Ragtime: The Mapleleaf Rag

Scott Joplin was the King of Ragtime. He was born in 1867, and was playing and composing during the early 1890s in Missouri. But it wasn't until 1899 that his music was recognized. That's when he met John Stark, a St. Louis publisher. There are a couple of stories about his meeting with Stark. Here's my favorite. A mutual friend had arranged a meeting between Joplin and publisher Stark, and Joplin demonstrated Maple Leaf Rag for him. Stark really liked the music, but thought it too complicated to play and began to walk away. Joplin said no, that he could bring in the first person he saw off the street and that person could play it. If that's true, Stark said, I'll buy it. Joplin went to the street and brought in a 14 year old boy who sat down and played it perfectly. Stark not only bought it, but gave Joplin a royalty of a penny per copy. Little did he know that Joplin had coached the kid for weeks in anticipation of this meeting.

Pretty soon everybody had a copy of Maple Leaf Rag, and Scott Joplin had a steady income from it. There were Maple Leaf wars, where pianists would compete to see who could play it the fastest. That really irritated Scott Joplin. He felt the players were losing all the nuances of his music. So he put an instruction on his sheet music, saying: "Do not play this piece fast. It is never right to play ragtime fast." Having said that, I like it a lot better fast, so here goes, with apologies to Scott Joplin.

Hear that? That was Scott Joplin rolling over in his grave.