Intermediate
Universal Rag
2:52
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Browse piano sheets by Frank Wooster on Zen Virtual Piano. Copying an idea originated by the New York publisher Harry Von Tilzer, Frank Wooster put his picture on the cover of most of his pieces, with the caption “Frank Wooster - Trade Mark.” Putting your own face on a cover with the words “Trade Mark” treats the publisher as the brand and the pieces as its goods. The Frank Wooster Co., Music Publishers, set up shop in the Commonwealth Trust building at Broadway and Olive streets in St. Louis in 1905 with his first pieces, including “Universal Rag” and “The Brownie Rag.” Wooster was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the only child of Henry Wooster and Josephine Bartholomew. He was an accounts collector for a local hat store before he got the idea that he wanted to go into the music business. He wrote “Brownie Rag” with another Missouri native, Max Wilkins. A move from collecting hat-store accounts to starting a publishing house suggests a path into the music business through enterprise. After two years in St. Louis, funded largely by “Black Cat Rag” and a couple of recordings of his “Universal Rag,” Wooster tried to establish himself in Manhattan, which at that time was a brutal environment for the independent publisher. A Manhattan attempt funded largely by one rag and a couple of recordings suggests a venture that depended on a narrow base of income. Around 1913 he decided on a change of pace that still involved the publishing business, and he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he started working with the Osborne Company, which produced advertising calendars. Leaving sheet music for calendars while remaining in publishing suggests how portable a publisher’s skills can be.
Browse piano sheets by Frank Wooster on Zen Virtual Piano.
Copying an idea originated by the New York publisher Harry Von Tilzer, Frank Wooster put his picture on the cover of most of his pieces, with the caption “Frank Wooster - Trade Mark.” Putting your own face on a cover with the words “Trade Mark” treats the publisher as the brand and the pieces as its goods. The Frank Wooster Co., Music Publishers, set up shop in the Commonwealth Trust building at Broadway and Olive streets in St. Louis in 1905 with his first pieces, including “Universal Rag” and “The Brownie Rag.”
Wooster was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the only child of Henry Wooster and Josephine Bartholomew. He was an accounts collector for a local hat store before he got the idea that he wanted to go into the music business. He wrote “Brownie Rag” with another Missouri native, Max Wilkins. A move from collecting hat-store accounts to starting a publishing house suggests a path into the music business through enterprise.
After two years in St. Louis, funded largely by “Black Cat Rag” and a couple of recordings of his “Universal Rag,” Wooster tried to establish himself in Manhattan, which at that time was a brutal environment for the independent publisher. A Manhattan attempt funded largely by one rag and a couple of recordings suggests a venture that depended on a narrow base of income.
Around 1913 he decided on a change of pace that still involved the publishing business, and he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he started working with the Osborne Company, which produced advertising calendars. Leaving sheet music for calendars while remaining in publishing suggests how portable a publisher’s skills can be.
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A music publishing house that Frank Wooster set up in the Commonwealth Trust building at Broadway and Olive streets in St. Louis in 1905, with “Universal Rag” and “The Brownie Rag” among its first pieces.
He copied an idea originated by the New York publisher Harry Von Tilzer, putting his picture on the cover of most of the pieces with the caption “Frank Wooster - Trade Mark.”
Around 1913 he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, to work with the Osborne Company, which produced advertising calendars.