Original Rags

Description

Joplin's first rag in print, published in March 1899. It tends to be overshadowed by the Maple Leaf Rag that followed six months later, but it is the first piece to carry his name on a cover — a cover reading "Picked by Scott Joplin, Arranged by Chas. N. Daniels," which says something about how hard it then was for an unknown Black composer to be published on his own.

As its title suggests, this G major piece sets one strain after another with little of the calculated relation between them that his later rags have. In exchange, each melody is plain and easy to remember, preserving the anthology-like construction of early ragtime.

With fewer notes than most of his rags, it is among the easier intermediate pieces to start on. Keep the left hand's alternation of bass and chord exact and lay the right hand's syncopation on top of it. Give each strain its own character and the patchwork construction reads as variety rather than as a fault.

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