 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: moose6589
Date: 2005-04-17 11:33
Just what exactly is ragtime? I haven't found many (or rather any) topics on it on the board. I understand it is some form of jazz popular in the US from around 1900-1920, but beyond that, I really have no idea what it sounds like or who plays it. Is improvisation prominent? Any famous clarinetists or pieces? What is the instrumentation like?
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2005-04-17 12:41
Hi Moose - There was quite a goodly number of "Ragtime" composers [ad-libbers?] around the turn of the century [1899] besides Scott Joplin, but search with his name and you'll turn up discussions we have had. Prob. R's greatest recent popularity came from the movie "The Sting", but other early 1900 films had it also as incidental music . Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2005-04-17 14:06
Should I have mentioned "CHICAGO" stage and movie versions ?? Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2005-04-17 14:50
Isn't the music featured in Chicago (and in the musical of the same name, much better overall scoring there) of the variety known as "hot"? Not ragtime, but more upbeat and more flashy.
I was taught that ragtime was characterized by the heavy "left hand" style with the melody almost given equal weight with the harmony. But, I never learned it anywhere formal like Berkelee...
That's what I always heard it called when the topic came up when Chicago first was toured back in the early 1970's.
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com
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Author: bob49t
Date: 2005-04-17 17:46
A great rag features in the ballroom scene in Titanic - the musical.
A nice article here:-
http://www.musicweb-international.com/encyclopaedia/r/R8.HTM
BobT
Post Edited (2005-04-17 17:49)
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2005-04-17 19:49
TKS, John, thats the best ref I've seen, trying to find some answers to Moose' ?. Having studied engr, not music [dern it now], theory is a jungle to me. I looked around a bit, hoping to find some "simple" descriptions of, how many bars in a chorus, chord progression and number [3?], relationship to blues, Dixie or ballad formats, its ancestry to our "classic" jazz, as diff from modern jazz [as played by the Air Force Band of Mid Am, Shades of Blue Jazz Ensemble {tour} prgm last nite, it was GREAT and difficult to play, I'm sure. Just rambling, I guess. Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: ken
Date: 2005-04-17 20:34
The drive by version of what Ragtime music is, it's a dance written in 2/4 or 4/4 time that utilizes a legato walking bass line on beats 1 and 3 beats and staccato chord on beats 2 and 4. Most ragtime is in Sonata form with 4 themes and modified first theme. Ragtime is syncopated with rhythmic emphasis largely on the off-beats. Most historians agree, Ragtime evolved and was perfected from the African-American community of the late 1800s but originated from Europe and close dance cousins, the "two-step" and "cakewalk".
The style served as roots for stride piano, a more improvisational piano style popularized in the 1920s-30s. Many notable ragtime piano compositions such as Jelly Roll Morton's, "Black Bottom Stomp" and Scott Joplin's, "Maple Leaf Rag" were penned featuring "prepared pianos," --- rags played on pianos with tacks on the keys and deliberately out of tune to simulate the sound of a honky tonk or old New Orleans Storyville district, "Sporting House".
Scott Joplin catapulted the Ragtime style to fame, but other famous Ragtime composers and musicians include, Eubie Blake, Fats Waller, Irving Berlin, Charles L. Johnson, Luckey Roberts, and Paul Sarebresole. Fast forward 60-plus years. If you're old enough and/or a movie buff you'll recall the 1973 Motion Picture, "The Sting". Marvin Hamlisch's Soundtrack adaptation of Scott Joplin tune(s), "The Entertainer" temporarily breathed new life into the genre.
Today, Ragtime conjures up corny visualizations of the roaring 20s; Charlie Chaplin being chased by Keystone Cops, Nickelodeons, prohibition with their wild parties and gambling sessions held in dark back alleys in smoke-filled speak easys. And, young "flappers" cross-handing the Charleston while gangsters pellet their victims with Tommy Guns. v/r Ken
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Author: ron b
Date: 2005-04-17 21:29
Ragtime is alive and doing quite well in many parts of the U.S.
I don't know about the rest of the world but here in Sacramento, CA the Sacramento Ragtime Society holds monthly 'meetings' which are conducted much like their kissin' cousins the Sacramento Traditional Jazz Society. Many local musicians, working pros, week-enders and guest performers are featured at the meets and young musicians are encouraged to join in the fun. At the Ragtime gatherings piano is, of course, the main focus but groups with stringed and wind instruments are not at all uncommon - with a few vocalists participating as well.
Traditional numbers are always popular but new compositions and variations on 'standards' are thrown into the mix to keep things interesting. As a living art form Ragtime continues to be a part though, admittedly, a rather small part of our persent day western culture.
Ragtime is performed by piano soloists and/or ensembles of just about any mix you can imagine. The main idea is, as I believe should be, to have fun makin' music 
Here's a link to Ragtime Society's website:
http://www.sacramentoragtime.com/
- ron b -
Post Edited (2005-04-17 21:58)
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Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2005-04-18 03:45
When I was a youngster in the early 1960's, my high school crowd managed to get ahold of a full arrangement of the Scott Joplin Redbook, and we would play from it whenever we had the quorum to make it work.
It was some hard stuff for folks not used to deviations from regular band and orchestra music, and it was hard to get the trumpet players to play their part on the proper cornet, but the end result was worth it.
We even suggested that we take our brand of ragtime snake oil to the yearly solo and ensemble contest held at Washington University, but were (unfortunately, in my opinion) discouraged. The adjudicators probably would have welcomed the change of pace.
One of the kids on a hockey team that I coached in the late 1990's had the team over to his huge house for a game tape viewing. I about lost my teeth when I saw a huge book of Joplin tunes in his stack of "fun" music next to the upright piano. In addition to playing goal pretty well, he had a damn'd good left hand for the bass part.
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com
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Author: BobD
Date: 2005-04-18 14:16
I have fond memories of my grandfather playing ragtime on the upright. He once told me he had played in a Chicago "bordello".
Bob Draznik
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