![]() Its syncopated rhythm was an exciting departure from the usual order and regularity of waltzes, marches, hymns and dreamy ballads. Instead of Victorian genteel self control, ragtime’s rhythmic exuberance created an irresistible urge to dance. It was a racy alternative to the stuffy, respectable Victorian parlor music. By 1893 people wanted to break free from the restraints of traditional, Victorian culture. Ragtime music originally derived from spirituals and minstrel songs. In 1893 he visited the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, a huge world’s fair, where he formed his 1st band, playing cornet, and piano, and made orchestrations for the band. It was filled with saloons, gambling houses and bordellos, where musicians were in constant demand. Louis, then known as “The Gateway to the West”. ![]() He found steady employment in the brothels of the red light districts throughout the mid-south. He just got his music out of the air.”Īround age 20 he quit his job with the railroad, where he had been working as a laborer and became a traveling musician. He made up his own, and it was beautiful. He did not have to play anyone else’s music. One of his friends recalled “Scott worked on his music all the time. He was a quiet, introverted person, yet he had a magnetic personality that attracted people to him. Joplin played at church gatherings, taught guitar and mandolin, and at 16 formed a vocal quartet. Weiss money when he became old and sick until his teacher’s death. Joplin never forgot him, and later in life, sent Prof. He also helped Joplin’s mother buy a used piano for the boy to practice on at home. He tutored him in folk music, sight-reading, harmony, composition and the music of classical composers. Weiss taught Joplin for free from age 11 to age 16. He soon attracted the attention of Julius Weiss, a German Jewish immigrant who had been hired to tutor the children of a wealthy landowner. I won’t have anything to do with such foolishness. When a bunch of boys got together one night and asked Scott to go with them, he said ‘No sir. A family friend recalled: “Scott was earnest. As a boy, he spent the money he earned doing errands and odd jobs on popular sheet music. His parents didn’t get along, and his father left the family when Scott was 12. He had perfect pitch and his talent was noticed by some of the local music teachers, who gave him lessons for little or no pay. However, the Joplin children received private tutoring, paid for with food.īy age 7 Scott Joplin became proficient on the banjo and began accompanying his mother to the home of a white family, where she did domestic work, and where he was allowed to play their piano. ![]() It was considered the lowest position for a white person to be a teacher of Blacks. The few that existed were frequently attacked and burned. Therefore there was tremendous opposition to schools for African Americans. His mother was a maid, played the banjo and sang.Īfter the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, African Americans were blamed for what their former slave owners lost economically. His father an ex-slave worked as a laborer for the railroad and played violin. In 1983, the US Postal Service issued a stamp of Scott Joplin in its Black Heritage series.Scott Joplin was born in Northeast Texas in 1868 and grew up in Texarkana. Joplin's triumph came many years after his death, with the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for his special contribution to American music. The film's theme song, "The Entertainer," reached number three on the Billboard 100 list of popular hits. Widespread interest came with the 1974 movie The Sting, which featured adaptations of Joplin's rags by popular composer Marvin Hamlisch. Classical pianist Joshua Rifkin released a recording of Joplin rags in 1971 that became nominated for a Grammy award, and the public was finally reintroduced to Joplin in the context he had desired: not as a _ stereotype, but as a serious composer who had _ the _ of _. A more significant revival, which placed Scott Joplin finally in the ranks of major American composers, began in the 1970s. New rags were composed in the manner of light-hearted novelties. There was a nostalgic craze in the 1950s starting with publication of the book They All Played Ragtime: The True Story of an American Music. Two decades later, jazz bands began reviving some ragtime tunes in the 1940s.
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