By: JaNae Fleming
Ragtime music was composed using the piano. It is composed in a duple meter where there is a syncopated lead being played over a rhythmically bass. Ragtime music heavily influenced jazz music, just as folk music influenced ragtime. Ragtime is one of the examples of the break away from spiritual music. Ragtime is fast paced, and just like pattin juba in the era of folk music, there were cake walks in the era of ragtime. Cake walks are when black people would dance together to ragtime music and in reward, the best couple wins a cake. The irony in this is that the judges were white people, and cake walk was used to imitate white people. Ragtime emerged in the roaring 20s, an era of artistic excellence, this led to the easy circulation of ragtime sheet music. Some of the most popular ragtime artists consist of Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, and Fats Waller.
