Piano Solo | Ragtime 1
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