Ragtime!
“Perfessor” Bill Edwards wrote this exclusive writing about his passion, Ragtime! It’s a personal and entertaining article as well as enlightening.
Ragtime!
So Manuel finds me and he asks me to contribute something here in my field of expertise. “Write something about ragtime,” which is passion and profession. Really? Kewl. Although it’s a double-edged situation, since I’m trying to convey that passion and some history, the good part, in a few words to a rather wide audience, the tricky part.
I have to start with what ragtime is and is not, and why it’s important. That will be today’s topic, and will hopefully lead to more.
What ragtime is NOT is hokey music played on out-of-tune pianos in smoky bars full of drunks singing off key. It is also not silent movie background music. Sure, it has been used in these contexts, but it is much different and much more. It is the beginning of popular music in the world as we know it today. Picture a musical funnel, if you will. On the upper end are Western classical music forms of the 18th and 19th centuries, including sonatas, gavottes, waltzes, even some symphony and opera. Coming from Eastern Europe … ...Read the rest.
“Ragtime!”
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