After the elegant classic ragtime of Scott Joplin, there was a humorous take-off-- novelty ragtime. Novelty ragtime is the music of player piano rolls and silent movie accompaniments. It's a case of irregularity accented lines over simple, even static, harmony. The right hand hand plays quick, clever patterns while the left plays "oom-pah-oom-oom-pah. "It's fun, and you may just find a way to love working it into your playing today.
Notice that a three-note figure in eighth notes in the right hand is concurrent with a duple meter figure in the right hand. is concurrent with a duple meter figure in quarter notes in the left, creating syncopation.
If you delay the right hand entrance by a half beat and start on the and of 1 the accent would move back one note and have a different sound then the noted above, see note.
Besides the trick of accenting every third eighth note, the novelty rag composers frequently used triplets in the right hand. In the following example, the original pattern is rhythmically because of the of a triplet on beat 3.
You can play with the triplet, moving it to beat 1 as necessary or needed in your writing or music.
If you delay the right hand entrance by a half beat and start on the and of 1 the accent would move back one note and have a different sound then the noted above, see note.
Besides the trick of accenting every third eighth note, the novelty rag composers frequently used triplets in the right hand. In the following example, the original pattern is rhythmically because of the of a triplet on beat 3.
You can play with the triplet, moving it to beat 1 as necessary or needed in your writing or music.
A secret to success for these patterns in novelty rags was to keep them brief-- just a couple of measures of this, theb a couple measures of that. But the patterns were likely to be recycled several times, alternating with different, complimentary patterns.
For a big collection of novelty rags check out Zez Confrey. I have played his works Dizzy Fingers (which is her on the blog somewhere), and Kitten on The Keys (which is a real nice read) and maybe about 88 more rags and 127 piano player piano rolls between 1918 and 1924.
For a big collection of novelty rags check out Zez Confrey. I have played his works Dizzy Fingers (which is her on the blog somewhere), and Kitten on The Keys (which is a real nice read) and maybe about 88 more rags and 127 piano player piano rolls between 1918 and 1924.
VIA The Music Workshop by Becca Pulliam
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