Ragtime was the first music of African American derivation that crossed over to reach a wide white audience (discounting the clichéd, bastardized music used in minstrel shows), and it did so at a time of deeply entrenched discrimination and segregation. In the motion-picture theaters that were springing up in the early years of the twentieth century, ragtime piano players provided live accompaniment for many silent Motion pictures and ragtime music films. In ragtime’s heyday, the music was played everywhere-from honky-tonks and clubs to middle-class parlors. (“Syncopated” refers to rhythms that accent the offbeats, rather than the regular beats that are normally accented.) The steady, even rhythms played by the left hand provide the basis for the syncopated melodies and counter-rhythms supplied by the right hand. The pulse and bounce of ragtime is achieved by a balancing of rhythms between the pianist’s left and right hands. The most immediately distinctive feature of ragtime music is its bouncy, syncopated rhythm. Joplin, Scott Ragtime music Music ragtime African Americans music Joplin Popularizes Ragtime Music and Dance (1899) Popularizes Ragtime Music and Dance, Joplin (1899) Ragtime Music and Dance, Joplin Popularizes (1899) Music and Dance, Joplin Popularizes Ragtime (1899) Dance, Joplin Popularizes Ragtime Music and (1899) Joplin, Scott Ragtime music Music ragtime African Americans music United States 1899: Joplin Popularizes Ragtime Music and Dance Music 1899: Joplin Popularizes Ragtime Music and Dance Dance 1899: Joplin Popularizes Ragtime Music and Dance Scott, James Stark, John Copies of the sheet music for rags and ragtime songs, written by scores of composers, both black and white, were sold by the thousands.

The irresistible instrumental composition quickly became a national success and ushered in a ragtime craze that swept the United States in the early years of the twentieth century. In 1899, the tiny midwestern publishing company John Stark & Son published a piece of piano music entitled “Maple Leaf Rag” by a little-known African American pianist and composer named Scott Joplin. Ragtime, the first truly American form of music, greatly influenced the development of jazz. Scott Joplin’s ragtime composition “Maple Leaf Rag,” the first song to sell more than one million copies of sheet music in the United States, ignited a musical and dance craze that swept the country.

Ragtime songs