Genre Analysis Paper

Capristo 1
Jason Capristo
Instructor: Malcolm Campbell
UWRT 1100
September 9, 2014
Analysis Time Rag
Listen to music today. Most of it youll see it to be as hip-hop, rap, R&B.
However, you dont get to hear some of the classics of piano. Some pieces that highlight
piano are Piano Man, by Elton John. Another one which has some band accompaniment
is 100 Years, by Five for Fighting. I bet that you probably havent heard of some of the
greatest piano music, like Fur Elise, by Beethoven, or Minuet in G, by Johann Sebastian
Bach. I must agree, the classics like those are great. Perhaps you havent heard of the hip
new thing thats come from Scott Joplin. Specifically speaking, his ragtime piece called
Maple Leaf Rag. What makes this piece so cool though? We just cant expect a random
person to tell us something is good, and just believe him right off the bat, right?
Correct, and to give you the reason that Maple Leaf Rag is such a great piece is
because of the way the specific genre is played in particular. In ragtime, there is usually a
bass chord feature (staying in the octave) of the 2nd note and 5th note (going down) of the
scale on beats one and three, while having the 4th and 5th playing together on beats two
and four. This same bass note feature with beats 1 and 3 can be found within marches.
However, in ragtime, the 2nd and 4th notes of the measure in the bass hand are accented.
The right hand, which can be referred to as the treble hand, melody hand, or
anything referring to the melody, usually starts in between beats 1 & 2, 2&3, 3&4, or
4&1 of the next measure. Starting on the offbeat of normal time is called syncopation,
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and syncopation is a prominent feature. In fact, it can be often thought of as a constraint
on ragtime.
Speaking of constraints, Ron ODell, ragtime artist who posts videos on Youtube,
has talked about how people often mistake ragtime with a march. People often mistake
this by putting the start of Cannon In D with the bass hand feature, however, the right
does not have any syncopation. The rendition ODell had the right hand and left hand
aligning on every 1 and on every & of the beat. In reality, ragtime would play through the
pauses in between the notes in the original melody of Cannon by starting on the
offbeat, and using 16th notes to still convey the original melody. It would keep the ragtime
feel by conveying syncopation into the beat.
The way ragtime speaks, specifically Maple Leaf Rag is through the piano. (For
most pieces of music, youll hear it on piano. There are some band arrangements that
have some ragtime in them.) It can be said the Scott Joplin, African-American, was the
person who brought out ragtime to the rest of the community in the 1880s, all the way up
until around 1917, when ragtime started to decline.
Maple Leaf Rag was composed in the key of Ab. That is a standard key for piano
playing in particular. In fact, most band instruments (and piano) play in flat keys, while
string instruments (yes, piano too) can play in sharp keys. For instance, bands play the
keys of Bb, Ab, and Eb, while orchestras play in keys of D, G, and A. Because there are
musical geniuses, such as Tom Brier (who is also a ragtime pianist), It has been
transposed (or switched) to different keys, such as C, G, F, and A. If youre like me
though, as long as the piece sounds good, you dont give a damn what key its played in,
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you just want to make sure that it sounds good to your ear. If someone plays it bad,
regardless of what key theyre in, who would want to hear it anyway?
The way that Maple Leaf Rag specifically achieves its purpose of entertaining
people, is that because of the accenting of the bass notes on beats 2 and 4, and because of
the way the melody works in ragtime, it results in the awesome foot tapping joy that
know and have come to love over the many. Over the years, I myself by just listening to
ragtime pieces being played on Youtube, I have grown so accustomed to how ragtime
operates, and have since fallen in love with it. Due to the fact that ragtime is so
entertaining, Ive furthered looked into artists such as Ron Odell, Tom Brier, Adam
Swanson. They have been great tools to learning more about ragtime.
The medium that is achieved through ragtime is that it is so upbeat. All ragtime
pieces, and pretty much a lot of Jazz pieces, have always been upbeat, and happy. I ask
you reader, have you ever been sad after listening to a ragtime piece, or a jazz piece? I
really do think not.
The rhetorical approach of ragtime, specifically Maple Leaf Rag, was given to
blacks, and giving them a spot in fame. To the whites, it was shown to them that blacks
were advancing, and they did not like that. Usually, whites would sing crude, racist lyrics
to ragtime pieces. After Joplins death, and around 1917, there was a major decline in
ragtime. It did not resurface until the 1940s and 1950s, right before the start of the Civil
Rights era, ragtime resurfaced along with the start of jazz.
Another type of genre I would like to discuss is the genre known as a waltz.
Waltzes are usually in time, meaning there are three beats within a measure. Waltzes
are usually meant for a formal type of dance. Think of The Phantom of The Opera. One
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of the main songs inside of it has a beat to it. Also, Christine, one of the main
characters, is seen going around the setting in a dance kind of way, moving her feet to
every beat 1.
By my analytical view of the musical genre of ragtime, I hope you the reader have
gained a better understanding of what is consisted inside of ragtime. Hopefully, you can
research more on your own and go on beyond my expertise to find out the more specifics
of how ragtime operates, and how ragtime has yet to stop amazing fans of it all over the
world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8IM5-wUdng
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DyHFonnu2E

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Capristo 1

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