Ragtime!

Ragtime music was created by African American musicians and a lot of them did not known how to read or write music.  It came about as a playing style, advertising this new music in bars and saloons, and other similar places where black people found their first opportunity to perform. Ragtime emerged during the 1890s and spread due to published compositions. By the mid 1890s ragtime flooded the music publishing industry. Right in the middle of America, ragtime comes from Missouri. It was the booming pioneer spirit that was in Missouri that created the environment for music like ragtime to flourish. Ragtime is a genre of music for the piano that is normally in duple mete and has a high short treble lead over a steady bass. Ragtime compositions are usually composed 3 or 4 sections or strains, each one being 16 or 32 measures in length. Because Ragtime was so popular, it boosted the sales of pianos and the ranks of the recording industry got higher.

As ragtime became more popular, the cake walk and “coon songs” were attached to the ragtime theme. Coon songs were normally performed by white people wearing black face and black people who were in minstrel shows that were stereotypical lyrics sung in Negro dialect. It portrayed that African Americans were lazy, dishonest, violent, greek, watermelon eaters and etc.

The only ragtime song that I’m familiar with is The Entertainer by Scott Joplin because I remember seeing people tap dancing to it and they are holding a cane. I don’t think that I could see myself listening to ragtime music and having it on my playlist but it does seem like something that would be interesting to learn how to play on the piano.

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