Ragtime!

Ragtime is an incredibly upbeat, jazzed-up, feel-good musical genre that was most popular between 1897 and 1918. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of several American cities lie St. Louis and New Orleans, even years before ragtime music was published as popular piano sheet music.

Known as the “King of Rag,” Scott Joplin became famous after his publication of “Maple Leaf Rag” in 1899. Maple Leaf Rag was a heavy influence on subsequent ragtime composers and their publications for years and years afterward because of the piece’s melody and harmonic progressions.

Here is my very own interpretation of Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag.

Advanced Piano

Scott Joplin: Collected Piano Works

If you are interested in stepping into the ragtime genre, there is no better composer to study than Scott Joplin. I recommend Scott Joplin: Collected Piano Works for a complete collection of Joplin’s greatest works, including rags, marches, and waltzes. This piano sheet music book has received a 5-star rating and is meant for those players who are in the early advanced stage of playing.

Medium Piano

Ragtime Favourites by Scott Joplin – Piano Accompaniment

For those who are not quite advanced, but past the beginner stage, there are several arranged Joplin pieces to fit your level. Ragtime Favourites by Scott Joplin – Piano Accompaniment is meant for the medium-level piano player. It includes 36 pages of amazing rags that are not too difficult, but not too easy for those who need the challenge.

Easy Piano

Joplin’s Greatest Rags For Easy Piano

Now, what if you’re just a beginner? You can still enjoy learning ragtime pieces. In my earlier piano days, I learned several easy ragtime pieces that were specifically arranged to for beginner piano players, with the same great sound of the original composition. If you’re looking for easy ragtime music, I really recommend Joplin’s Greatest Rags For Easy Piano. You don’t have to be an expert pianist to tackle these pieces.


The original publication of Maple Leaf Rag (which I played in the YouTube video) is a grade 9-level piece. When I first started learning this piece, I was studying for my grade 7 conservatory exam. This just goes to show that when you really want something, and you really discipline yourself to study the piece and practice often, you can achieve anything. Luckily, I was prepared with enough technical expertise and training to go beyond my grade-level to learn how to play this piece.

Elise’s Musical Tip For The Day:

Don’t be intimidated by the fast-paced movements and detached notes of the ragtime genre. If you are really interested in learning ragtime pieces, look at it as if it were a magnificent challenge, and don’t let anything hold you back. Focus on the easy or medium level Joplin pieces if you are not ready to tackle the original advanced compositions. You’ll be happy you did! Ragtime is one of the best genres of music that can help you feel happy, perky, and really good about yourself.

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Analytics Vs. Artistry

It’s true, there were very few great pianists who could master the art of teaching piano, as they spent their entire lives mastering their own training and artistry. Learning and teaching are essential parts of exploring science. However, some of the most well-known pianists who had not received sufficient teaching training were actually pushed into teaching.

By human nature and throughout history, we have looked up to these great composers and pianists for guidance and piece of mind in how we relate to learning piano. If they can do it, they should be able to show us how, right? If you asked a famous pianist how to play a certain piece, he or she would sit down at the piano and play it. Notice that the language of the pianist is spoken by the hand and the piano, as opposed to the mouth.

Not only that, but that pianist may also be completely unaware about how exactly the fingers are moving in the right way to manipulate the piano keys. It literally takes the ability to control thousands of muscles and nerves in the fingers, hands, and forearms to learn how to manipulate the keys the proper way.

Acquiring technical skills can come from two different extremes. The first is the analytical extreme, where every movement and muscle is analyzed. The other is the artistic extreme, where the piano player discovers his or her own way of expressing musicality through body motions and feelings, thus acquiring the correct movements to execute proper piano playing.

And so, technique through the artistic extreme is difficult to communicate to students, because it’s acquired through completely personal and nonlinear musical aspects. Still, even knowing the proper and analytical practice methods is not enough. The correct explanations as to why they work are needed, which usually lies outside the expertise of the pianist.

There seems to be a gap in the development of proper teaching tools. The artist or the piano teachers lack training to develop these tools, but scientists and engineers who may have such training lack piano experience and artistry for teaching piano.

We can’t deny that some of the most well-known pianists of all time were indeed geniuses. Many discovered and theorized new ways of incorporating mathematics and physics to improve piano playing, so we can’t say that absolutely no analytical aspects were combined with artistry in piano playing.

These long-developed and even re-invented technical piano playing aspects have actually never been documented historically in a systematic way as they have evolved over the years. Piano teachers struggle to teach because it’s very difficult to hold the artistic approach while trying to identify what correct theoretical explanations work for teaching practice methods. And unfortunately, without a sound explanation for why these work can cause the teacher and the student to misuse or misunderstand the right practice methods.

This is why no other piano practice methods have been developed throughout history. Learning and understanding why a certain practice method works, is just as important as the method itself.

Elise’s Musical Tip For The Day:

Do you ever see a really great piano player and just think that they have been blessed with pure, amazing talent? Well, don’t. Most conservatories do not accept students unless they are of advanced levels, yet without proper conservatory training, many students are unable to attain the skills required to be accepted. A grey area has been created by the lack of good piano teaching methods, directly translating into a “lack of talent.” When this is all taken into account, it becomes more evident to see why some of the greatest pianists of all time could not teach piano.

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Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770 - 1827)

Ever since I was little, I have always been infatuated with Beethoven’s famous piano solo, “Fur Elise”.

I remember when I was sitting on the floor in a circle with my music class in grade 2, my music teacher started talking about a famous piano solo written by Beethoven.

“It’s named after someone in this class,” she said. I looked down at the floor thinking to myself, “It’s definitely not me.”

Then, to my surprise, she looked at me and said, “Elise!”

From then on, I’ve always loved this piece, even though I’ve annoyed myself by listening to it so much and spending my time in elementary school trying to learn it. I always felt like this was “my piece.” I did end up learning it and playing it for a piano recital, but I haven’t played it in years. I would have to re-learn some parts of it.

There’s no doubt about it that Beethoven is one of the most famous composers of all time, and “Fur Elise” is one of his most well-known piano solos. A beautiful piece, the three-page long Bagatelle in A-minor has been played all over the world and social media, even found to be popular as a downloadable mobile phone ringtone.Thousands upon thousands of piano players over the past couple of centuries have bought up Fur Elise sheet music, tapes, and CDs to enjoy for themselves.

Although the piece can still be heard very often these days, many don’t know about the mystery that surrounded it. The manuscript of Beethoven’s Fur Elise was not discovered until 40 years after he passed, so there was no way to identify the exact origins of the piece. From the German language, “Fur Elise” translates directly to “For Elise,” suggesting an obvious dedication. Historians and researchers never did identify exactly who “Elise” was.

Just recently, a German musicologist claimed that he finally discovered the true identity of the mysterious woman from Fur Elise. Renowned “Beethoven expert,”  Klaus Martin Kopitz, says that the woman of Beethoven’s famous dedication went by the full name of Elisabeth Roecekl (1793 – 1883).

According to Koptiz, Elisabeth was a German soprano and sister to the tenor, Joseph August Roeckel, who played the part of Florestan from a performance of “Fidelio,” which he conducted in Vienna during 1806.

In 1807, Elisabeth accompanied her brother to Vienna where joined the composer’s inner circle. Later on in life, she had actually married Beethoven’s friend and musical rival, composer Johann Nepomuk Hummel.

Kopitz explained that Elisabeth was also known by the shorter name, Elise. This has been backed up by an entry in the christening records of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, located in Vienna. At the time of christening, she was named “Maria Eva Elise,” suggesting the fact that she was most likely known as “Elise” in Vienna, as opposed to “Elisabeth.”

As Kopitz goes on, he explains that both Beethoven and Elise shared a close friendship when he wrote Fur Elise in 1810. There was no other woman in Beethoven’s life by the name of Elise. There was also evidence noting that Elisabeth communicated that “during a dinner party,” Beethoven “would pinch my arm out of sheer affection.” Before Beethoven’s death in 1827, Elise had even kept a lock of his hair and allowed herself to be presented with one of his final quills.

Elise’s Musical Tip For The Day:

To me, this discovery has opened my eyes completely. Listen to the piece. You can actually “feel” the different emotions in the piece. It starts out slow and beautiful, perhaps Beethoven is trying to express Elise’s gentle personality or nature. The piece suddenly changes, to a fast and almost angry state. In my interpretation, maybe Beethoven is expressing his jealousy and anger toward Hummel, his rival and husband of Elise. Then, the piece returns to its original melody, maybe suggesting that even through Beethoven’s jealousy, he still loves and respects her. The piece goes on to change to a playful sound, which could reflect the good times that Beethoven and Elise spent together as friends. Finally, the piece returns to the main melody once again to finish the piece.

It’s interesting to make your own interpretations of music, especially with some knowledge about the history of the piece and the composer. See if you can understand what I mean by listening to the piece, or listen to some other classical pieces and try to interpret them for yourself.

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Now, just to clear some things up here. I am NOT super talented. If I was, I would have been able to learn this piece within a week (or a couple of days), and would have been able to play it flawlessly, every time, with perfect flowing motion and rhythm. The flowing motion that I am doing right now bothers me a little. I want it PERFECT. I will have to slow this piece way, way, way down to practice the flowiness to get it just right. THEN I will sound like a real concert pianist (maybe).

Anyways, there are a few flubs in here (see if you can pick them out… no wait, don’t), but I’m pretty okay with it. If I ever do master the flowing speed, I may try re-taping this thing. I hope you enjoy my amazing transition effects and whatnot. (Ha ha.)

Elise’s Musical Tip For The Day:

I dare you to tackle Clair De Lune. It’s a great challenge. It looks quite easy, but man, those hand-flowing motions and arpeggiated chords get me every time. And you REALLY have to develop your own sense of musicality for this piece. It sounds beautiful, but considering I’ve heard myself play it a million times now, I’m kind of sick of it for the time being. (That usually happens to me with any piece I need to practice over and over and over again.) I hope you do enjoy this performance, though, and I hope it sort of inspires you readers to keep playing the piano, no matter how hard or frustrating it may seem

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Maple Leaf Rag was composed by Scott Joplin, an African-American composer and pianist from Texas during the first post-slavery generation. He is most known for his amazing ragtime compositions and was even dubbed “King of Ragtime.”

Scott Joplin (1867 - 1917)

He wrote 44 different ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas. Maple Leaf Rag was one of his first ragtime pieces, and it became ragtime’s first and most influential composition.

Scott Joplin possessed an incredible ability to improvise at the piano; a skill that defines music of jazz and ragtime genres. He was mostly inspired by the music that he was surrounded with, including gospel and spiritual music, dance music, plantation songs, syncopated rhythms, blues, and choruses.

In 1894, he moved to Missouri and began working as a pianist in the Maple Leaf Club and the Black 400. These were social clubs for “respectable black gentlemen.” In 1899, Joplin composed the original and first major hit, Maple Leaf Rag.

Maple Leaf Rag was an immediate success and served as a model for the hundreds of ragtime compositions to come in the future. As the first instrumental to sell over one million copies of sheet music, Maple Leaf Rag really put Joplin right on the top of the list of ragtime performers, and even moved ragtime into a popular musical form.

Although Joplin composed over 40 ragtime pieces, many did not get the exposure they probably deserved as compared to Maple Leaf Rag. Joplin apparently realized that his music was ahead of its time, and he came to the conclusion that he would not be much of a popular hero during his own lifetime.

Joplin once said, “When I’m dead twenty-five years, people are going to recognize me.” Thirty years later, he was indeed recognized. Historian Rudi Blesh wrote a large book about ragtime, which he dedicated to the memory of Scott Joplin, “King of Ragtime.”

I absolutely love listening to Joplin’s ragtime pieces, and of course, Maple Leaf Rag is my favourite. I can play the entire piece, except for two lines which I skipped learning years ago because I was in a hurry to learn the piece for a piano recital. I had to skip a section in order to make good time for practicing. I’m learning it now, and I’m hoping it won’t take too long to master. It will be a real achievement once I can play the entire piece, including the section I skipped.

Elise’s Musical Tip For The Day:

A lot of people focus on the few popular genres in piano music, such as classical, contemporary, popular, and jazz. I’d like to encourage people to listen to some ragtime pieces, and even expand on that by trying to learn some through sheet music. Sometimes I think that a lot of people forget about ragtime because there are not as many pieces out there, and many piano players are intimidated by the quick-step rhythm of the pieces. The music also has a really “old” feel, and even kind of a goofy personality to it. Usually, when you hear ragtime music, it’s paired up with a video clip of a fast-forwarded black and white historical clip. Ragtime, in my opinion, is a bit of neglected genre in piano these days, and I definitely plan on learning more ragtime pieces in the near future. You can find Maple Leaf Rag and other works by Joplin in the book, Scott Joplin: Collected Piano Works by Scott Joplin.

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Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770 - 1827)

Ludwig Van Beethoven is one of the greatest pianists and composers of all time. Born in 1770, he contributed to the shaping and development of music in its universality. His father and grandfather were musicians, so it seemed best fit that Beethoven would follow this destiny as well. His talents  had been evident since he was 4 years old.

Beethoven began studying the piano, organ, violin, and viola. He excelled greatly with the piano and organ. By the time he was 11 years old, the composer Christian Gotthof Neefe (organist and band master of the court) took Beethoven as his pupil. He helped broaden his background in music and also encouraged him to compose.

Still a young child, Beethoven became Neefe’s assistant at the organ. He also assisted in the Elector’s personal theatre orchestra and was later hired as a band master.

With the help of these experiences and assisting some other families, Beethoven was sent to study in Vienna. Only here was he first identified as a truly skilled pianist, and many saw the unusual musical power he possessed.

Beethoven’s musical creation can be divided into three separate periods of time. The first period includes Beethoven’s first twenty musical works. His minuet from the 1^st Symphony and the Sonata for piano opera 10 no. 3 include a direct affective involvement and almost suggest sort of a romantic feeling.

The second period starts with the 3^rd Symphony. At this time, Beethoven appears as an expert of musical form. He establishes his own rules during this period, and the form of the sonata indeed determined the musical evolution of all composers.

The third period implements the last five chords quartets. Piano sonatas “Diabelli Variations,” “Missa Solemnis,” and the 9^th Symphony are all works that were written to justify Beethoven’s musical, artistic, and intellectual abilities, rather than for the purpose of sounding pleasurable to the human ear. These works appealed to several concepts and symbols.

Elise’s Musical Tip For The Day:

Beethoven’s music is interesting to listen to. I would suggest downloading or purchasing his symphonies and piano solos and listening to them whenever you can. Some are very beautiful and relaxing, while others are very out of the ordinary and really get you thinking about music. I suggest getting Beethoven: The Complete Symphonies and Piano Concertos, as it offers the best value and most variety of his musical works. Also, if you’re looking for something fun to show off your musical intelligence and love of Beethoven, visit the Everything Piano Shop, where you can find some great T-shirts and accessories with a Beethoven logo and a funny caption. I actually designed these myself and I’m looking to add more soon.

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