Scott Joplin
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"Scott Joplin" was an African-

/ title = Maple Leaf Rag (2nd edition)

/ year = 1899

/ url = https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maple_Leaf_Rag_Title.jpg

/ last = Joplin

/ first = Scott

/ page = 1

/ type = sheet music cover

/ publisher = John Stark

}} During his brief career, he wrote 44 original classic rag/ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas. One of his first pieces, the Maple Leaf Rag, became ragtime's first and most influential hit, and has been recognized as the archetypal rag.

Joplin was born into a musical family of laborers in Northeast Texas, and developed his musical knowledge with the help of local teachers. Joplin grew up in Texarkana, Texas/Texarkana, where he formed a vocal quartet, and taught mandolin and guitar. During the late 1880s he left his job as a laborer with the railroad, and travelled around the Southern United States/American South as an itinerant musician. He went to Chicago for the World's Columbian Exposition/World's Fair of 1893, which played a major part in making ragtime a national craze by 1897.

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Syncopations are no indication of light or trashy music, and to shy bricks at "hateful ragtime" no longer passes for musical culture.

Don t play this piece fast. It is never right to play ragtime fast.

When I'm dead twenty-five years, people are going to begin to recognize me.

Because it has such a ragged movement. It suggests something like that.

Were they Socialists?