Contents

Ragtime - History

Installation
Overview -Tutorial
Description of the Program
Pull Down Menus
File Menu
Midi Menu
Categories Menu
Play Menu
Help Menu

Patch Changes
MIDI Driver Setup Dialog Box
Options Dialog Box
Trivia Quiz
Dictionary
Biographies
Language Selection
Setting up Sound/MIDI Driver
Keystroke ShortCuts

Notation Window
Print Options

PG Music Info

For Help on Help, Press F1


Installation

To install the program into Windows 3.1 .

Insert "The Ragtime Pianist for Windows" Disk #1 into your floppy drive.
Choose File | Run from the Program Manager screen
type A:INSTALL  (from Windows)

( if your floppy drive is B: then type B:INSTALL instead )

This will copy all of the Band-in-a-Box for Windows files to the Ragtime Pianist subdirectory (usually C:\RAGTIME).

Before you run the Program

1. Make sure that you have already installed your driver for your sound card (SCC1/SoundBlaster etc.) or MIDI card (MPU401,MQX,SC-7,etc) into the Windows Control Panel -Drivers Program .

Running the Program from the Program Manager

Double Click the Left Mouse Button the Ragtime Pianist ICON , or Press the ENTER key (after moving the blue highlighted bar to the Ragtime Pianist ICON ). The Ragtime Pianist program will then load.

Selecting Your Sound or MIDI Driver

THE FIRST TIME THAT YOU RUN THE PROGRAM, the program will start up with a Dialog Box for you to choose the sound card or MIDI driver that you want to use:
YOU MUST SELECT AN OUTPUT DRIVER TO USE:
- The Ragtime Pianist will play the music using the driver you specify here.
OPTIONALLY SELECT AN INPUT DRIVER.
- If you want to play along to the Ragtime Pianist using your  MIDI controller , and utilize the MIDI THRU function , then you'll need to select a MIDI driver for input. Otherwise you can sect the INPUT DRIVER to <NONE> as the Ragtime Pianist does not require an INPUT DRIVER .

Then the program will appear on the screen and you can begin to use "The Ragtime Pianist."

The quickest way to get started is to read the following tutorial which runs through the major features of the Ragtime Pianist.


Overview -Tutorial

First Let's explore the Ragtime Pianist Screen!

This tutorial assumes that you've already installed the program and your output driver is installed into the Windows Control Panel (see the installation instructions in previous chapter).

This is the main screen for the Ragtime Pianist. There are several areas that you will notice: (from top to bottom )

The Title Bar at the top of the screen has the title and the composer of the piece.

The Piano Keyboard display the notes that are being played on the piano keyboard.

The Position Bar allows you to quickly move to anywhere in the piece using this scroll bar.

 The Options button launches a dialog box that allows you to set various settings like the Volume of the Piece, or screen colors

 The Previous/Next Piece buttons. These buttons move to the previous or next piece when you are playing a SET of more than one piece.

The PLAY Buttons:

These buttons allow you to play one or more pieces that are displayed in the LIST of Pieces

PLAYING A SINGLE PIECE BY PLAY BUTTON OR MOUSE DOUBLE CLICK

The PLAY button will play the piece that is currently selected (highlighted) in the LIST Window). You can use the mouse to select a piece. An easier way to play a piece is to double click the mouse on the piece that you want to play.

PLAYING SEVERAL PIECES USING THE PLAY BUTTON

You can also select more than one piece by holding down the control key (Ctrl) as you select several pieces. Then when you press PLAY , the program will play all of the pieces that you have selected , in Random order one after another.

 PLAYING YOUR FAVORITE PIECES
You can select your favorite pieces in the lists by clicking the RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON over the name of the piece. Then you will see an asterix beside the piece name indicating that it is a Favorite piece of yours. Pressing the RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON again will de-select it. You can save your list of favorite pieces to disk by choosing this option from the File Menu.

When you press the PLAY FAVORITES button , the pieces that have been selected as your favorites will be played one after another.

 PLAYING ALL OF THE PIECES IN THE LIST
This will play all of the pieces in the current list of pieces one after another.

 PLAY THE "GUESS THE SONG" GAME

Pressing this button will start a piece playing at random from the current list of pieces. The title and composer picture will be hidden. You must guess the title of the piece. Click on a piece that you think is the current piece playing. A dialog box will popup telling you if this is the correct piece.

STOP THE MUSIC BY PRESSING THE STOP BUTTON

THE CATEGORY BUTTONS

These category buttons allow you to choose different lists of pieces

COMPOSERS 	choose by composers

ALL-SONGS	displays a LIST of all pieces

BY TYPE	display pieces by type (fugue etc.)

MOOD	display by mood (happy / sad / lively etc.)

PERIOD	display pieces by period

DIFFICULTY	easy/medium/difficult or formidable

Pressing the TRIVIA button starts the Trivia Game

Pressing these buttons launches the Dictionary and Composer Biographies.

Now Let's Play Some Music

First let's play pieces one at a time .

Press the ALL SONGS button to insure that you are displaying the list of all the pieces in the Ragtime Pianist.
You will then see the List of all the pieces displayed in the Right lower part of the screen.
Select a piece that you would like to hear , by clicking the LEFT MOUSE BUTTON over the title of the piece.
Then Press the PLAY BUTTON to start playback of the piece.

( You could alternatively Double click the LEFT MOUSE BUTTON with the mouse over the desired piece to start the playback )

As the piece is playing , you can do a lot of things

CHANGE THE VOLUME (Louder/Softer)
by Pressing the OPTIONS button and then using the Volume Knob (by pressing and holding the Left Mouse button inside the knob and moving the knob around , then releasing the mouse )

CHANGE THE REVERB, CHORUS, PANNING

Similarly if you have a newer Sound Module that supports Reverb, Panning or Chorus (General MIDI compatible) , you can change these settings from this screen

SLOW DOWN OR SPEED UP THE PIECE (TEMPO CHANGE)

Use the [ and ] (square bracket keys) to slow or speed up the piece by 5 beats at a time.

Or use the F5 function key to toggle between Slow Motion (half speed) and normal tempo. If you have been changing tempos, this F5 key is useful to return you to the normal tempo.

TRANSPOSE THE PIECE down or up semitones using the F6 or F7 key.

MOVE TO A SECTION OF THE PIECE

Using the Mouse to move to a new section of the piece

The Position Bar allows you to quickly move to anywhere in the piece using this scroll bar using the mouse.

Using the Keyboard to move to a new section of the piece

Pressing the SPACEBAR will STOP or START the PIECE

Pressing the number keys 1 to 9 ( at the top of the QWERTY keyboard ) will move to a new section of the piece (1=beginning, 9=end,  4= 4/9 way through the piece etc.)

THE MINUS KEY '-'  backs up by 2-seconds.

THE EQUAL KEY '=' moves ahead by 2 seconds.

THE ENTER KEY Pauses the piece while still displaying any notes that were playing. This is useful to learn a chord voicing for example.

PRESSING THE F2 KEY PUTS A MARK (like a Bookmark) at a point in the piece and PRESSING THE F3 KEY will move the playback to the marked part of the piece.

Read the Memo about the Piece

When you select a piece you will notice a MEMO about the Piece appear at the top right of the screen as well as the Picture of the Composer.

Choose another piece while another is playing ! If you are listening to one piece and prefer to hear another one , just double click the mouse on the new piece and it will start to play. ( or press the PLAY button after highlighting the new piece).

Choose another LIST

eg. Show just Tchaikovsky Pieces in the LIST. To do this Press the COMPOSER category and choose TCHAIKOVSKY. Then only TCHAICHOVSKY pieces will appear in the LIST of Pieces.

eg. Show only "Easy Pieces ". Press the DIFFICULTY Category button and select "Easy Pieces"

Remember that when you restrict the list to only certain types of pieces, then any action you take such as PLAY ALL SONGS , or Guess the Song game will only apply to pieces that are in the Current List.

Now let's play more than one piece at a time.

eg. Play All the Pieces in the Ragtime Pianist Repertoire

First select the List with all of the pieces by pressing the ALL SONGS button.

 Then press the PLAY ALL button. This will play through the pieces one by one, with a few second pause between each. The pieces are played in random order (if you prefer sequential order you can select this by setting Random to No in the OPTIONS Window.)

Use the Ragtime Pianist as Background Music while you work in other programs.

Note that the Ragtime Pianist will continue to play even while you work in other programs. So for example, you could start all of the Ragtime Pianist Pieces playing and then switch to your Word Processor. (using ALT TAB or CTRL ESCAPE to switch to other programs ). Try changing the Ragtime Pianist Window size to only the Piano visible and you will see that even the notes continue to be displayed while you work in other programs. The music will even continue as you work in DOS programs (if using Windows Enhanced mode )

Play Your Favorite Pieces.

Making up your List of Favorites :First of all you can make up your list of favorite pieces very easily with the Ragtime Pianist Program. USING THE RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON , click on any Piece in the List Window. This will Place an Asterix * beside the Piece title which indicates that it is a favorite of yours. To De-select the piece as a favorite, press the RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON AGAIN , which removes the Asterix *. You should then save your favorites selection to disk by choosing the option SAVE AS DEFAULT FAVORITES , so that the next time that you run the Ragtime Pianist, it will remember your Favorites.

Playing your Favorites works like the PLAY ALL button , expect it will only play pieces that are in the Current List and are marked with an Asterix as one of your favorites.

Play A Specific Group Of Pieces

To do this select the specific pieces using the Left Mouse Button while holding down the Control Key. This will select multiple pieces and they will all be played when you press the PLAY button.

Play the "Guess the Song" game

First decide on the list of songs that will be eligible to be chosen for the "Guess the Song" game. For example, if you are an expert on Chopin , you might want to try the game with Chopin pieces only. To do that , Press the COMPOSER category button and choose CHOPIN to display the CHOPIN only pieces. Or if you want to choose from ALLSONGS , press the ALLSONGS button.

 Then Press the GUESS button. The Ragtime Pianist will then pick a song at random and play it. The title will be hidden.

Then click on the title of the song that you think is playing.

If you are wrong you will see this dialog box -

To continue guessing , press the OK button .

It is sometimes easier to guess the name of the composer , but not the song title  If you get the composer correct , but the wrong title, the Ragtime Pianist will inform you in the dialog box.

When you get the right answer you will see :

Now let's play the TRIVIA QUIZ

 Press the Trivia button to enter the Trivia Game .

Choose an answer by clicking the mouse on choice A, B, C or D .

If you're wrong - keep guessing or press the REVEAL button.

To get another question Press the EASY/MED./HARD or ANY button.

Pressing the ANY button will make the next question of varying difficulty whereas EASY will give you an easy question.

The program keeps score of your total # questions, and percent correct.
You can also keep track of player scores and player names if you want.

There are over 450 questions in the trivia game.

Have Fun !

Printing out the List of Songs
For example let's print out all of the songs in the ALLSONGS list.
Press the ALLSONGS button to insure that ALL Songs List is displayed.
Then choose the Pull Down Menu item "Copy the List Of Songs To The ClipBoard".
The list of songs is then in the Windows ClipBoard as Text.

Then Open up a Windows Word Processor (like Windows Write which comes with Windows 3.1)

Inside the Word Processor Choose Edit | Paste .

You'll then see the list of songs, including the File Names of each song.

Choose a proportional font like Courier so that the columns line up.

Then Print using the Word Processor.

Using the Biography and Dictionary

Click on the DICTIONARY or BIOgraphy buttons to look up a musical term or read a Composer Biography.

We're finished with our tour of the Ragtime Pianist. To get specific information , check the contents or index ,and refer to the specific area of the manual.


Description of the Program

The Ragtime Pianist is a music program with a huge library of over 90 Ragtime Piano music standards, played on MIDI keyboard by top Ragtime Pianists.

Plus we've included music trivia questions, a "Guess the Song" game, program notes, composer biographies (all on disk ) and much more !

Performed by Top Ragtime  Pianists using a MIDI keyboard, and Featuring John Arpin. John Arpin is a world -renowned performer of Ragtime and Ragtime Era music. He is one of the most recorded performers of Scott Joplin's Music.

He's included virtusoso performances of every Scott Joplin rag in this program , as well as lots of other rags, CakeWalks, waltzes and other tunes from The Ragtime Era .

Learn how to play the music

An on-screen piano keyboard shows you exactly what the pianist is playing. Slow down the piece, or step through it chord by chord. Learn the music "note-for-note" by watching the notes on screen. Load the MIDI files into your favorite programs for future study !

The program includes on-screen display of music in piano roll format , chord symbols and music printout of the piano parts !  (These features are available in Windows version only )

All pieces are complete perfomances professionally performed, recorded & saved as Standard MIDI files. All the pieces have been recorded in "real time" by top pianists on an 88 note weighted keyboard. They are never quantized or step recorded. You'll hear the music playing with CD- quality through your sound card or MIDI system, just as if the pianist was in your home.

90 Great Ragtime Era Performances ....including

Every Scott Joplin Rag !! (The Entertainer, Maple Leaf Rag , Chevy Chase, Easy Winners, Elite Syncopations, Fig Leaf Rag,PineApple Rag etc. ) ...(total of 34 Scott Joplin Rags)

Other Rags, marches, dances , cakewalks, waltzes and other Ragtime music by Eubie Blake, Joseph Lamb, Daniels,and - of course - Scott Joplin .

Early Jazz and ShowTunes Indiana, Meet Me In St. Louis,St. Louis Blues, Bill Bailey, For Me and My Gal,

There are a total of over 90 pieces . We've covered all the bases !

Special Support for your SoundCard or MIDI System.

Includes a built in mixer to change instruments, channels,  transposition, volumes / panning / tuning or other MIDI information.

Listen to the music while you work in other Programs. Playback continues in the background while you work in other programs, and the built in Juke Box plays the music one song after another. This allows the program to be used as great background music, or music for presentations , telephone on-hold etc.

Have Some Fun while you learn about Ragtime and Early Jazz Music

Test your knowledge with theThe Music Trivia Game with over 100 questions about the music and famous Ragtime  performers and composers.

Play The  "Guess The Song" game - the program selects a songs to play at random for you to guess.

Read the memos about the pieces , or composer biographies as you listen to the music.

Use your Existing sound card or MIDI synthesizer

Plays the music back through  your existing MIDI synthesizer, digital piano or sound module. Windows users can playback through their SoundCard (Roland, SoundBlaster, etc.)

Requirements: Windows (IBM)  2mb RAM memory, Windows 3.1, SoundCard (Roland, SoundBlaster, etc.) or MIDI system with piano sound, 3.5" or 5.25" high density Floppy Disk, 2mb hard drive space required.


File Menu

File Menu

New Favorites File: Erases all current favorite selections, and starts new favorites file.

Open Favorites File: Read in an existing .FAV Favorite file from Disk

Save Favorites File: Saves a favorite file to disk. A favorite file is a list of pieces that have been selected as favorites by the RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON over the piece title.

Save Default Favorites File: Save a favorite file with the title DEFAULT.FAV. This file is auto-loaded next time you run the program.

Copy List Of Songs To The ClipBoard: This copies the list of pieces along with the filenames of the Midi Files associated to the Windows clipboard. This can be pasted into a Word Processor, and printed out . Use courier font for best results.


Midi Menu

MIDI Menu

Driver: Allows you to choose a MIDI Driver for Output and Input.

Options: Allows you to set options.

Send Patch change by #: Send patch changes by number 1-128.

Send General MIDI Patch change : If you have a General MIDI synth , you can send Patch changes by Name.


Categories Menu

This menu is the same as the Categories button on the Main Screen.

Composers 	choose by composers

All-Songs	displays a LIST of all pieces

By Type   	display pieces by type (fugue etc.)

Mood	display by mood (happy / sad / lively etc.)

Period	display pieces by period

Difficulty	easy/medium/difficult or formidable

Trivia	Play the Trivia Game
(questions about the music and the composers)

Dictionary	Dictionary of musical terms

Biography	Composer Biographies


Play Menu

Play Selected Pieces	Plays pieces which have been highlighted with the Mouse

Play Favorite Pieces	Plays All pieces in the List which also have an Asterix (*) .
The Asterix indicates that they have been selected as a favorite piece
(using the RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON)

Play All Pieces	Plays ALL pieces in the Current List of Pieces

Guess	Starts the Guess that Song Game.
Then Click on a song Title to Guess.

STOP	SPACEBAR

Pause	ENTER KEY.	Still shows the notes that were playing visually.

Backup 2 sec.	minus key

Transpose Down      F6	Transposes the piece by a semitone at a time.

Transpose Up	F7 key

Slow Normal Tempo  F5	 Slows the tempo by half.
Pressing again returns it to normal tempo.

Mark	F2 key 	Marks a position in the piece (like a bookmark)

GoTo Mark	F3 Key	Goes to the mark when the F3 key pressed.


Help Menu

Index	Displays a Help Index

Topic Search	Allows searching for a topic

Using Help	Description of how to use the Help

About Ragtime Pianist	Ragtime Pianist and PG Music Info


Patch Changes

A Patch change is a message to your synthesizer or sound card to change the instrument that it is currently playing. Typically you will want "The Ragtime Pianist" program to be playing on a acoustic piano patch , but for some pieces you might want to experiment with other instruments (patches) - such as electric piano,classical guitar,harp,orgran, honkey tonk piano (for Ragtime music)

There are 2 ways to send Patch changes from the Pull Down menu

Send Patch change by #: Send patch changes by number 1-128.
( Some synths (Korg,Yamaha) start their numbering at 0 in which case you need to send a patch of 1 in the Ragtime Pianist to get a patch of 0 on your Korg etc.)

Send General MIDI Patch change : If you have a General MIDI synth , you can send Patch changes by Name.


MIDI Driver Setup Dialog Box

THE FIRST TIME THAT YOU RUN THE PROGRAM, the program will start up with a Dialog Box for you to choose the sound card or MIDI driver that you want to use:

YOU MUST SELECT AN OUTPUT DRIVER TO USE:
- The Ragtime Pianist will play the music using the driver you specify here.
OPTIONALLY SELECT AN INPUT DRIVER.
- If you want to play along to the Ragtime Pianist using your  MIDI controller , and utilize the MIDI THRU function , then you'll need to select a MIDI driver for input. Otherwise you can sect the INPUT DRIVER to <NONE> as the Ragtime Pianist does not require an INPUT DRIVER .


Options Dialog Box

Press the OPTIONS button to get to the MIDI options dialog box.

RANDOM PLAYBACK:             	DEFAULT= RANDOM
When the Ragtime Pianist is playing multiple pieces one after another, it will either play them in sequential or random order, depending on this setting.

SORT BY COMPOSER/TITLE 	DEFAULT= COMPOSER
The list of pieces can be sorted by composer or title.

TEMPO ADJUST:	DEFAULT=0
This will increase or decrease the tempo by the amount of this setting. It is easier to change the tempo from the main screen by using the tempo keys
[ and ] square brackets , and the F5 slow motion toggle key

USE STANDARD COLORS: 	DEFAULT= NO
The Ragtime Pianist normally uses bright colors (blue/purple etc.) If you have an LCD screen , or would otherwise prefer the standard Windows colors, then select Use Standard Windows Colors.

SHOW SONG LENGTH AND FILE NAME	DEFAULT=NO

The title bar at the top normally shows the title of the piece and the composer name. If you would like to see more information, setting this option to YES, will show the MIDI File name of the piece, and the length of the piece in minutes:seconds.

MIDI CHANNEL: 	DEFAULT=1
The MIDI channel is the channel used for output of the Ragtime Pianist MIDI data. Your synthesizer, sound card or digital piano must be set up to receive on the channel that The Ragtime Pianist is outputting on - otherwise the output will be silent !. Changing this setting instantly changes the Channel, so you can quickly try all 16 channels to see which channel your synth is responding to.

PATCH: 	DEFAULT=0
Patch is the instrument selection for your synthesizer. Normally you will want to use the Piano Patch for the Ragtime Pianist program. But you can select any Patch (e.g. Guitar, Electric Piano, Music Box, Harp, Church Organ etc.). It is probably easier to change the Patch from the MIDI pull down menu on the main screen.

TRANSPOSE: 	DEFAULT=0
If you want to transpose the piece up or down by semitones, set by this transpose setting. You can also transpose from the Main screen by using the F6 and F7 keys during playback.

VELOCITY BOOST:	DEFAULT=0
Normally you would leave the Velocity boost at =0 . Velocity refers to how hard each note was pressed., which is different from VOLUME which refers to the overall volume of the sound. Since different synths respond differently to velocity information, you can try setting this velocity boost if you find the piano too quiet even after setting the Volume to maximum for example.
 Try to avoid changing the velocity boost from 0 , since it will affect the dynamics of the performance.

Some of the settings below are available only on General MIDI or Roland GS compatible synthesizers.

TUNING 	DEFAULT = A 440

This will microtune the Piano so that you can tune it to your home piano/guitar etc.

VOLUME	DEFAULT=127

This setting is very useful. Changing the Volume affect the overall volume of the sound.
REVERB	DEFAULT=40

Reverb is a nice sounding effect which "warms up" the sound. Typical setting is=40 which is about 11 o'clock on the reverb knob.

CHORUS	DEFAULT=0

Chorus is usually not used for Acoustic Piano.

PANNING	DEFAULT= MIDDLE

Panning refers to placement of the output to right or left speakers

MIDI THRU ENABLED	DEFAULT = ON

MIDI thru is only required if you want to play along with the Ragtime Pianist from a MIDI controller without sounds of its own. If so you need to route the output of the MIDI controller thru the computer and into the sound module. If so, set MIDI THRU to ON.

NEVER SEND PATCH CHANGES	DEFAULT=NO

Normally you will want The Ragtime Pianist to be able to send patch changes. But if you are having trouble with unexpected patch changes somewhere in your system, you can disable patch changes to insure that The Ragtime Pianist is not sending patch changes.


Trivia Quiz

 Press the Trivia button to enter the Trivia Game .

Choose an answer by clicking the mouse on choice A, B, C or D .

If you're wrong - keep guessing or press the REVEAL button.

To get another question Press the EASY/MED./HARD or ANY button.

Pressing the ANY button will make the next question of varying difficulty whereas EASY will give you an easy question.

The program keeps score of your total # questions, and percent correct.
You can also keep track of player scores and player names if you want.

There are over 450 questions in the trivia game.

Have Fun !


Dictionary

Dictionary Terms

Use the mouse to choose a term on the left.
You'll see a definition on the right.


Biographies

Composer Biographies

 Press the BIO button to get to the Composer Biographies

Using the mouse , select a Composer Name from the list at the top.
Then you can read the Biography that is displayed.

Use the scrollbar to read through the entire BIO .


Setting up Sound/MIDI Driver

Setting up Midi or Sound Card

The Ragtime Pianist uses the MultiMedia drivers for your MIDI interface or sound card that are supported by. Windows 3.1. To get The Ragtime Pianist playback working properly you need to have a Driver installed for output .

Installing A Driver Into Windows 3.1

This is done outside of The Ragtime Pianist. It is done in the Program Manager | Main | Control Panel | Drivers program. Boot up the Drivers program by double clicking on the drivers icon. You will then see a list of any drivers that are installed.

example #1: Installing a MPU401 driver setup

If you are using a MPU401 Midi interface you will need to install the "Roland MPU 401 MIDI driver" supplied with Windows 3.1 From the Control Panel | Drivers program , choose ADD to add a driver. Then choose Roland MPU 401 from the list of standard drivers. You will then be asked to insert your  Windows disk that contains the MPU401.DRV file . To complete installation you will be asked for the port address and interrupt # for the MPU401. The port address usually = 330 and the interrupt is usually = 2 . If you have set the interrupt incorrectly, you will find that MIDI thru won't work properly,- see "testing the Midi driver below"

example #2 : Installing SoundBlaster driver for MIDI use

SoundBlaster PRO: Use SoundBlaster 1.5 Driver or higher

SoundBlaster :Use SoundBlaster 1.0 if your SoundBlaster is an old one or 1.5 if its a newer one (July 91).

    Older SoundBlaster cards (pre July 91) are not capable of simultaneous Input and Output If you have an older SoundBlaster you will use the 1.0 driver and will be able to play The Ragtime Pianist but not be able to use MIDI thru at the same time. Install the SoundBlaster driver in a manner similar to the MPU401 driver as above. (The usual settings for the SoundBlaster  are port = 220 and Interrupt = 5).

Example #3 : Installing the SoundBlaster for use with FM sounds

The SoundBlaster has a built in FM synthesizer  (11 voices / 22 on the SB Pro ). These sounds are also Adlib compatible . If you want to use the FM sounds as your output driver then install either the Adlib driver (11 voices) or the "Creative Labs SoundBlaster PRO MIDI synthesizer driver".

Installing your driver into Windows Control Panel.

Run the Control Panel Program

The Driver is setup in the Windows Control Panel Program. This is found in the Program Manager Main Window.
Then run the Drivers program

You will see a list of all drivers currently installed.

Adlib is the Adlib driver for FM sounds. The Adlib chip has an 11 voice synthesizer (6 instruments + 5 drum sounds). An unusual feature of this driver is that it requires a Drum Channel of 16, whereas other drivers (and the General Midi Standard) use Drum Channel =10. Many sound cards that are SoundBlaster or Adlib compatible (e.g. Aztech, MediaVision) should use this driver.

Roland MPU 401 is the driver for MPU401 compatible cards (Roland, Music Quest, CMS)

Once you install this driver you will be asked for the PORT address and the IRQ #. The Port address is usually 330 and the IRQ # is usually 2. If you have set the Port incorrectly, you will get an error message. If you have set the IRQ incorrectly, you will notice a considerable delay in MIDI thru, and won't see a display of your Midi Thru on  The Ragtime Pianist piano keyboard at the top of the screen.

Creative Labs Soundblaster 1.5 is the MIDI driver for the SoundBlaster Pro or newer SoundBlasters that support simultaneous OUT and IN. The usual Port address is 220 and the IRQ # =5.

Creative Labs Soundblaster 1.0 is the MIDI driver for the older SoundBlaster cards.  (DSP version less than 2.0) These cards are incapable of  simultaneous IN and OUT. If using with The Ragtime Pianist, you would be unable use Midi Thru, but will be able to play.

Creative SoundBlaster Pro MIDI synthesizer is the SoundBlaster Pro FM sounds driver (not involving MIDI)

MIDI mapper is a driver connecting your output to the Midi Mapper program. You must setup the MIDI driver to use your MIDI driver or Sound Card for output. The Midi Mapper allows you to remap drum notes and patches. Since The Ragtime Pianist remaps these patches for you anyway, we do not suggest that you use the Midi Mapper unless you understand how to make a drum and patch map. If you do use the Midi Mapper, you will tell The Ragtime Pianist that your synthesizer is a General Midi Synthesizer.


Keystroke ShortCuts

Most of the Ragtime Pianist commands can be accessed by the mouse and/or pull down menus.

Here is a list of Keyboard shortcuts that are also useful.

PLAYING /STOPPING SONGS	SPACEBAR

PAUSE	ENTER KEY

MOVING TO SECTION OF SONG

move to area of piece	1-9 keys (# keys)

move back 2 seconds	minus key (-)

move ahead 2 seconds	equals key (=)

Mark a location	F2

GoTo Mark	F3

CHANGING TEMPO

Change by 5 beats per min.  [ and ] keys

Toggle Slow Motion	F5

TRANSPOSE PIECE	F6/F7


PG Music Info

Chapter 12: Tech Support

Technical Support  phone number 905-528-7043

PG Music Address and Phone Number

THE RAGTIME PIANIST™ Info

The Ragtime Pianist™ is copyrighted and
is the property of PG MUSIC INC.

All rights reserved.

U.S.A. mailing address

PG MUSIC INC.
266 Elmwood Avenue,suite 111
BUFFALO, NY 14222

Canada mailing address

PG MUSIC INC.
32 Hess St. South
Hamilton, Ontario
Canada L8P 3N9

ph  (800)-268-6272 or  (905) 528-2368
fax 905-628-2541 fax

Other PG Music Inc. Products

E-Mail  Internet: 75300.2750@compuserve.com
PG Music Inc. 266 Elmwood Avenue,Suite 111 BUFFALO NY 14222 USA
Phone 1-800-268-6272  or 905-528-2368 . Fax 905-628-2541
Tech Support phone  905-528-7043

ADD-ON PRODUCTS FOR BAND-IN-A-BOX
We have Song and Style Disks available. Registered customers will receive information about ordering these products. Contact us for further information.

Other PG Music Products

We have Song and Style Disks available. Registered customers will receive information about ordering these products. Contact us for further information.

These include :

Band-in-a-Box  Pro (Windows/DOS/MAC/ATARI) : Automatic Accompaniment Software

Type in the chords to any song,  using standard chord symbols ( like C or Fm7 ) , choose a style and press PLAY . Band-in-a-Box then generates a complete , professional quality 5 piece arrangement of bass, drums, piano, guitar and strings to be played back through MIDI or your soundcard. PC Magazine technical excellence award finalist Jan 91 (After Hours)

Add on style and Song Disks for The Jazz Pianist available.

PowerTracks (Windows/DOS) : MIDI sequencing software

MIDI sequencer / notation / music printout for Windows . 48 track recording , SMPTE, Copy/Paste Quantize. On screen Piano keyboard. Built in editor for Roland Sound Canvas and other Roland GS products. Includes DOS version as well (note: the DOS version lacks notation and other graphical features)

SC-PRO for Windows -Full featured Editor/Librarian for Sound Canvas and other Roland GS Products

The Pianist (Windows/MAC/ATARI)

A Music Program containing a huge collection of over 200 of the world's most popular classical piano pieces , performed by concert pianists. Plus...Music Trivia Game, "Guess the Song", Memos, Biographies, Dictionary ....and much more..

For your PC SoundCard or MIDI system

The Pianist Volume II	(Windows/MAC/ATARI))

At popular request, we've recorded 200 more fabulous pieces for The Pianist program - many titles were suggested by our customers on registration cards. This Volume 2 upgrade includes a new version of the program, plus the 200 pieces. It adds to your existing program, doubling the # of pieces to over 400 ! . All played by world class concert pianists.

The Jazz Guitarist (Windows/MAC/ATARI)

A Music Program containing a large collection of  over 60  Jazz Standards performed by Top Jazz /Studio Guitarist Oliver Gannon !

" This software makes it "too easy" to learn to be a great jazz guitarist".

The pieces have all been recorded live on a MIDI Guitar . You can playback the pieces in real time , or slow them down , or better still - step through them one note or one chord at a time .You see the Guitar notes displayed on a fretboard on the screen , so you can see exactly what notes are being played on the Guitar

Plus...Jazz Guitar Trivia Game,"Guess the Song", Program Notes, Biographies, (all on disk).... and much more.

The Jazz Pianist (Windows/MAC/ATARI)

A Music Program containing  60  Jazz Standards performed by top jazz/studio Pianists. Covering a wide variety of Piano styles including Stride, Cocktail , "Art Tatum", "Bill Evans", modern jazz and more..

Learn the pieces by watching the on-screen piano or loading the Standard MIDI files into your sequencer for further study.   You can playback the pieces in real time , or slow them down , or better still - step through them one note or one chord at a time .You see the piano notes displayed on  the screen , so you can see exactly what notes are being played by the Pianist.

Plus.. Jazz Piano Lessons, Trivia Game, "Guess the Song", Program Notes, Jazz Pianist Biographies, (all on disk).... and much more.

The New Orleans Pianist  (Windows / MAC / Atari )

In a theme similar to "The Pianist" and "The Jazz Pianist" , we have now created "The New Orleans Pianist". This has a huge library of over 60 "New Orleans Style" Piano music standards, played on MIDI keyboard by top New Orleans Pianists Henry Butler, Jon Cleary, Tom McDermott, Joel Simpson, and David Torkanowsky. This is the wonderful 'rolling', 'bluesy' New Orleans piano style made famous by Professor Longhair and Dr. John . Includes on-screen music notation and Printout ability so that you may learn every nuance of the pieces !  Plus we've included music trivia questions, a "Guess the Song" game, program notes, pianist biographies (all on disk ) and much more !  See enclosed for further information.

The Ragtime Pianist for Windows (Windows / MAC / Atari )

The Ragtime Pianist is a music program with a huge library of over 90 Ragtime Piano music standards, played on MIDI keyboard by top Ragtime Pianists. These were performed by Top Ragtime  Pianists using a MIDI keyboard, and features  John Arpin. John Arpin is a world -renowned performer of Ragtime and Ragtime Era music. He is one of the most recorded performers of Scott Joplin's Music. He's included virtuoso performances of every Scott Joplin rag in this program , as well as lots of other rags, CakeWalks, waltzes and other tunes from The Ragtime Era .

Contact PG Music for further information.


Language Selection

The Ragtime Pianist program has been designed to support languages other than English. At the time of this writing, the program supports English and German. There may be other languages now supported by The Ragtime Pianist. This dialog box allows you to choose the language you would like. Once chosen, the new language will take effect the next time that you run The Ragtime Pianist program.

The entire program may not be translated to the language other than English. For example, you probably won't have all the text files for languages other than English if you have purchased the program in USA or Canada. If so, the memos and trivia questions will not be translated. This is because we are only including the English versions in English speaking countries. If you require the text files for a language that we support, please contact PG Music or your local distributor to see if they are available.

technical notes: When the program is using English, it uses the .txt files for the text (memo0.txt is the text for the memo file for example). When the program uses German, it uses .txg files instead.


Notation Window

The notation window displays the notes of a song on a staff .

The notation window has two modes of operation: Standard Notation mode and Staff Roll mode. When in Standard Notation mode, the Notation Window shows the track as regular music in standard notation. When in Staff Roll mode, the Notation Window is a hybrid between a piano roll and staff.

By default, the Notation Window is in Standard Notation mode. Pressing the [image] button will toggle the window between Standard Notation Mode and Staff Roll mode. It will be obvious which mode is in effect, since Standard Notation mode displays the notes as regular music, while the Staff Roll mode displays the notes as noteheads (no stems) with optional duration lines.  Also, the Staff Roll mode will contain gray vertical lines across the staff.

Standard Notation Mode

The purpose of Standard Notation mode is to provide a convenient way of displaying a track as regular music on a staff within The Ragtime Pianist.

Editing of music cannot be done in The Ragtime Pianist program.

There are some options in a dialog box which can be accessed by pressing the [image] button.

When in Standard Notation mode, the Resolution setting determines how the program rounds the note times and durations when translating a track into standard notation. For example, a resolution of 4 will cause the program to round each note and duration to the nearest 16th note when displaying the music (in 4/4). A resolution of 3 will cause The Ragtime Pianist to round each note to the nearest 8th note triplet (in 4/4). A resolution of 2 will cause The Ragtime Pianist to round each note to the nearest 8th note (in 4/4).

Hint: If you're displaying  jazz swing or shuffle music that has a triplet feel to the eighth notes, make sure to set the resolution to =3 (triplets). This will display the 8th notes and other aspects of jazz swing music correctly.

The following 3 settings are for Standard Notation mode only, and don't have any effect in Staff Roll mode:

The Minimize Rests checkbox, when checked, will cause The Ragtime Pianist  to display the music with minimal rests. Use this setting if notes are displayed as shorter than you intended. For example, if eighth notes are displayed as sixteenth notes because you recorded them staccato.

The Clefs Split At setting determines the split point for placing notes on the Bass or Treble clef.  The default setting is 'C 5' which is middle C. For example, you can use a higher split point, such as 'C 6' if you want some notes up to a G above middle C to be displayed on the bass clef with ledger lines instead of on the treble clef. If the split point is above middle C, and a note in the music is high enough that any of the ledger lines above the bass clef would overwrite the treble clef, the note will be placed on the treble clef.

The Tick Offset lets you display the music ahead or behind the beat. If you have a tendency to play the music ahead of the beat, you can specify a setting from 1 to 120 to have the music displayed forward in time. A setting from -1 to -120 will cause the music to be displayed ahead of the beat  (but not before the beginning of the song). 120 ticks equals one quarter note for this setting regardless of the current PPQ setting. Generally you won't need to use this setting since the notes are rounded when being displayed in standard notation.

Hint: The notation of Jazz swing music will often be improved by a Tick Offset setting of about -5. (minus 5) This is because jazz music is typically played a little after the beat.

See the information on the Staff Roll mode below for more settings in the Notation Window Options dialog.

Staff Roll Mode

Staff Roll mode is a similar to a piano roll, except the notes are shown on a grand staff.  Its purpose in The Ragtime Pianist is to display music in a piano roll style instead of regular notation. This is useful for music that is played "rubato" i.e. not in time. Notes are shown as black dots (note heads) on the staff.  Notes are not shown with stems.  If the Show Note Durations setting (discussed later) is enabled, the durations of the notes are shown as horizontal lines. The horizontal duration lines are drawn a little higher or lower if the note is a sharp or a flat, which helps you be aware of rare situations where notes a half step apart overlap each other. Notes are shown with sharp, flat, or natural symbols depending on the key signature of the song.  Notes are shown exactly where they occur. They are not quantized.

There are some options related to how notes are displayed.  These options are in a dialog box which can be accessed by pressing the [image] button.  In this dialog, if the Show Note Durations checkbox is checked, then the durations of notes will be shown as either green or blue horizontal lines depending on whether the Duration Color is set to green or blue.

The Quarter Notes Per Screen setting determines the horizontal resolution of the screen.  For example, with 4 Quarter Notes Per Screen, the width of the screen is equal to 4 Quarter Notes or one measure in 4/4.  At 8 Quarter Notes Per Screen, the width of the screen is equal to 8 Quarter Notes or two measures in 4/4.  You can have a setting as low as 1 Quarter Note Per Screen or as high as 64, although the screen may look unusual at the extremes since the size of the note heads remains the same regardless of this setting.

The Resolution setting determines how many vertical grid lines will be drawn for each beat. For example, with a resolution of 1, just one line will be drawn per beat.  With a Resolution of 4, 4 lines will be drawn, with 1 line being the beat line drawn in a solid color and the other lines being dashed lines representing sixteenth notes in 4/4.

The Transpose setting lets you adjust the Notation window to display notes either higher or lower than their actual pitches.  For example, if you're working with guitar music, you could set this to +12 and the guitar music will be displayed an octave higher, which is the way guitar music is normally notated.

Hint: This setting is also useful for displaying music for non-concert instruments such as trumpet or saxophone. Trumpet players (and other Bb instruments) should set transpose to +2, Alto Saxophone (and other Eb instruments) should set the transpose to -3. The music is then displayed in the correct key for the instrument, but plays in the concert key to the MIDI card.

If the Highlight Played Notes checkbox is checked, notes will be highlighted in red as the notes are played when a song is playing.  If you have a slower computer or a track is very dense, you can save The Ragtime Pianist  some extra work by unchecking this setting.

The [image]  button lets you print out music on your dot matrix, laser, or any graphical printer supported by Windows. This is not a substitute for a full blown music publishing program, but is a convenient way of getting your music on paper as standard notation.  When you press the print button, the Print Options dialog will pop up.  This dialog lets you change some settings that affect the printout.


Print Options

This dialog lets you change various settings that affect the printout. These settings will remain in effect until you exit the program.

The Include Bass Clef and Include Treble Clef checkboxes let you decide whether the printout should contain the Bass Clef, Treble Clef or both. Note that both the bass and treble clefs are always printed in Staff Roll mode regardless of these settings.

The Clef Sign Every Line and Key Signature Every Line checkboxes let you decide if the printout should print the clef sign and key signature on every line.

The From and Thru settings determine the range of measures that are printed.  By default From is set to 1 and Thru is set to 1000.  This will cause the entire song to be printed (unless the song really goes beyond 1000 measures).  The program won't print beyond the end of the song.  If there are sustained notes that go beyond the measure in the Thru setting, the program may print extra measures.  For example, if the Thru setting is set to measure 5, and there is a note that is sustained until measure 6, the program will print measure 6.

The Bars Per Line setting determines how many measures are drawn on each line of the print out in 4/4.  If the Bars Per Line is set to 4, you will get 8 measures per line if the time signature is 2/4.

The First Bar is Lead In setting causes the program to print an extra bar of music on the first line of the first page printed.  Use this setting in combination with the Bar # Offset setting if the song has a lead in.

When the Bar Numbers setting is checked, the program will print measure numbers at each measure.

The Staves Per Page setting lets you determine how many staves will be printed per page.  Normally, you'll want to leave this at 10, but you can decrease this setting if the song has a lot of very high or very low notes so that there is room between staves for them.  If you increase this setting beyond 10, there may not be enough room for all the staves on the paper depending on the size of the paper in your printer.  If the printout has a song title, the first page printed out will be limited to 8 staves so that there's room for the title.

The Margins setting lets you change the left and right margins of the printout in inches. When the margins are set to 0, the program will print as wide as your printer will support. Therefore, there may still be margins if your printer can't print on the edges of the paper.

The Bar # Offset setting is an advanced setting that you can use to decrease all the measure numbers of the printout.  It decreases the numbers that are printed at each measure. For example, if you specify a Bar # Offset of -2, all the measures numbers will be printed as 2 less than their actual numbers.  So, measure 3 would be printed with a number of 1, and the number for measure number 4 would be printed as 2.  Any number that is reduced to 0 or less isn't printed, so in this case measures 1 and 2 would have no number.  This setting is useful if the song has a lead in, because, for example, a setting of -1 would cause the first measure to be printed with no number and the rest of the measures will be printed with their numbers starting with 1.  Note that the From and Thru settings correspond to the actual measure numbers regardless of this setting.

The Clefs Split At setting determines the split point for placing notes on the Bass or Treble clef.  The default setting is 'C 5' which is middle C. For example, you can use a higher split point, such as 'C 6' if you want some notes up to a G above middle C to be displayed on the bass clef with ledger lines instead of on the treble clef. If the split point is above middle C, and a note in the music is high enough that any of the ledger lines above the bass clef would overwrite the treble clef, the note will be placed on the treble clef.  Note: This is identical to the Clefs Split At setting in the Notation Options dialog, and does not affect printing in Staff Roll mode.

The Title, Composer, Style and Copyright settings let you insert text onto the first page of the printout. The Title field is for a song title. The Composer field is for the author's name, and will appear to the right of the title. The Style field is for the style of the music such as Slow Blues, and will appear to the left of the title. The Copyright field is for a copyright notice and will appear at the bottom of the first page of the printout.

The Setup Printer button let's you configure your printer.  The changes to the printer configuration will be in effect for printing music until you exit the program.

Unlike most other dialogs, this one has a Close button in addition to Okay and Cancel. The close button works the same as Cancel, except that any changes you've made to the settings will be saved instead of discarded.


A History of Ragtime

Ragtime.

The word itself conjures up images of a place and time at once simpler and yet somehow more sensual than our current way of life.

That a successful book (and later a movie) having little to do with music could be titled "Ragtime" is an indication of its allure.

The phenomenon known as Ragtime has left us heirs to a body of musical compositions which we can enjoy on their own terms, as delightful, miniature structures, full of good tunes and fun rhythms. But how these came into being, and the influence of Ragtime, both musically and socially, is a fascinating story which can make listening to these wonderful, gem-like compositions more meaningful and enjoyable.

As well as providing a solid collection of musical works enjoyed worldwide to this day, Ragtime was the first truly North American musical genre which combined African and European elements to produce a unique and instantly recognizable style of music.  Ragtime led, on the one hand to Jazz, and on the other to novelty piano music, such as "Kitten on the Keys".  Ragtime introduced Afro-American rhythms into the mainstream of North American musical life, at a time when people of colour were denied basic human rights, and provided a way into the commercial music industry for many Black performers and composers.  Ragtime even had a direct effect on the manufacture and sale of pianos in North America!

But how did all this get started?

Although much uncertainty about the origin of the word "Ragtime" still exists, we know that in 1886, in an article in Century Magazine (February 1886) entitled "The Dance in Place Congo", the rhythm of a black dance in New Orleans was described as "ragged". From here it is but a short step to "ragged time" and then to "ragtime". This is probably as close to truth as we shall get. However, before pieces called "rags" were written down and published, we may be certain that music of this nature was being performed widely, either as newly composed (though not notated) compositions, or by "ragging" existing popular songs.

An account of the practice (and effect) of "ragging" an existing song can be found in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from the year of 1888, and this account has caused many to name St. Louis as the birthplace of ragtime.  Here, in part, is what was written:

There were hundreds of such verses.... But the new thing was the strangely alluring and exciting rhythm to which they were sung, a veritable call of the wild, which mightily stirred the pulses of city-bred people.Syncopated time, as old as music, was the means of this effect.  But it was syncopated time so exaggerated and emphasized as to reveal for the first time its capacity of powerful appeal to the flesh. That song sounds so ragged" was the comment of one who had heard the conventional rhythms being torn to tatters. And the name "ragtime" was born.

We'll return to this "syncopated time" (or "syncopation") in a bit, but first let us look at The Ragtime Era, which, from our examples above, we may now date as beginning 1886 or 88, and which was to last until about 1920, when both Jazz and piano novelty pieces became more popular. The early 1970's saw a "Ragtime Revival" which resurrected this body of music and gave it new life via new recordings on established labels and concerts in halls normally reserved for "classical" music. Young composers such as Bill Bolcom in Michigan began to compose their own rags as they recognized the value inherent in the style. This computer program which you are now using is a technological extension of the 1970's Ragtime Revival, which itself was fueled by the movie "The Sting", and in particular by the movie's soundtrack featuring Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer: A Rag Time Two Step", first published in St. Louis in 1902.

Technological advancement occurred in the Ragtime Era as well.  This was the time when the phonograph recording and the gramophone cylinder brought music to the masses. But, for Ragtime, the more important technological development was the invention of the Player Piano.  Although attempts in the direction of a piano that would play itself began as early as 1868, it was not until 1901, when Melville Clark introduced his "Apollo" player piano, that the full 88 note keyboard range became available.  The rest of the industry quickly adopted this standard, and by 1904 there were more than 40 different types of automatic pianos on the North American market. There were even coin-operated player pianos used in commercial establishments.

For those who have never seen or "played" a player piano, it looks like a large upright piano, with sliding doors above the keyboard and two large pedals over the regular piano pedals.  Inside the sliding doors is a mechanism which accepts the paper piano roll, into which thousands of small, square perforations have been cut. Pressing alternately the left and right pedals causes the paper roll to rotate, and pumps air through a metal bar across which the paper glides.  When a perforation in the roll allows air to pass through, the corresponding key is activated and the piano "plays". The more advanced pianos would reproduce dynamic shading [the relative softness or loudness of the music], and eventually a technique was devised whereby an artist could sit at a special piano and perform a rag while a piano roll was cut in real time.  These rolls were called "hand played" and were in great demand by the public, although frequently the artist's actual performance was later "touched up" by an expert, who cut additional perforations into the roll!

Although rags comprised only a small portion of the huge output of piano rolls during this time, at least one thousand rags did appear on piano rolls, many issued on several different labels.  This is important to the popularity of Ragtime, as very few rags were available on phonograph or cylinder recordings.  Player pianos were quite expensive for their time, and such an investment elevated the purchaser to a new social class, much as buying an expensive stereo system does today. You could have your friends over and demonstrate this new marvel, which presented lifelike performances of great Ragtime Pianists playing in your own parlor.  And in many instances the music being played was Ragtime.  Some aspiring Ragtime Pianists even learned how to play by watching the piano keys move up and down and trying to fit their own fingers over the correct keys. The piano roll business peaked in about 1920, coincident with the end of the Ragtime Era.

The Ragtime Era was indeed a time of change. People were moving from country to city, and immigration from abroad added to the growing urban population. In 1890 only 22% of the US population lived in a town or city; by 1920 this number had risen to 54%. Transportation was changing, as the railway system was completed and the motorcar and electric railways became more common. The Wright brothers made the first airplane flight and Ford introduced the Model T.

Ragtime music itself eventually spread North and East, into Canada, and across the Atlantic to Europe. Canada's place in the history of Ragtime is small but interesting.  The great Rag composer, Joseph Lamb (1887-1960) lived in Kitchener, Ontario (then Berlin) from 1901 to 1903, attending a Catholic prep school.  He wrote his first rags there and his first publications were in Canada, as well.  Scott Joplin's The Maple Leaf Rag is perhaps the best known of all rags, and some fans of Ragtime know that it was named after the Maple Leaf Club, in Sedalia, Missouri, where Joplin played the piano and where he was discovered.  But few know that the proprietors of the Maple Leaf Club, Will and Walker Williams, were originally from London, Ontario and had named their club in memory of their native Canada.

Ragtime quickly reached that Mecca of sophistication, New York City, where it was transformed into the style of jazz piano playing known as Stride.  One of the greatest Ragtime Pianists was James P. Johnson (1891-1955), who, from 1916 to 1930, was the dominant New York Ragtime Pianist and composer of rags. He was also the first Black Ragtime Pianist to cut his own piano roll rags. In 1953 he was interviewed, and his reminiscences provide perhaps the best view we will have into the world of Ragtime. The following are excerpts from the full interview, published originally in 1959 in The Jazz Review.

I became friendly with one tickler [from "tickle the ivories"], Claude Grew, who could play anything in all keys.  That was the mark of a cabaret player who had to accompany different singers in their favourite keys.  He taught me everything he knew.  What they played wasn't ragtime as we know it.  It was mostly popular songs with a strong rhythm and with syncopated vamps, not a whole composition or arrangement.  Scott Joplin's pieces were popular.  They got around the country, but the ticklers I knew just played sections of them that they heard someplace.  I never knew that they were Joplin's until later.

At that time (ca. 1908), Jersey City, New Jersey, just across the Hudson river from Manhattan, was a "temporary settlement" for Ragtime Pianists, at times having more good players there than in any other place in the United States.  James P. explains this phenomenon:

Well, most of the ragtime players were working in sporting houses and cabarets in the South - Baltimore, Norfolk, Charleston, Atlanta - and in the Middle West - Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Memphis and other places.

Now, most of these fellows were big-time pimps, or at least did a little hustling on their own.  The ladies liked their music, so these boys would play slow drags, rags, or songs that would touch the ladies' hearts - so they would get a woman or two or three to go out and hustle for them.  These ticklers didn't make much money, playing sometimes 12 hours a day in the houses or cafes -maybe $10 a week and as much more in tips.  Some had to work on tips alone.  So they managed a few girls on the side.

Now, a good girl was measured by how much money she could draw, and the best kind of sporting woman was a thieving woman who knew how to get into a man's pocket and get his bankroll.  Sometimes a girl would roll a live one and get $500 or $1,000.  This usually brought a complaint to the police, so the girl and her tickler friend would have to leave town.  They'd head north and east to New York and the last stop on the railroad was Jersey City.  It still is for a lot of railroads.

James P. moved from Jersey City to New York in 1908, and the next memory provides a startling contrast to what we have just heard.

I used to go to the old New York Symphony concerts; a friend of my brother's who was a waiter used to get tickets from its conductor, who came to the restaurant where he worked. I didn't get much out of them, but the full symphonic sounds made a great impression on me.  That was when I first heard Mozart, Wagner, Von Weber, Meyerbeer, Beethoven and Puccini.

Johnson himself in later years composed his own "serious" compositions, and as a young man would also go to Hofmann or Rachmaninoff recitals at Carnegie Hall. He speaks of how this cultural atmosphere influenced Ragtime.

The other sections of the country never developed the piano as far as the New York boys did.  The reason the New York boys became such high-class musicians was because the New York piano was developed by the European method, system and style.  The people in New York were used to hearing good piano played in concerts and cafes.  The ragtime players had to live up to that standard.  They had to get orchestral effects, sound harmonies, chords and all the techniques of European concert Ragtime Pianist who were playing their music all over the city.  New York developed the orchestral piano. The other boys from the South and West at that time played in smaller dimensions.  We wouldn't dare do that because the public was used to better playing.  When you heard the biggest ragtime specialists play, you would hear fine harmony, exciting touch and tone, and all the themes developed.

James P. Johnson got into the ragtime life at a young age, and he remembered many picturesque details:

In 1911, when I was still going to school in short pants, I used to go to a cellar called the 100th Street Hall, run by a fellow nicknamed "Souser".  I never knew his name; he was a juice hound. They had a four or five piece band there (which) played verses and choruses in simple arrangements until 2 A.M. every night.   But after two, they pulled the piano out into the middle of the floor and "Souser" would play terrific rags.  Then he'd let me play and I'd hit the piano until 4 A.M.  I kept my schoolbooks in the coal bin there and went on to school after a little sleep.

In the same year, I was taken uptown to Barron Wilkins' place in Harlem.  Another boy and I let our short pants down to look grown up and sneaked in.  Who was playing there but Jelly Roll Morton!  He had just arrived from the West and he was red hot.  The place was on fire! We heard him play his Jelly Roll Blues.  I remember that he was dressed in full-back clothes and wore a light brown melton overcoat, with a three-hole hat to match.  He had two girls with him.  I was able to appreciate him then, but I couldn't steal his stuff.  I wasn't good enough yet.

That same year, 1911, I heard Thad "Snowball" Wilkerson who played only by ear and only in one key - B natural.  He had taught Alberta Simmons to play rags.  Alberta Simmons was kind enough to teach me the full Joplin Rags that she played so well: Frogs Legs...Maple Leaf Rag...and the Sunflower Slow Drag.

James P. took a number of jobs in New York, including playing for movies and accompanying vaudeville acts, but his memories of playing for a "dancing class" give an interesting insight to ragtime music:

One night a week, I played piano for Drake's Dancing Class on 62nd Street, which we called "The Jungles Casino". It was officially a dancing school, since it was very hard for Negroes to get a dance-hall license.  But you could get a license to open a dancing school very cheap.  The Jungles Casino was just a cellar too, without fixings.  The furnace, coal, and ashes were still there behind a partition.  The coal bin was handy for guests to stash their liquor in case the cops dropped in.

There were dancing classes all right, but there were no teachers.  The "pupils" danced sets, two-steps, waltzes.  I played for these regulation dances, but instead of playing straight, I'd break into a rag in certain places. The older ones didn't care too much for this, but the younger ones would scream when I got good to them with a bit of rag in the dance music now and then.

James P. Johnson got to know many of the important Ragtime Pianists, including the legendary Luckey Roberts, composer of, among others, Palm Beach Rag and The Junk Man Rag. He describes Luckey's technique:

Luckey had massive hands that could stretch a fourteenth on the keyboard [i.e. from C up to the B just short of two octaves above - a distance of twelve inches from the tip of his thumb to the tip of his little finger!] and he played tenths as easy as others played octaves.  His tremolo was terrific, and he could drum on one note with two or three fingers in either hand.  His style in making breaks was like a drummer: he'd flail his hands in and out, lifting them high.  A very spectacular Ragtime Pianist.

This showmanship was not lost on James P., as he describes his own increasing ability:

I was starting to develop a good technique.  I was born with absolute pitch and could catch a key that a player was using and copy it, even Luckey's.  I played rags very accurately and brilliantly - running chromatic octaves and glissandos [sliding the thumb or a finger across many keys] up and down with both hands.  It made a terrific effect. I did double glissandos straight and backhand, glissandos in sixths and double tremolos.  These would run other ticklers out of the place at cutting sessions.  They wouldn't play after me.  I would put these tricks in on the breaks, and I could think of a trick a minute.  I was playing a lot of piano then, traveling around and listening to every good player I could.  I'd steal their breaks and style and practice them until I had them perfect.

Johnson's comment about "cutting sessions" refers to the informal tradition which mandated that if two or more Ragtime Pianists were near the same piano, a competition would ensue - not only would the listeners know who had won and who had lost, the losers would know and remember it for the rest of their lives.  This tradition carried on from Ragtime to Jazz, and eventually involved all instruments, although it remained strongest amongst Ragtime Pianists.  James P. gives us some idea of how he achieved his winning ability:

From listening to classical piano records and concerts...I would learn concert effects and build them into blues and rags.  Sometimes I would play basses a little lighter than the melody and change harmonies.  When playing a heavy stomp, I'd soften it right down - then I'd make an abrupt change like I heard Beethoven do in a sonata.Some people thought it was cheap, but it was effective and dramatic.  With a solid bass like a metronome,  I'd use chords with half and quarter changes.  Once I used Liszt's Rigoletto Concert Paraphrase as an introduction to a stomp.  Another time, I'd use pianissimo [soft] effects in the groove and let the dancers' feet be heard scraping on the floor.

In practicing technique, I would play in the dark to get completely familiar with the keyboard.  To develop clear touch and the feel of the piano, I'd put a bed sheet over the keyboard and play difficult pieces through it.	I had gotten power and was building a serious orchestral piano.  I did rag variations on the William Tell overture, Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite and even a  Russian Rag based on Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C-Sharp Minor.  In my Imitator's Rag the last strain had Dixie in the right hand and The Star Spangled Banner in the left.I went around copping [winning] piano prize contests and I was considered one of the best in New York - if not the best.  I was slim and dapper, and they called me "Jimmie"  then.

His Imitator's Rag was, unfortunately, never recorded or published.

Likewise his Daintiness Rag. Johnson's Steeplechase Rag was recorded on a piano roll in 1917, but was never published or copyrighted.  Many giants of ragtime, including Scott Joplin, exhibited a certain altruism (or naiveté) which could not have helped their bank accounts.  However, his comment that he was "slim and dapper" deserves further elaboration.  Ragtime ticklers (or "perfessors" as they were sometimes called in the sporting houses) were acutely conscious of their public image.  We saw earlier how James P. Johnson could remember exact details of the way in which Jelly Roll Morton was dressed, 42 years after their first meeting. Here he describes two other piano legends and their sense of style.

Abba Labba [a stage name for a friend and pupil of Luckey Roberts] was the working girls' Jelly Roll.  His specialty was to play a lot of piano for the girls who were laundresses and cooks.  They would supply him with stylish clothes from their customer's laundry and make him elaborate rosettes for his sleeve guards.  The cooks furnished him with wonderful meals.  Most of the full-time hustlers used to cultivate a working girl like that, so they could have good meals and fancy laundry.  Abba Labba had a beautiful left hand and did wonderful bass work.  He played with half tone and quarter tone [sic] changes that were new ideas then.Willie ["The Lion"] Smith was one of the sharpest ticklers I ever met - and I met most of them.  He was a fine dresser, very careful about the cut of his clothes and a fine dancer too, in addition to his great playing.  All of us used to be proud of our dancing -  Louis Armstrong, for example, was considered the finest dancer among the musicians.  It made for attitude and stance when you walked into a place, and made you strong with the gals.  When Willie Smith walked into a place, his every move was a picture.  Yes, every move we made was studied, practiced, and developed, just like it was a complicated piano piece.

We are fortunate that James P. Johnson's recollections of the Ragtime Era have survived to give us a true picture of what life was like amongst the professional ticklers.  Yet the majority of ragtime players were not professionals or even men; they were women who purchased ragtime sheet music as quickly as it could be printed, and then learned and played it in their homes. Because the ability to play the piano was considered, in this era, an essential social grace to be cultivated by young women seeking marriage, and because Ragtime was looked down upon by most piano teachers and many parents, buying the music and practicing it secretly must have caused much inner strife and guilt.  But the appeal of Ragtime overcame the guilt, as several hundred publishers got into the business of Ragtime.

However, not all of North American society welcomed Ragtime with open arms, and considerable controversy surrounded this music as it became more widely available. This is especially striking today, as Ragtime sounds to us subdued and sophisticated in comparison with our own rock music.  Although "classical" European composers such as Claude Debussy and Igor Stravinsky were quick to recognize its quality and importance, and to import the style of Ragtime into their own compositions, others in North America were not so open minded.

People were concerned that an appreciation of Ragtime music would interfere with the development of a taste for "classical" music, and for these people -  music teachers, critics, etc.- Ragtime presented a threat to their chosen way of making a living.  If Ragtime became too popular, the public might no longer value the skills of the "real" musicians.  Further, the Puritanical influence, ever prominent in American life, caused another group of people - clergy, politicians, school administrators - to argue that Ragtime was the music of the Devil, and that listening to, or worse yet, dancing ecstatically to it would result in a descent into Hell, or at least the first steps leading there. In Craftsman magazine, of December 1915, Karl Muck (who had conducted the Boston Symphony) stated: "I think what you call ... ragtime is poison. It poisons the very source of your musical growth, for it poisons the taste of the young".  This is clearly an example of the threatening aspect of Ragtime to the "classical" musician.

The second objection, that Ragtime was inherently immoral, was wrapped in the pervasive racism of turn-of-the-century America.

Ragtime was not "uplifting" music of the sort found, for example, in a Church, and therefore Ragtime should be banned. In an August 25th, 1913 article ("Canon Assails Our New Dances") and in an editorial the following day, the New York Times reported that Canon Newbolt of Saint Paul's Cathedral in London, England had asked in a sermon: "Would indecent dances, suggestive of evil and destructive of modesty, disgrace our civilization for a moment if professed Christians were to say: I will not allow my daughter to turn into a Salome?".  The editorial the following day backed the good Canon's outrage, calling Ragtime music "rude" and "vulgar" and noting "alarm" at the "loose conduct" accompanying it.  With the ascendancy of Jazz in the 1920's these same arguments, from the same segments of the population, were simply transferred to the newer music; after all, Jazz was also a product of Afro-American culture, so the same racist arguments and denigrations could be used just as effectively.

As ragtime compositions became more and more notated and published, there emerged certain traits typical of the style.  The first was (as James P. has referred to it) a "metronomic bass" - a steady, steady, pulsating left hand which did not deviate from the beat.  This consisted of a low note or octave alternated with a somewhat higher chord, in a downbeat/upbeat manner.  This could be called an "oom-pah oom-pah" rhythm.

Against this steady bass is placed a melody whose accents cross the bass rhythm; that is, strong accents in the melody do not coincide with the bass notes but rather fall in between the bass pulse. This is termed "syncopation" and, as we have seen, was the chief and immediate attraction of Ragtime.  In 1903, a Dr. Gustav Kuhl, from Germany, attended a masked ball in Georgia and heard Ragtime music for the first time.  He desrcribed his reaction in an article titled "The Musical Possibilities of Ragtime" in the March and April 1903 Metronome  magazine:

But my senses were captivated against my will by the music, which seemed to be produced by a little army of devils to my left.  It seemed incredible to me for quite a while how any person could dance a single step to such an irregular and noisy conglomeration of sounds. The continuous reappearance and succession of accentuations on the wrong parts of the bar and unnatural syncopations imparts somewhat of a rhythmic compulsion to the body which is nothing short of irresistible and which makes itself felt even before the ears have discerned the time or rhythmic value of the various parts of the bar.

In addition to this syncopation over a steady bass, Ragtime compositions can frequently be heard as a series of four strains or themes, ABCD, or ABACD, and each of these strains would be repeated after it was first heard before moving to the next.  This formal structure is remarkably consistent in the rags of Scott Joplin.

Each strain had its own characteristics.  The first strain, or A, would be a straight-ahead melody, complete in itself and to which it would be possible to return after the B strain.  This was the melody most associated with the rag's title. The B theme would be lighter, not as substantial as the A, and often beginning with a few unaccompanied notes in the right hand. The C strain contrasts with both the A and the B ideas.  It is usually lower and somewhat "darker", with a sort of subdued rhythmic excitement. The D strain finishes things up in a triumphant, totally positive burst of energy.

The publication of these formal, composed Rags became an important part of the music industry. John Stillwell Stark of the Stark Music Co., published Scott Joplin's and other composers' rags, first from his office in Sedalia, Missouri, then in St. Louis, and finally in New York.  All told, he published about 115 rags from 1892 to 1910. However, the Jerome H. Remick & Co., working out of Detroit and New York published about 300 rags, beginning in 1905.  These were the two giants of Ragtime sheet music, and Stark in particular was important not just for publishing the music but also for promoting it with zeal.  He made it a point to publish rags of high artistic quality which he called "classic rags".  This dissemination and promotion gave Ragtime a semblance of respectability, and allowed it to enter middle-class homes from which it might otherwise have been banned, due to its prior association with sporting houses.  In addition to the two mentioned above, about 12 other major firms were active in publishing rags.

Ragtime, as a style, did have a somewhat shady birth, as we have indeed seen, but Ragtime as a compositional genre, as developed, perfected, notated and published by such composers as Scott Joplin, Joseph Lamb, and James Scott, was a music of poise and civility.  These rags are formally structured, melodically inventive, and always rhythmically captivating.  That they are still played and enjoyed seventy years after the so-called "Death of Ragtime" is a testament to their endurance and to their intrinsic value.