Intermediate
Maple Leaf Rag
2:53
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Browse piano sheets by Scott Joplin on Zen Virtual Piano. Before the “Maple Leaf Rag” was published, Joplin anticipated that it would be a success; he told Arthur Marshall that “The Maple Leaf will make me the king of ragtime composers.” The rag, copyright registered on September 18, 1899, is an early ragtime piece for piano that became the model for later ragtime compositions. After approaching several publishers, Joplin signed a contract with John Stark. A boast made before publication, and a contract that came only after several publishers had been approached, set confidence beside a path to publication that ran through several approaches. Joplin considered ragtime to be a form of classical music meant to be played in concert halls, and he largely disdained the performance of ragtime as honky tonk music, most common in saloons. Calling ragtime classical music while expecting success for his own rag suggests a composer who wanted the form judged by the standard of the concert repertory. In Sedalia, Missouri, in 1895, he studied music at the George R. Smith College for Negroes and hoped for a career as a concert pianist and classical composer. The hope of a concert-hall career beside ragtime’s stated honky tonk performance context marks the distance between his ideal and the settings he disdained. His first opera, A Guest of Honor (1903), is no longer extant, and Treemonisha had only one semipublic performance during his lifetime. Joplin spent his childhood in northeastern Texas, and by 1880 his family had moved to Texarkana, where he studied piano with local teachers. His teacher Weiss, impressed by his talent and realizing the family’s dire straits, taught him free of charge from the age of 11 until he turned 16, introducing him to folk and classical music. Free lessons from a teacher who saw the family’s circumstances put a classical foundation under a boy who would later write rags. In 1900 Joplin moved to St. Louis to work more closely with John Stark; there he collaborated with Scott Hayden on four rags. Moving to New York City in 1907, he wrote an instruction book, The School of Ragtime. In 1914 he and Lottie self-published his “Magnetic Rag” as the Scott Joplin Music Company. Writing an instruction book and later publishing his own music suggest a composer taking control of how ragtime was taught and sold. His reputation rests on his classic rags for piano, including “Maple Leaf Rag” and “The Entertainer,” published from 1899 through 1909, and on Treemonisha; the use of his music in the film The Sting stimulated interest in the 1970s, and he was posthumously awarded a special Pulitzer Prize in 1976.
Browse piano sheets by Scott Joplin on Zen Virtual Piano.
Before the “Maple Leaf Rag” was published, Joplin anticipated that it would be a success; he told Arthur Marshall that “The Maple Leaf will make me the king of ragtime composers.” The rag, copyright registered on September 18, 1899, is an early ragtime piece for piano that became the model for later ragtime compositions. After approaching several publishers, Joplin signed a contract with John Stark. A boast made before publication, and a contract that came only after several publishers had been approached, set confidence beside a path to publication that ran through several approaches.
Joplin considered ragtime to be a form of classical music meant to be played in concert halls, and he largely disdained the performance of ragtime as honky tonk music, most common in saloons. Calling ragtime classical music while expecting success for his own rag suggests a composer who wanted the form judged by the standard of the concert repertory. In Sedalia, Missouri, in 1895, he studied music at the George R. Smith College for Negroes and hoped for a career as a concert pianist and classical composer. The hope of a concert-hall career beside ragtime’s stated honky tonk performance context marks the distance between his ideal and the settings he disdained. His first opera, A Guest of Honor (1903), is no longer extant, and Treemonisha had only one semipublic performance during his lifetime.
Joplin spent his childhood in northeastern Texas, and by 1880 his family had moved to Texarkana, where he studied piano with local teachers. His teacher Weiss, impressed by his talent and realizing the family’s dire straits, taught him free of charge from the age of 11 until he turned 16, introducing him to folk and classical music. Free lessons from a teacher who saw the family’s circumstances put a classical foundation under a boy who would later write rags.
In 1900 Joplin moved to St. Louis to work more closely with John Stark; there he collaborated with Scott Hayden on four rags. Moving to New York City in 1907, he wrote an instruction book, The School of Ragtime. In 1914 he and Lottie self-published his “Magnetic Rag” as the Scott Joplin Music Company. Writing an instruction book and later publishing his own music suggest a composer taking control of how ragtime was taught and sold. His reputation rests on his classic rags for piano, including “Maple Leaf Rag” and “The Entertainer,” published from 1899 through 1909, and on Treemonisha; the use of his music in the film The Sting stimulated interest in the 1970s, and he was posthumously awarded a special Pulitzer Prize in 1976.
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Common questions
Before it was published he told Arthur Marshall that “The Maple Leaf will make me the king of ragtime composers.”
As a form of classical music meant to be played in concert halls; he largely disdained its performance as honky tonk music, most common in saloons.
An instruction book Joplin wrote after moving to New York City in 1907.