History of ragtime music cultural history

I am interested in how ragtime music and dance became part of a larger process of transition and change in American life across the multiple boundaries of gender, race, class, citizenship, education, and national identity. What is ragtime? At the time, ragtime and its surrounding culture raised considerable concerns. Many found the music offensive, the dancing objectionable, and the popularity of both with young people verging on a mental health crisis.

As my research shows, the disdain and even fear directed towards ragtime came from its origins in the music and dance of formerly enslaved African Americans. Following emancipation, Black performers, both male and female, occupied increasing central roles in popular entertainments. While many of these entertainments continued to rely on the racist caricatures central to the blackface minstrel show, some African American performers found ways to call blackface stereotypes into question through ragtime, and to create their own shows that depicted a complex view of Black American life.

The growth of dance orchestras in popular entertainment was an outgrowth of ragtime and continued into the s. Ragtime also made its way to Europe. Shipboard orchestras on transatlantic lines included ragtime music in their repertoire. Muir who toured Europe. Lee " and " Hitchy-Koo " which were credited by historian Ian Whitcomb as the first American popular songs to influence British culture and music.

Europe's th Regiment band generated great enthusiasm during its tour of France. Ragtime was an influence on early jazz ; the influence of Jelly Roll Morton continued in the Harlem stride piano style of players such as James P. Johnson and Fats Waller.

History of ragtime music cultural history: Ragtime, the word, probably began life

Ragtime was also a major influence on Piedmont blues. Dance orchestras started evolving away from ragtime towards the big band sounds that predominated in the s and s when they adopted smoother rhythmic styles. There have been numerous revivals since newer styles supplanted ragtime in the s. First in the early s, many jazz bands began to include ragtime in their repertoire and put out ragtime recordings on 78 rpm records.

A more significant revival occurred in the s as a wider variety of ragtime genres of the past were made available on records, and new rags were composed, published, and recorded. In the s, two major factors brought about a greater public recognition of ragtime. Some historians refer to this book as "The Ragtime Bible". Regardless, it was the first comprehensive and serious attempt to document the first ragtime era, and its three most important composers, Joplin, Scott, and Lamb.

The second major factor was the rise to prominence of Max Morath. Morath turned the latter into a one-man-show inand toured the US with it for five years. Morath subsequently created different one-man-shows which also toured the US, that also educated and entertained audiences about ragtime. InJoshua Rifkin released a compilation of Joplin's work which was nominated for a Grammy Award.

The film The Sting brought ragtime to a wide audience with its soundtrack of Joplin tunes. The film's rendering of "The Entertainer", adapted and orchestrated by Marvin Hamlischwas a Top 5 hit in Ragtime — with Joplin's work at the forefront — has been cited as an American equivalent of the minuets of Mozartthe mazurkas of Chopinor the waltzes of Brahms.

Ragtime originated in African American music in the late 19th century and descended from the jigs and march music played by African American bands, referred to as "jig piano" or "piano thumping". By the start of the 20th century, it became widely popular throughout North America and was listened and danced to, performed, and written by people of many different subcultures.

A distinctly American musical style, ragtime may be considered a history of ragtime music cultural history of African syncopation and European classical music, especially the marches made popular by John Philip Sousa. Some early piano rags were classified as "jig", "rag", and "coon songs". These labels were sometimes used interchangeably in the mids, s, and s.

The following year he released another composition called "All Coons Look Alike to Me", which eventually sold a million copies. Tom Fletchera vaudeville entertainer and the author of Years of the Negro in Show Businesshas stated that "Hogan was the first to put on paper the kind of rhythm that was being played by non-reading musicians.

In Hogan's later years, he admitted shame and a sense of "race betrayal" from the song, while also expressing pride in helping bring ragtime to a larger audience. The emergence of mature ragtime is usually dated tothe year in which several important early rags were published. InScott Joplin's " Maple Leaf Rag " was published and became a great hit and demonstrated more depth and sophistication than earlier ragtime.

Ragtime was one of the main influences on the early development of jazz along with the blues. Some artists, such as Jelly Roll Mortonwere present and performed both ragtime and jazz styles during the period the two styles overlapped. He also incorporated the Spanish tinge in his performances, which gave a habanera or tango rhythm to his music.

The heyday of ragtime occurred before sound recording was widely available. Like European classical music, classical ragtime has primarily been a written tradition distributed though sheet music. But sheet music sales ultimately depended on the skill of amateur pianists, which limited classical ragtime's complexity and proliferation. A folk ragtime tradition also existed before and during the period of classical ragtime a designation largely created by Scott Joplin's publisher John Stillwell Starkmanifesting itself mostly through string bands, banjo and mandolin clubs which experienced a burst of popularity during the early 20th century and the like.

Ragtime was also distributed via piano rolls for mechanical player pianos. While the traditional rag was fading in popularity, a genre called novelty piano or novelty ragtime emerged that took advantage of new advances in piano roll technology and the phonograph record to permit a more complex, pyrotechnic, performance-oriented style of rag to be heard.

Chief among the novelty rag composers is Zez Confreywhose "Kitten on the Keys" popularized the style in Ragtime also served as the roots for stride pianoa more improvisational piano style popular in the s and s. Elements of ragtime found their way into much of the American popular music of the early 20th century.

History of ragtime music cultural history: Ragtime, the jaunty, toe-tapping music

It also played a central role in the development of the musical style later referred to as Piedmont blues ; indeed, much of the music played by such artists of the style as Reverend Gary DavisBlind Boy FullerElizabeth Cottenand Etta Baker could be referred to as "ragtime guitar. Although most ragtime was composed for piano, transcriptions for other instruments and ensembles are common, notably including Gunther Schuller 's arrangements of Joplin's rags.

Ragtime guitar continued to be popular into the s, usually in the form of songs accompanied by skilled guitar work. Occasionally, ragtime was scored for ensembles particularly dance bands and brass bands similar to those of James Reese Europe or as songs like those written by Irving Berlin. Joplin had long-standing ambitions of synthesizing the worlds of ragtime and operato which end the opera Treemonisha was written.

However, its first performance, poorly staged with Joplin accompanying on the piano, was "disastrous" and was never performed again in Joplin's lifetime. The rag was a modification of the march made popular by John Philip Sousawith additional polyrhythms coming from African music. According to some sources the name "ragtime" may come from the "ragged or syncopated rhythm" of the right hand.

Ragtime is not a meter in the same way that marches are in duple meter and waltzes are in triple meter; it is rather a musical style that uses an effect that can be applied to any meter. The defining characteristic of ragtime music is a specific type of syncopation in which melodic accents occur between metrical beats. This results in a melody that seems to be avoiding some metrical beats of the accompaniment by emphasizing notes that either anticipate or follow the beat "a rhythmic base of metric affirmation, and a melody of metric denial" [ 36 ].

The ultimate and intended effect on the listener is actually to accentuate the beat, thereby inducing the listener to move to the music. The name swing later came to be applied to an early style of jazz that developed from ragtime. Converting a non-ragtime piece of music into ragtime by changing the time values of melody notes is known as "ragging" the piece.

History of ragtime music cultural history: Historical context. Ragtime.

Original ragtime pieces usually contain several distinct themes, four being the most common number. These themes were typically 16 bars, each theme divided into periods of four four-bar phrases and arranged in patterns of repeats and reprises. Sometimes rags would include introductions of four bars or bridges, between themes, of anywhere between four and 24 bars.

In a note on the sheet music for the song "Leola" Joplin wrote, "Notice! Don't play this piece fast. It is never right to play 'ragtime' fast. Doctorow used the quotation as the epigraph to his novel Ragtime. Ragtime pieces came in a number of different styles during the years of its popularity and appeared under a number of different descriptive names.

It is related to several earlier styles of music, has close ties with later styles of music, and was associated with a few musical fads of the period such as the foxtrot. Many of the terms associated with ragtime have inexact definitions and are defined differently by different experts; the definitions are muddled further by the fact that publishers often labelled pieces for the fad of the moment rather than the true style of the composition.

There is even disagreement about the term "ragtime" itself; experts such as David Jasen and Trebor Tichenor choose to exclude ragtime songs from the definition but include novelty piano and stride piano a modern perspectivewhile Edward A. Berlin includes ragtime songs and excludes the later styles which is closer to how ragtime was viewed originally.

The terms below should not be considered exact, but merely an attempt to pin down the general meaning of the concept. European Classical composers were influenced by the form. The first contact with ragtime was probably at the Paris Exposition inone of the stages of the European tour of John Philip Sousa.

History of ragtime music cultural history: Ragtime, the jaunty, toe-tapping

Erik SatieArthur HoneggerDarius Milhaudand the other members of Les Six in Paris never made any secret of their sympathy for ragtime, which is sometimes evident in their works. Consider, in particular, the ballet of Satie, Parade Ragtime du Paquebotand La Mort de Monsieur Mouchean overture for piano for a drama in three acts, composed in the early s in memory of his friend J.

Contamine de Latour. Key Attributes of Ragtime Select to filter timeline. Instruments Piano. Berlin, Edward A. Ragtime: A Musical and Cultural History. Berkeley: University of California Press, Harer, Ingeborg. Mellonee V. Burnim and Portia K.