![]() 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 Cover (1908) | Cover art helped sell sheet music by suggesting a seductive lifestyle. The following year, Ben Harney (1872-1938) published a popular ragtime piano solo, 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 statement hints at the original extemporaneous nature of the rag. The second title is too offensive for use here but Victorian sensibilities were different than today and it became a smash hit-selling a million copies of sheet music! The curious may read about it with a quick Google or visit to 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 finally catapulted into the musical mainstream. ![]() Unfortunately, published sheet music wasn't available and commercial audio recording didn't exist yet. Americans not only clamored to hear ragtime piano performances, but wanted to play the latest rags themselves. He was a sensation and suddenly ragtime was all the rage. Ragtime was introduced to America, and much of the world, by Scott Joplin during the 1893 Worlds Fair in Chicago. Joplin's Swipesy First Page | Before audio recording, sheet music was the primary method of distributing hit songs | Library of Congress Nobody can pin a precise date of origin on the style, but celebrated ragtime composer Scott Joplin (1868-1917) claims 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. For example, folk ragtime was performed spontaneously for many years in supper clubs, saloons, gambling halls and bordellos. Before achieving widespread popularity, ragtime existed for years as an improvised solo piano style. Stylistically, ragtime was influenced by jigs and marches played by African-American brass bands. Louis, Missouri, and other US cities during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Ragtime was born in middle class African-American communities in St. Home Entertainment | Ragtime piano was 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 American culture and Americana in general. While European composers like Chopin, Beethoven and Liszt were popular with pianists in the United States, Americans were beginning to create their own unique repertoire, and ragtime was the first truly American style to gain wide spread popularity both at home and abroad. In the nineteenth century, music only existed as live performance and/or sheet music. Poker Rag Cover (1909) | Suggestions of alluring activities was a common marketing ploy for ragtime sheet music | Library of CongressĪs was the case in Europe, when middle class Americans of the nineteenth century wanted to hear the latest hit song, they bought the sheet music and played it themselves at home! While such behavior may seem strange to a generation reared on music streaming and smartphones, one must realize even the earliest electronic media-radio and phonograph records-was decades in the future. Indeed, the piano served as the home entertainment center and symbol of cultural and financial success during the nineteenth century. ![]() Music In The 19th Century American Ragtime PeterĪcross the Atlantic from Europe, citizens of the United States were as enthusiastic about the piano as their Old World counterparts. The Romantic Era | Music for Piano Solo | Ragtime 1 ![]()
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