Ragtime 7
The revival of piano ragtime post-1950 raised questions about performance practices such as appropriate tempi and adherence to published scores. Ragtime's relationship to the march and other dance practices would require moderate speeds to allow two steps per measure. Joplin's admonition in "School of Ragtime" to "never play ragtime fast at any time" or Shepherd's tempo marking of "not too fast" in "Pickles and Peppers" suggest that performers from the start may have played the music faster than allowable for easy dancing or for the composer's taste. In that regard, the excerpt below shows information taken from Joplin's "School of Ragtime." Susan Shelley provides more detailed information on Joplin's publication:
The upper staff is not syncopated and is not to be played,
Mr. Joplin writes.The perpendicular dotted lines running from the syncopated note below to the two notes above will show exactly its duration.
We wish to say here,
Mr. Joplin concludes in Exercise No. 6, that the 'Joplin ragtime' is destroyed by careless or imperfect rendering, and very often good players lose the effect entirely by playing too fast. They are harmonized with the supposition that each note will be played as it is written, as it takes this and also the proper time divisions to complete the sense intended.
(Shelley 2008)
