The St. Louis Rag

Description

The St. Louis Rag, a C major rag in 2/4 published in the early twentieth century, takes its name from the city where Tom Turpin made his home. Turpin, known for The Harlem Rag of 1897, kept a saloon there, and from that base he mixed with the musicians of early ragtime as a pianist and composer.

It is in C major and 2/4, written in the basic shape of ragtime: a syncopated right-hand melody over a left-hand accompaniment that alternates bass notes and chords. It fits 1,185 notes into about 90 seconds, a density of over thirteen notes per second, well above that of The Harlem Rag. The range is very wide, from F1 in the bass to A6 at the top; it does not fit on a 61-key keyboard, and 76 keys or more are needed for the whole range.

It is an advanced piece that calls for the technique to deliver a dense stream of notes in a short time. The left hand leaps widely between bass notes and chords, and the right hand travels high up the keyboard, so both hands must move accurately. Lower the playback speed a long way, check the width of the left-hand leaps in the hand colours, and then raise the speed section by section with the A-B loop.

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