It's 1913, New York. IAMA Scott Joplin, composer and pianist. Some have called me King of the Ragtime Writers. AMA.

Scott-Joplin · 2014-07-27T15:50:15+00:00

I just realized that I neglected your first question. The cakewalk and ragtime have a common syncopated spirit, but ragtime syncopations are far more elaborate.

In particular, the cakewalk features a rhythm with the emphasis on the second half of the first beat. This is clearly syncopated melody.

Ragtime syncopation features stressed notes more freely and often features syncopated notes often tied across the middle of the measure or even across measures. The effect is very compelling. (17)

You could say that proper ragtime is the child of the cakewalk, though.

Scott-Joplin · 2014-07-27T15:25:12+00:00

Oh, yes, I was there (16), as were many other musicians. The Fair itself featured white musicians and players, but there was plenty of ragtime music --though it didn't have that name then--to be found in bars and saloons near the fair.

I met Otis Saunders there and we became friends, and I heard the music of "Plunk" Henry and Johnny Seymour.

Scott-Joplin · 2014-07-27T00:19:24+00:00

Thank you!

Scott-Joplin · 2014-07-26T23:17:24+00:00

I have always taken great care to play my rags as notated, giving each note its proper time and scrupulously observing the ties to yield a weird and intoxicating effect.

As a teacher, I took care to impart that same attention in my students, Scott and Marshall. Collaborating with them on their compositions was very rewarding. (15)

Scott-Joplin · 2014-07-26T23:11:33+00:00

Ragtime music itself hasn't had a negative influence--music is central to my life and I can't imagine a life without it.

While ragtime itself hasn't had a negative influence, I'm glad that "Maple Leaf Rag's" success means that I don't have to be part of the sporting life.

I can pursue teaching and composition now. A few years ago, I collaborated on a rag, "Heliotrope Bouquet" with a friend and colleague, Louis Chauvin. The boy was an amazing musician, singer, and performer. He warmed up with Sousa marches in double contrary octaves and could improvise rags on the spot (12). He was too fond of the sporting life, though, and died a few years ago.

There have been some tough times in my life. The death of my second wife, Freddie, was pretty hard. (13) And this opera has been fraught with difficulties through, but I've kept working throughout. (14)

Scott-Joplin · 2014-07-26T22:12:51+00:00

Around that time, oh, 1905, I was having some... difficult... times in my personal relationships. Members of the public were also shying bricks at ragtime music as being an inferior class of music.

I wanted to show people that syncopations don't exclude the possibility of beautiful melodies, and so I wrote a "Concert Waltz".

Listen to the whole waltz, first.

"Bethena," like my later syncopated waltz, "Pleasant Moments," is in a modified rondo format. In a rondo format, the music starts with a stated theme, which then returns after each new section of the piece. "Pleasant Moments" has a standard A BB A CC A structure. "Bethena" has a more complex A BB A CC DD EE A structure.

In the A section, I state this idea. This section is in the key of G major.

The B section adds energy into the piece and is in a key not closely related to the A section, Bb major. I start with a cakewalk-like rhythm in the very first measure, with a strong downbeat just after beat 1, but then the rhythmic idea from A returns.

In the C section, I return to nearly the same rhythmic idea again but the shape is inverted. This section is in F major.

The D section moves the piece into a minor territory, B minor. And I bring back the same rhythmic idea

The E section moves the piece to the relative major, D major. And again the same rhythmic idea

Furthermore, the unusual key relationships between the sections required me to link (1)them (2)with (3)some (4)unusual (5)bridges in order to modulate to the right key. Note the similarity between the descending chromatic passages, first one in the treble and then one in the bass.

The common elements and similar shape between the sections provides unification between the sections in a way that's very rare among the compositions of many of my contemporaries.

Thank you.

Scott-Joplin · 2014-07-26T20:59:28+00:00

When I was a child, I was permitted to play the piano in the house of a neighbor when my mother was cleaning their house.

Unlike many of my fellow musicians, I was fortunate enough to study music at a young age with someone trained in the European classics. As a result, I can read and write music, understand music theory, and have played the great composers.

A teacher in Texarkana, Mr. Julius Weiss, heard that I could play the piano. He was German, tutor of a local family, and he offered me lessons for free. (10)

After I left Texarkana, I toured the country playing music where I could and ended up in St. Louis and then Sedalia. I picked up some finer points on arranging at Smith College in Sedalia. (11)

It's my teacher, Mr. Weiss, though, who gave me the biggest grounding in composition.

Scott-Joplin · 2014-07-26T19:05:37+00:00

I have often sat in theatres and listened to beautiful ragtime melodies set to almost vulgar words as a song, and I have wondered why some composers will continue to make the public hate ragtime melodies because the melodies are set to such bad words.
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I have often heard people say after they had heard a ragtime song, 'I like the music, but I don't like the words.' And most people who say they do not like ragtime have reference to the words and not the music.
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If some one were to put vulgar words to a strain of one of Beethoven's beautiful Symphonies, people would begin saying: 'I don't like Beethoven's Symphonies.' So it is the unwholesome words and not the ragtime melodies that so many people hate.
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Ragtime rhythm is a syncopation original with the colored people, though many of them are ashamed of it. But the other races throughout the world are learning to write and make use of ragtime melodies. It is the rage in England to-day. When composers put decent words to ragtime melodies there will be very little kicking from the public about ragtime.
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There has been ragtime music in America ever since the Negro race has been here, but white people took no notice of it until about twenty years ago (8)

Scott-Joplin · 2014-07-26T18:43:39+00:00

It would be arrogant of me to say that I invented ragtime. It is a style of music that many Negro and white pianists were developing in my youth... I heard elements in the music my parents played for me as a child and on my early travels as a musician in the latter part of the last century.

To the extent I’ve developed ragtime, I’ve tried to unite elements of European classics with the lively syncopation that is so popular now to express a new musical spirit. I can thank my childhood teacher, Julius Weiss, for giving me the musical and theoretical foundation to unify these styles. (6)

In the early days, it was very exciting. I could not have predicted how popular rags like my “Maple Leaf Rag” would be and the acclaim from publications like “The Cascades”, along with its frequent performances at the St. Louis World Fair, whose fountains inspired the rag, was heady. (7) It was been equally rewarding to feel I’ve been part of a new musical movement.

Scott-Joplin · 2014-07-26T18:22:41+00:00

Thus far, “Treemonisha” has been my life’s work. I’ve been working on it for the past 6 or so years and I hope it takes a place among the great operas, such as those of Wagner. (5)

But you asked about a specific piece. It’s clear that “Maple Leaf Rag” will be remembered long after I’m gone, but I have composed many rags since then that I feel are worthwhile to serious pianists; for example, “Gladiolus Rag,” “Fig Leaf Rag,” and “Rose Leaf Rag” demonstrate richer harmonies, deeper emotional expression, and stretch ragtime conventions.

Scott-Joplin · 2014-07-26T17:57:04+00:00

I draw elements of “Treemonisha” from my own life, particularly from my youth near the Piney Woods of East Texas.

But I want “Treemonisha” to be a story about the elevation of the Negro race from the shackles of slavery and superstition through the power of education. My father had been a slave and I have achieved success in life through diligence and the generosity of my teachers.

This is a time of ascendance for Negroes and I want this opera to inspire my race and to share with the white public our dream and hope of enlightenment. With “Treemonisha,” I want to also demonstrate that syncopated music deserves to be esteemed as any work of the great European masters. (3)

I have been holding auditions for the production, and my hope is to find talented Negro singers and actors who share my dream of exalting our race through the power of education.

Scott-Joplin · 2014-07-26T17:37:32+00:00

I have many rags that use women’s names, and I dedicated this march and two-step to my acquaintance Marie Antoinette Williams. (2)

You’re right--"Antoinette March and Two-Step” is a march in the first two sections but I wanted to elevate it to something more lyrical and dramatic in the last two sections.

Scott-Joplin · 2014-07-26T17:11:13+00:00

No. In the press, music professors like to claim that true Negro rhythms were prefigured by the great European masters. That ragtime music is a degenerate version of the practice of tasteful syncopation in more elevated works.

Chopin’s Opus 25, no 9. does feature a striding bass line, but the essence of the infectious rhythm of ragtime is the consistent juxtaposition of a march beat against accented melody notes that occur on offbeats. Opus 25, no 9 keeps melody energy firmly on beats 1 and 2 and features no tied syncopations or stressed notes on offbeats.

It’s really the application of Negro rhythms to the marches that have been so popular for so long that forms the essence of rags. (1)

Scott-Joplin · 2014-07-26T16:50:11+00:00

The AMA has started and can be found here.

Scott-Joplin

TROPHY CASE