Scott Joplin as The Greatest Ragtime Composer - Essay Example

Scott Joplin: The Greatest Ragtime Composer Ragtime music surpasses the prominence and influence of blues as a forerunner to early jazz. Scott Joplin is undoubtedly the most remarkable composer of ragtime. Indeed, the revival of interest in ragtime would be unimaginable if not for the enduring charm of Joplin’s songs. Even though other composers may have created rags that were more theoretically challenging or showed off more outstanding innovation, none could rival the unwavering dedication to creativity, the melodic ingenuity, or structural sophistication that portrayed Joplin’s most important creations (Bindas 65). No rag composer would rival Joplin’s dreams and hopes for the music—dreams that resulted in the creation of a ballet, two operas, and other creations that directly defied the uncultured status of the rag expression (Gioia 21). Even though Joplin’s bolder works did not gain the popularity or recognition during his lifetime, his works are now prominent because of his grand ambitions, as well as his single-minded faith in ragtime as a major musical genre—a faith that, years after his death, became legitimized by his late recognition as a great American musician. Scott Joplin was born on the 24th of November 1868 in Texarkana, Texas (The Columbia Encyclopedia 53). He belongs to a family of musicians—his mother played the banjo, while his father played the violin. The banjo may have had a great influence on the musical creativity of Scott: the syncopated cadence of the African-American banjo music of the 19th century is without a doubt a forerunner of the subsequent piano rag genre (Cardell 533). Scott showed his interest in the keyboard early on. He frequently went with his mother to her workplaces and would innovate and play the piano. As a teenager, Scott was already a professional pianist, with offers to play at social occasions and churches in the boundary of Arkansas and Texas. Afterward he became a music teacher and accompanied a vocal quintet that sang and played all over the area (Gioia 25-26). During this time, Scott attempted to make his first composition. Scott transferred to St. Louis in the 1880s, where he was paid as a pianist and a soloist in bars. He also played for a band. The ensemble job gave Scott the chance to enhance his talents in arranging that would eventually hit on their highest point in compositions for his two operas (Berlin 17). Scott lived in St. Louis for several years, but he travelled often throughout these years. His attendance at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, a very important exposition that drew the attention of the greatest composers of the period, could have been specifically momentous (Tawa 137). Even though rag composition had not yet been made public, it was in fact extensively performed at the fair, although most frequently at the fringes of the exposition grounds, where African-American composers performed; the more prominent spots were reserved for White musicians. In the 1890s, Scott moved to and lived in Sedalia, where he studied composition and rhythm at the George R. Smith College for Negroes (Gioia 24). Scott composed the ‘Maple Leaf Rag’ in 1897, a creation that would eventually become the most celebrated ragtime music of its period (Haskins & Benson 111). However, it was not until a few years afterward that John Stark made the composition public, and in the initial year merely a few copies were sold. Nevertheless, the ‘Maple Leaf Rag’ began to gain popularity in 1900, sooner or later becoming the first musical composition to sell roughly a million copies (Haskins & Benson 101). Aspiring pianists may have encountered difficulties navigating the rhythmic and technical complexities of Joplin’s popular rag; numerous musicians undoubtedly bought the composition and struggled with its difficult syncopations. Looking back, it can be discerned that the ‘Maple Leaf Rag’ simply alluded to the entirely of Joplin’s gift. It does not have the emotional intensity, compositional originality, and melodic delicacy that would sooner or later take Joplin apart from other rag musicians (Bindas 73). However, the ‘Maple Leaf Rag’, in terms of rhythmic depth, outshines other rag compositions even these days. If the core of the popularity of ragtime music was its capacity to encompass the ‘speed and snap’ of contemporary American life, in that case no musical composition stirred up this growing awareness more than the ‘Maple Leaf Rag’ (Gioia 25). Eventually the works of Joplin showed the broad array of compositional methods that this determined African-American composer had used with excellence (Gioia 25): The parlor waltz refinement of “Bethena” (1905); the coy interludes that temper the syncopations of “The Ragtime Dance” (1906); the boogie-woogie inflected third section of “Pine Apple Rag” (1908); the languid tango rhythms of “Solace” (1909); the almost self-parodying syncopations of “Stoptime Rag” (1910); the moving minor key sections of “Magnetic Rag” (1914); the almost self-parodying syncopations of “Stoptime Rag” (1910); the moving minor key sections of “Magnetic Rag” (1914). With the last composition he had created, “Magnetic Rag”, Joplin had driven the music outside the lively nightspots or bars that portrayed, for numerous listeners and musicians, the rag expression (Cardell 534). This was major music that was at this point being pressed into the limited boundaries of rag style. Such breakthrough in musical composition was one of the most prominent attributes of Joplin’s works. Descriptions that emphasize his contribution in strengthening and improving the rag expression largely overlook the essence of Joplin’s music. Joplin saw himself mainly as a musician and a composer, and his affiliation with ragtime music was characterized by his struggle against its limitations and stylistic weaknesses, rather than fighting for its pride and glory. As stated by a newspaper article in 1903, “Joplin’s ambition is to shine in other spheres. He affirms that it is only a pastime for him to compose syncopated music and he longs for more arduous works” (Gioia 26). Joplin was hesitant as well, sometimes even resentful, of the pyrotechnics of many rag musicians, which stressed theatricals and speed to the detriment of melodic excellence. Thus the widely known warning which appears in numerous of his publicized works (Gioia 26): “NOTE: Do not play this piece fast. It is never right to play Ragtime fast.” The most remarkable outcome of Joplin’s ambitions was ‘Treemonisha’, his opera, frequently mistakenly called ‘ragtime opera’, but which has almost no ragtime qualities in it. Rather it delves profoundly into the pre-ragtime origins of African-American music (Bindas 77). Joplin’s fierce resolve to combine vernacular Black music with the dominant practices of Western music foreshadowed, in numerous respects, the eventual emergence of jazz. By crossing the boundaries of cultured and uncultured music, European formalism and Black polyrhythm, he foresaw the fruitful attempts of subsequent musicians like Art Tatum, Stan Kenton, Charles Mingus, Benny Goodman, James P. Johnson, and Duke Ellington (Gioia 27). In his own time, the listeners of Joplin were not sufficiently equipped to grasp the essence of these fusion attempts; it may be assumed that these listeners had a presumption that these various traditions were very much conflicting to facilitate a perfect combination. The concept of a ragtime opera or ballet should have appeared an irony to many of those on both faces of the grand racial gap that portrayed 19th-century American life. It entailed the formation of a unique artistry before Joplin’s compositions could be recognized on their distinctive essence. In the contemporary period, listeners have appreciated ingenious artistry, one that enables them not just to appreciate, but generally to celebrate, no matter what, different renditions of vernacular types of music. This inclination is apparent not just—or even mainly—in jazz but in practically all modern styles and genres of artistic human works. However, even in open-minded, liberal period, the conflict between these two kinds of art persists to rage. This mechanism, the merging and conflict of European and African artistry will continue to exist as we unravel the intricate works of Scott Joplin. Works Cited Berlin, Edward. King of Ragtime: Scott Joplin and His Era. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Print. Bindas, Kenneth. America’s Musical Pulse: Popular Music in Twentieth-Century Society. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992. Print. Cardell, Victor. “Crazy for Ragtime.” Notes 54.2 (1997): 533-535. Print. Gioia, Ted. The History of Jazz. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Print. Haskins, James & Kathleen Benson. Scott Joplin. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1978. Print. Tawa, Nicholas. Mainstream Music of Early Twentieth Century America: The Composers, Their Times, and Their Works. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992. Print. The Columbia Encyclopedia. Joplin, Scott. The Columbia University Press, 2012. Print. Read More