5. Ragtime

Ragtime was another offshoot of the negro spirituals as the Fisk Jubilee Singers became more popular with their European tours and dance became an integral part of the musical experience. From the late 19th century, African Americans began dancing to “rhyme-dance songs”, folk medleys and other spirituals and these medleys became known as “rags” and the performances, “ragging” (Floyd, 1995, p.66). Ragtime echoed the stylistic qualities of marches and dances from the 1890’s (such as the cakewalk), with its short repetitive melodies in patterns like AABBACCC′, AABBCCDD and AABBCCA (Berlin, 2001) but the main emphasis of the genre was on its “highly developed rhythmic syncopation” and the infusion of Negro folk elements (Danberg Charters, 1961, p.174). The two most famous rags were the Mississippi Rag (1897) and the Maple Leaf Rag (1899), the latter written by ragtime pioneer Scott Joplin. According to Danberg Charters (1961), classic rags - rags written by pioneers of the genre like Joplin, Scott, Lamb, contained imaginative harmonic variations and a high level of dissonance due to the use of the Negro folk elements (as explained before), however he discusses the pentatonic scale, taken from African music, and its implementation within classic rags and the possibility of a commonality with white hymns
For example, in Scott Joplin’s famous Maple Leaf Rag, the pentatonic scale features in the melody of the trio:

(Figure 1: Danberg Charters, 1961, p.176)

In “Maple Leaf Rag”, the song is in Db major in the form AABBACCDD. Because of its heavy influence on the rest of the genre, Maple Leaf Rag is seen as the magnum opus of ragtime. Its use of syncopation was extensive, with most of the composition consisting of eighth and sixteenth notes. The repetition of the first motif was in tandem with ragtime’s original links to march music

From there, composers like Joplin and (James) Scott were able to absorb chromaticisms and harmonic major and minor scales from “white American culture” into their compositions (Danberg Charters, 1961, p.178). This early example of “Negro” and white music being mixed together raises a question: did the African elements enhance the “white” music or did the “white” music enhance the African elements?

Although Scott Joplin’s name is synonymous with ragtime, it was a white musician who claimed the biggest accolade of all: the originator of ragtime. Harney was so adamant that he had fathered the genre; he offered to quit his profession and offer $100 to anyone who could find a composition predating his ragtime classic You’ve Been a Good Wagon but You’ve Done Broke Down (Berlin, 2002). However, Ben Harney’s ethnicity was subject to scrutiny, even if his claim of being the originator of ragtime wasn’t. He identified himself as white despite claims that he was African American