An Essay on Ragtime and Old-Time Definitions and Styles
by Bill Edwards:

Contents Copyright ©2000/2004/2008 by William G. Edwards

• Two Measure Phrasing: The majority of Tin Pan Alley or popular rags could be defined as having two measure phrases, where in some sections the same idea is utilized two measures at a time and repeated often. There is no direct continuity to link the phrases together to create a longer one. The main body of Euday Bowman's 12th Street Rag is a rather simplistic representation of this. Every two measures, the underlying chord changes, but the melody remains the same. Since there is no held syncopation over the bar line between the second and third measures, or the fourth and fifth measures, etc., the phrases are clearly defined as two measures. Classic ragtime composer James Scott generally favored two measure phrases. His phrases were defined by call and response patterns. His Frog Legs Rag contains two measure phrases for most of the A section, and the D section consists primarily of call and response or echo phrases, where a one measure theme is repeated an octave higher.
• Four Measure Phrasing: Some of the more classic and even popular rags in which, perhaps, a little extra thought was applied to themes, four measure phrases are more prevalent. In many cases, the melodic content of the line is carried over the bar line of the second to third measure in each theme, even if the basic idea is repeated. In other cases, the entire four measure phrase is a unique and complete melodic line. Scott Joplin used four measure phrasing in a great deal of his rags and marches. Good examples include the A section of Wall Street Rag and the C section or Trio of most of his rags, of which Fig Leaf Rag and Gladiolus Rag are excellent studies.
• Eight Measure Phrasing: The rarest of all, eight measure phrases require careful craftsmanship and strong melodic content so they don't collapse at any point in their length. This length of phrase was rarely found outside of the Classic Ragtime format. The best examples of these phrases are found largely in the rags of Joseph Lamb who had a true gift for extended melodies with underlying support provided by harmonic content. Two wonderful examples are the A section of American Beauty Rag and the A section of most of Top Liner Rag, both among the finest piano rags ever written. Listen for the general slope and curvature of the melody, as well as the contrasting but cooperating syncopations in both hands. Rags with eight measure phrases are much harder to memorize than others, but well worth the effort.

• Cakewalks: Cakewalks are actually a precursor of Ragtime that existed in some form from about 1895 to around 1908. A cakewalk often follows a derivative of an A A B B C Interlude C B B format, and is generally more jaunty than a march, but contains markedly less syncopation than a true rag. One major difference is that the syncopated patterns are usually contained within a half measure, rarely extending over the center point of a measure, and virtually never extending over to another measure. The first published "rags," The Louisiana Rag (Joseph Northrup) and The Mississippi Rag (William Krell) are actually cakewalks. The format was designed specifically to accompany a popular high-stepping dance of the day also known as the Cakewalk, and the tempos were generally around 85 to 95 metronome ticks per quarter in 2/4 time. A evening of cakewalk dance was typically a great social gathering, at which all in attendance wore their finest and brought their canes or umbrellas, which were used as an accessory of the dance. The winner of the dance contest literally was awarded a cake ("he takes the cake") as a prize. For a representative view of the clothing, see the cover of Alabama Dream. The tune of Alabama Dream is also a good example of a typical cakewalk.
• Folk Rags: As the title suggests, these are rags that are based on specific folk themes, or collections of well known tunes. They typically contain less continuity between sections, and often are little more than syncopated medleys. Many Mississippi and Ohio Valley rags could be considered folk rags. Some of the folk tunes date back to the first European settlers in America, as well as tunes adapted from days of slavery. The Appalachian and Ohio Valley areas were a good source for folk melodies. An early example of a folk rag would be either Blind Boone's Rag Medley 1 or Rag Medley 2. Scott Joplin's Pine Apple Rag is a good example of a couple of folk themes incorporated into a rag. E. Harry Kelley's Peaceful Henry is another example of an early rag that adapted folk melodies, and even potentially created some in the the process, including the opening strains of what would later become Jerome Kern's hit from Showboat, Old Man River.
• Classic Ragtime: This is the style generally associated with the rags of Scott Joplin and Joseph Lamb, pieces written or arranged by Artie Matthews, most of James Scott pieces, and a few assorted rags by other composers. These pieces are well structured, thematically coherent, usually well notated with dynamics and phrasing, and played at a controlled tempo of about 80 to 110 metronome ticks per quarter in 2/4. In most cases, the tempo marking is not numerical, but a suggestion such as Slow, Not Fast, or Slow March Tempo. (See the article on Ragtime Tempos for a more detailed analysis of that topic). Classic rags often make better listening material than they do dance music, and are intended for solo piano performance, although many good transcriptions have been produced for small orchestras or concert bands. The most prevalent publisher of "Classic Ragtime" was also the man who coined the term, John Stillwell Stark. His catalog featured all of the aforementioned composers, with the inclusion of many other fine pieces that fit in the same category.
• Popular or Tin Pan Alley Ragtime: Tin Pan Alley refers to a publisher's row in New York City where a great deal of music was "mass produced" from the late 1890s through at least the 1960s. Although the Alley reached its peak in the 1920s, lots of ragtime era pieces emerged from there by composers such as Thomas Lodge and George Botsford. A good example of a New York rag would be Botsford's Chatterbox Rag. However, the production of piano ragtime and ragtime songs of this style was not limited to New York publishing houses. Prolific composers such as Charles L. Johnson of Kansas City turned out pieces of moderate to high quality on a regular basis that were meant largely for dancing. These pieces would often create minor dance crazes, and were generally simplified so that the demonstrators working at Woolworths or similar stores could easily play and sell them. Mainstream rags of this type were also generally played faster, largely because of their simplicity, and in an effort to keep pace with an ever-accelerating society. The most widely used device in these rags was the secondary rag theme utilizing the three over four pattern. Two excellent examples of this are Johnson's Dill Pickles Rag and George Botsford's Black and White Rag.
• Intermezzo: This is the difficult step-sibling of ragtime and related forms. An intermezzo is not as strict as a march, often contains some level of syncopation, and retains the format of the piano rag. A strict definition is hard to pin down, but in short it can be considered an multi-sectioned instrumental piece for piano that is less strict than a march, less syncopated than a rag, and less suited for dancing. Another possible way to state it would be as a "parlor piece," intended more for listening, or the pianists enjoyment, than anything else. Many ragtime composers also turned out intermezzos, and many intermezzo composers ocassionally turned out a rag. Some cwould cross the line between the two, as with Scott Joplin's piece The Chrysanthemum. A better example of a non-syncopated interezzo would be The Gondolier by William C. Polla. Perhaps two of the most famous intermezzos of the ragtime era were both Indian-themed pieces, although the first one, Hiawatha by Charles N. Daniels was intended to be a train piece. The other, Red Wing by Kerry Mills, was intended as such, and became highly popular as both an intermezzo and a song. Given the sheer volume of intermezzos during the ragtime era, and the enormous sales they garnered, their importance should not be discounted as a contributing factor to the whole of popular music.
• Early Blues: Two composer/performers dominated this particular field in the beginning. They were William Christopher (W.C.) Handy and Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton, though there were a few others like Joseph "King" Oliver and Artie Matthews that were early contributors. The early blues were actually rags that contained one or more sections of the familiar twelve bar blues chord progression (I IV I I IV IV I I V IV I I or a variation thereof) with a syncopated melody. There were also some songs, particularly tunes by Nat Ayers, that used twelve bar verses in the blues pattern. The blues-named pieces were comprised of multiple sections in two different keys, much as rags were, but also utilized "blue notes" which were meant to convey pitches somewhere in the cracks between major and minor. To obtain this affect without the benefit of sliding notes or a vocal line, modes were often shifted from one measure to the next, or grace notes were used to emphasize approximately where the note should be. W.C. Handy's Beale Street Blues demonstrates this format and technique effectively.
• Stomps: The stomp was allegedly named by Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton, though others recorded and sometimes wrote down similarly styled pieces. It is a related derivative of Ragtime that was more melodically free form in nature, usually with a slight swing, and often played in the same key throughout. Some stomps were built around blues riffs, but the bulk of the were derived from ragtime format. While the feeling in ragtime is often more of a march with nearly equal emphasis on bass notes and chords, the stomp tends to emphasize the bass on the first and third beats of a measure. Many performers accomplished this, as demonstrated in period recordings, by stomping those beats with their left foot while they played. Given that the stomp was one of the three composition forms commonly used by "Jelly Roll" Morton (along with blues and Spanish-tinged pieces), he is most heavily associated with them. An interesting adaptation of a rag to a stomp is Mortons Maple Leaf Stomp, while his Grandpa's Spells conveys the feeling with much aplomb. His common-law brother-in-law, Ollie "Dink" Johnson, was also a proponent of the style, having recorded Stomp de Low Down.
• Novelty Ragtime: Novelty Rags are melodically and/or rhythmically complex, performed fast, or all of the above. Actually, they are made up more of repeated riffs and patterns than anything else, including melodies, but the execution of these at a forward-moving tempo is what is difficult. Many date the origin of this style to Felix Arndt's 1915 charmer Nola, but composers such as George Botsford and Julius Lenzberg were turning out pieces of similar complexity around the same time. Most of the Ragtime of the 1920s consisted of novelty pieces, with the movement headed by the prolific Edward Elzear "Zez" Confrey and England's Billy Mayerl, with some significant contributions from roll-pianist Roy Bargy. The most common venue of performance for these pieces was on piano rolls or phonograph records. This was necessary, as the average pianist capable of pounding out Dill Pickles Rag often lacked the technical expertise or dexterity to play the novelties as written. A classic example of the novelty piano piece is Confrey's Kitten On The Keys. Composer Robin Frost is continuing this tradition into the 21st century by writing fabulous novelties, many intended for MIDI performance.
• Stride Piano: A very demanding method of piano playing, Stride is derived directly from Ragtime, and it evolved largely from artists who cut Ragtime and popular song piano rolls. Up until 1912 or so, most piano rolls were produced mathematically and one chord at a time with a ruler and a special paper punch. The arrangers often filled in the pieces with extra notes to fatten up the sound and sell more rolls of a particular piece than their competitor. Once machines were invented that could mark up paper of an editable live performance in a fraction of the time, rolls could be turned out for sale much faster and feature well-known artists or composers to boot. However, to match the fat sound of previously produced rolls, the artists hired to play and arrange them (including George Gershwin, Edward Elzear "Zez" Confrey, and James P. Johnson) needed to broaden their playing style. These techniques became a part of and helped to evolve the genre of Stride Piano. It is also said that during "rent parties" of the 1920s that the host wanted a band but could not afford one, so he hired pianists who worked hard to emulate it, thus helping to further cultivate the style. Melodies in Stride are often played more chordally, instead of extended single melodic lines with occasional harmony notes. The bass notes are typically lower than in Ragtime scores, and the use of tenths as opposed to just octaves or single bass notes is inherent. The left hand chords are often centered at or above Middle C, unlike Ragtime chords which are more often confined to the octave below and around Middle C. The visual aspect of the amount of motion the left hand was required to repeatedly travel in order to create this sound helped give Stride Piano its name. James P. Johnson's Carolina Shout has long been the general benchmark on which budding Stride pianists cut their teeth. A good example of Stride writing using minimal melodic elements and lots of rhythm is Johnson's Mule Walk Stomp. Johnson was soon followed by Thomas "Fats" Waller, whose A Handful of Keys raised the bar once again for stride and jazz pianists.
• Contemporary Ragtime: As with jazz, trying to pin down contemporary ragtime is exceedingly difficult. In general, it is similar to both classic and popular rags composed during the ragtime era, but incorporates newer compositional ideas from later in the 20th century, and is often more free-form in style. More generally, it is ragtime written since the ragtime era, but even some contemporary rags (including the author's own Hanon Rag) could readily be classified as popular or novelty ragtime. There are also some free-form offshoots of mainstream contemporary ragtime composition, the most notable one being Terra Verde, championed in part by David Thomas Roberts and Scott Kirby. While composers such as the author, Dave Jasen, Trebor Tichenor, and many others have penned many tunes that would fit well within the ragtime era, there are a few notable composers who have expanded several elements of the genre into something very contemporary sounding. William Bolcom is known for his well-conceived creations such as Graceful Ghost, Seabiscuits, and his Pulitzer Prize winning Garden of Eden, a collection of syncopated vignettes. Max Morath helped lead the way with gems such as One for Amelia and Polyragmic. Glenn Jenks has a great touch which blends the familiar with the new, and includes innovations such as The Wrong Rag and Harbour Rag. Still, one of the leaders in changing the sound of ragtime to something more sophisticated was Eubie Blake, whose Dicty's on Seventh Avenue blends mathematical and formulaic methods of writing with a ragtime style that he created when ragtime was still new. His rags written since that time, including the beautiful Rhapsody in Ragtime further reflect this progressive thinking. There is a new breed of 21st century ragtime composers, including young Hamish Davidson of Australia, who may yet take ragtime a step further in evolution. Might YOU be one of them?