To make this study more comprehensible, first we should define the term ragtime and investigate its roots and history. Ragtime is such a complex genre that its diversity causes problems when it comes to definition. There are many kinds of ragtime in existence. The style that we know as ragtime today, ie. classic ragtime, is just a tiny segment of all ragtime and related genres. As the great ragtime pianist, Eubie Blake (1883-1983) said:

'Anything that is syncopated is basically ragtime. I don't care whether it's Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody or Tchaikovsky (my favorite composer) in his Waltz of the Flowers.'(2)

This statement seems a bit exaggerated but can be defended in two ways. As definition of the genre 'ragtime' can be found in the title of many, musically diverse tunes. (Many times this only has business reasons.) The other fact is that ragtime- and jazz musicians have always played classical works transformed into their own genre.

What are those diverse tunes that could fit into the category of ragtime? Nowadays mostly the classic rags of Scott Joplin (1868-1917) and his contemporaries are treated as ragtime. These tunes contain sixteen-bar periods and are generally written in the A-A-B-B-A-C-C-D-D form. For the birth of the genre, the syncopated character mentioned by Eubie Blake is most important. Around the mid-19th century, when blacks in the northern part of the United States enjoyed greater freedom, whites started to show interest in their wild, exotic music. Because of the lack of instruments, blacks mostly accompanied their singing with rhythm instruments (or rhythmic effects), sometimes with the banjo. These songs included everything from work-songs through early-blues-type shouts to religious spirituals. This music was very different from the music of whites in sound, rhythm and its swing, thus it became popular very quickly and was regularly performed in cabarets and mostly in minstrel and vaudeville shows. These shows were late North American versions of commedia dell' arte, strange mixtures of cabaret, musical and circus show. Companies traveled from town to town and their most popular numbers were always the songs about blacks which were performed by so-called 'black faces' (whites painted black). These imitations sometimes had nothing to do with the original black melodies and rhythm but they no doubt had an important role in increasing the interest towards black culture. Even though purists might not welcome this phenomenon but if the 'music of the wilds' could only have been heard only in its original surroundings, white society would probably never have been so much interested in it. Minstrel companies occasionally included blacks as well and some were exclusively black (mostly vocal ensembles, barbershop quartets). They also gave concerts, and not only in the US but in Europe, too. (see next chapter)

Slaves were freed after 1865 as the result of the Civil War. This helped to increase the popularity of black music. It developed in two directions from then on: whites wanted to imitate the enviably emotional, rhythmically excited music of blacks, and blacks tried to be assimilated in many ways. They tried to show their equality also by studying serious music, especially piano, music theory and composition.

Slavery was over but the process was rather slow and depended on state laws, different local traditions, social order, work opportunities and money. Black music was a bit different in every place but it had the same exotic effect on whites in general. This led to the custom of black music being treated almost as a unified genre. This shows that in the United States the characteristics of the country which are still most widely recognized, such as uniformization, mass-production, commerce culture and predictability were already in existence in spite of the always strongly emphasized freedom. At the beginning, there was a differentiation between minstrel songs and vaudeville hits (even though many times there were no distinctive lines between the genres).(3) As their popularity increased, more and more white imitations were mixed with the original music, partly because whites indicated their own compositions as originals hoping for better sales. At the same time the titles (Niggergirl, In Jungletown etc.) need no explanation, they clearly show the scornful interest that whites had in black music. Social contempt and musical admiration at the same time made every black musical movement interesting. Obviously easily perceptible and thus commercially successful pieces became popular among whites. A bout the end of the last century the cake-walk(4) then, in the last years of the century the ragtime craze broke out.

Ragtime is most often defined as a genre of American origin, primarily piano music, Afro-American in rhythm, European in forms and harmonic patterns, with strongly syncopated melodies accompanied in the left hand by solid rhythms derived from marches. It is also a dance. This is mostly true but not enough, even if we only look at the etymology of the word, we have many variations. It is not my task to go into more details here but I can surely state that the style 'ragging' (ragging the melody) was an important feature in the style of all black musicians. This was the reason why at the end of the last century all black music was called ragtime. Even Louis Armstrong (1901-1971) remembered that he played ragtime in his childhood years as the word 'jazz' did not exist at the time so they called their own improvised music ragtime. The temporary lack of musical terminology doesn't mean that New Orleans jazz was actually ragtime but we must acknowledge that ragtime was played all over. Guitar and mandolin ensembles played ragtime, barrelhouse pianists, who couldn't read music and banged the same simple 16-bar melody on the keyboard for minutes, played ragtime, and musically well-trained and qualified black pianists played ragtime, too. Ragtime was played by village bands with basic musical knowledge. Most of the time they were not slaves to the music (if they could read at all) or well-known melodies. Ragtime musicians did improvise even though their music was often primitive and many times sounded similar to ancient cultic music, with repetitive rhythmic patterns. (These are important features of later jazz styles as well: e.g. stomp, riff.)(5)

From this diverse but harmonically poor, sometimes, despite its exoticism, rhythmically rather tedious and, within its limitations, improvised genre one man surely stands out. It is Scott Joplin and it was no chance he was called 'King of Ragtime'. His compositions surpass the works of all previous ragtime composers, his contemporaries and those who followed him. His success resulted from his distinguished musical knowledge.(6) Even though, according to the proof of his rare recordings, he played his own compositions a little differently than he wrote them down, we should not say he improvised. Most ragtime pianists did not. Mainly because from then on most ragtime pianists (or rather pianists who played ragtime) were white.

Due to the publishing business, the white middle class began to show increasing interest in ragtime. Mainly the Joplin-type classic ragtime was popular (Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag sold over one million copies) as classic ragtime was written in a format that whites understood easily and it was musically perfect within the style. Many other ragtime composers became successful, too. Most whites produced poor ragtime-imitations (like William H. Krell whose Mississippi Rag was the very first published rag) that did not have much in common with the more complex black ragtime pieces. And there were the pieces of black composers who were not musically literate so others put down their pieces. The result of these notations was many times far less interesting than the original works and also many of the (originally probably improvised) rhythmic variations were annoyingly simplified. (One of the best examples for this is the great Tom Turpin's Harlem Rag.)(7)

Most pieces were arranged and published for banjo and mandolin bands, many of them also for marching or concert bands. These versions are lesser known today but before the era of the radio and the phonograph, besides minstrel and vaudeville companies, marching bands were very important in the live popularization of the genre.(8) The fame of the concert band of John Philip Sousa (1854-1932) was later surpassed by the band of his previous trombone player Arthur Pryor (1870-1942). The Pryor Band recorded more than 2000 (!) tunes as the official band of Victor. Similarly popular was the orchestra of James Reese Europe (1881-1919), unbelievably successful as James Reese Europe's Castle House Orchestra and as Jim Europe's Hellfighters in London and Paris in the first two decades of the century. The popularity of these ensembles was supported by recordings from 1902 but the written, classically polished style still remained the 'real' ragtime. Everything was named 'ragtime' from ragtime dance and ragtime song to ragtime waltzes and ragtime marches.

But ragtime was more and more popular as piano music probably mostly because white ladies could play it this way, too. (Many 'how to play ragtime piano' educational works and simplified versions of the biggest hits were sold.) The genre developed over the years as long as it could. More pianistic rags were written (using more advanced harmonies, rhythmic patterns, sometimes even new forms), called 'novelty rags'.(9) Maybe the best examples of these are the tunes of Zez Confrey (1895-1971). The newer rags included elements of blues and jazz but in the late teens and the early twenties ragtime could not develop further so the jazz era took its place. A few composers continued to write rags and remained popular, such as the British Billy Mayerl (1902-1959). They composed jazzy rags that required great technical skill and their difficulties equalled the pianistically most advanced classical pieces. These examples, however, were rare.

The ragtime era, we could say, ended about 1920. It is hard to decide when it started, the beginning could be 1897, as many say, or much earlier. One thing is sure: this study cannot examine the never recorded and rarely published local styles such as Mississippi Valley Ragtime, Texas Ragtime, Country Ragtime etc. Those players were seldom educated in music thus the music of Liszt could not have had any influence on them. The same is true for the improvising jazz bands even though those musicians who were unable to read music, also played the most popular classical melodies of the era and Bunk Johnson learned and played ragtime tunes in New Orleans, too.

Openness and segregation, so characteristic of American society at the time, were present in ragtime as well. In spite of the obvious black roots, whites tried to imitate the style but at the same time they remained separate, seeing (and using) only the exotic elements of the music and trying to integrate it into their own musical way of thinking. Thus they felt ragtime as a totally Yankee American style. At the same time blacks kept their own music but also wanted to 'sell' it to the whites and incorporate elements of white music into their own style. The 'Ragtime Era' expression means the first two decades of the 20th century in the United States both musically and socially. This is very well captured in Doctorow's novel Ragtime.(10)