Maple Leaf Rag

Description

The piece that turned ragtime into a national craze, published in 1899 by John Stark in Sedalia, Missouri. Joplin signed for a royalty of one cent per copy; the rag sold hundreds of thousands, earning him the title King of Ragtime and a living from composition alone. The name comes from the Maple Leaf Club in Sedalia.

Ragtime took its shape from the march, and this A-flat major rag is built by laying out sixteen-bar strains as AABBACCDD. Over a left hand alternating bass notes and chords, the right hand keeps striking off the beat — and that meshing is ragtime's motor. The later strains move to the subdominant, D-flat major.

The difficulty of this intermediate piece is in the left hand: the leap between bass and chord runs the whole length of the rag, and when it falters the rhythmic floor goes with it. Joplin had his scores printed with the instruction that ragtime should never be played fast — and the quicker this one is taken, the flatter it gets.

Ragtime pieces centered on Scott Joplin's syncopated rhythms — a lively American genre that helped pave the way for jazz.