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Ragtime 6


Actress Elsie Janis

Actress Elsie Janis

In addition, critics expressed considerable concern about the syncopated music, the movement vocabularies, and the increasingly informal circumstances under which the dancing took place. Like Elsie Janis's "For the Lord's Sake Play a Waltz" or Berlin's " The International Rag ," song texts repeatedly reminded listeners that these were sounds and rhythms that invited, if not demanded, a bodily response and therefore had the power to supersede conscious volition. In ragtime's presence, listeners could not help but move.

Fo' de Lawd's Sake Play a Waltz by Elsie Janis

Fo' de Lawd's Sake Play a Waltz by Elsie Janis

Once ragtime had become available through publication, White emulators, including women composers May Aufderheide (1888-1972) and Adaline Shepherd (1883-1950), provided works for regional publishers in response to the growing demand for piano music for the domestic market. These women, and countless others male and female who similarly played and composed rags, most likely learned formal and rhythmic conventions of rags from other publications, including various ragtime tutors and guides, rather than through oral transmission. Their works often show a simplification of Joplin's "classic" model by, for example, avoiding the modulation of the trio, as is the case of both Shepherd's "Pickles and Peppers" (1906) and Aufderheide's "The Thriller Rag" (1909). Ragtime songs by Irving Berlin and others adhered to the common practice of a verse followed by a syncopated and memorable refrain, although the syncopation element could be pretty limited compared to its prominence in piano rags.

The Thriller was one of Aufderheide

The Thriller was one of Aufderheide's most popular compositions.

Pickles and Peppers by Adaline Shepherd (1906, Ragtime piano)

Pickles and Peppers by Adaline Shepherd (1906, Ragtime piano) [ 00:00-00:00 ]

The Thriller by May Aufderheide (1909, Ragtime piano)

The Thriller by May Aufderheide (1909, Ragtime piano) [ 00:00-00:00 ]

Reese Europe

In my opinion, there never was any such music as "ragtime." "Ragtime" is merely a nickname, or rather a fun name given to Negro rhythm by our Caucasian brother musicians many years ago.

James H. Dorman

[T]he coon song "was a manifestation of a peculiar form of the will to believe - to believe in the signified 'coon' as represented in the songs - as a necessary socio-psychological mechanism for justifying segregation and subordination."