Ragtime

1. How did the music sound?
   1. Lack of recordings
   2. Performance Practice vs. written notation
   3. Known & unknown variations in “established” music (popular songs, marches, dance styles), including:
      1. Pitch variance (intonation).
      2. “rough and varied timbres.”
      3. “ragging” – anticipating or delaying notes to create a syncopated effect.
   4. A wide variety of new kinds of music was being played, particularly by African American musicians. Among these, the most direct ancestors to jazz were the blues and ragtime.
2. "African" contributions include:
   1. Syncopated rhythm.
   2. Social significance. Ragtime possibly descended from the “cakewalk,” a “walkaround” in which couples would parade around a square and improvise high-stepping, vigorous movements as they turned the corner. The cakewalk can be seen as a white imitation of black slaves parodying European dances.
3. European music contributions.
   1. Form, probably derived from the march.
   2. Solo piano.
4. Other characteristics:
   1. Alternating root/chord in the left hand.
   2. Solo piano.
   3. Fully notated.
5. Among the best known ragtime composer/performers is Scott Joplin - more information is available at:
   1. The Scott Joplin International Ragtime Foundation.
   2. The Scott Joplin House State Historic Site.
   3. a Classical Net biography of Scott Joplin