Pineapple Rag

Description

This rag came out in 1908 — the year Joplin brought out his instruction book School of Ragtime at his own expense, writing in its preface that the music should never be played fast. It was a protest as much as a lesson: players riding the fad were already turning his rags into speed contests.

The principal strains are in B-flat major and the trio moves to the subdominant, E-flat major, where the piece then ends. That arrangement of keys, inherited from the march, is the skeleton of almost every Joplin rag. The right hand is full of thirds and sixths, which gives the sound its weight.

Sounding those double notes evenly is the problem this intermediate piece sets: only the upper note of each pair is the melody, so the lower has to be held back. Keep the left hand exact in its leaps — and follow the composer's own instruction not to make speed the goal.

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