Silver Swan Rag
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Silver Swan Rag
"The Silver Swan" by Scott Joplin is a ragtime composition for piano. It is the only known Joplin composition to be originally released on piano roll instead of in musical notation. Form The overall structure of the piece is: Jasen (1978): 100 : Intro AA BB A CC Intro A The structure is unusual for a Joplin rag; Edwards characterized it as a rondo. The recapitulation of the A strain at the end is also found in " Magnetic Rag" and "Scott Joplin's New Rag", which appeared about the same time. The introduction and the A strain are both in B-flat major. At the start of the B strain, the piece modulates to G minor. Edwards describes this section as "well developed". The C strain is in E-flat major. The phrasing is notably uncharacteristic of Joplin rags. While it was typical to repeat the beginning phrase at the halfway point of a strain, or otherwise lead into a different melody that resolves by the sixteenth bar, here it abruptly pauses at the eighth bar before modulating to ...
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Solo (music)
In music, a solo (from the Spanish and Italian based-word: ''Solo'', meaning ''alone'' or ''by yourself'') is a piece or a section of a piece played or sung featuring a single performer, who may be performing completely alone or supported by an accompanying instrument such as a piano or organ, a continuo group (in Baroque music), or the rest of a choir, orchestra, band, or other ensemble. Performing a solo is "to solo", and the performer is known as a ''soloist''. The plural is soli or the anglicised form solos. In some contexts these are interchangeable, but ''soli'' tends to be restricted to classical music, and mostly either the solo performers or the solo passages in a single piece. Furthermore, the word ''soli'' can be used to refer to a small number of simultaneous parts assigned to single players in an orchestral composition. In the Baroque concerto grosso, the term for such a group of soloists was '' concertino''. An instrumental solo is often used in popular music duri ...
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Piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a musical keyboard, keyboard, which is a row of keys (small levers) that the performer presses down or strikes with the fingers and thumbs of both hands to cause the hammers to strike the strings. It was invented in Italy by Bartolomeo Cristofori around the year 1700. Description The word "piano" is a shortened form of ''pianoforte'', the Italian term for the early 1700s versions of the instrument, which in turn derives from ''clavicembalo col piano e forte'' (key cimbalom with quiet and loud)Pollens (1995, 238) and ''fortepiano''. The Italian musical terms ''piano'' and ''forte'' indicate "soft" and "loud" respectively, in this context referring to the variations in volume (i.e., loudness) produced in response to a pianist's touch or pressure on ...
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Scott Joplin
Scott Joplin ( 1868 – April 1, 1917) was an American composer and pianist. Because of the fame achieved for his ragtime compositions, he was dubbed the "King of Ragtime." During his career, he wrote over 40 original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas. One of his first and most popular pieces, the '' Maple Leaf Rag'', became the genre's first and most influential hit, later being recognized as the archetypal rag. Joplin considered ragtime to be a form of classical music and largely disdained the practice of ragtime such as that in honky tonk. Joplin grew up in a musical family of railway laborers in Texarkana, Arkansas, developing his own musical knowledge with the help of local teachers. While in Texarkana, he formed a vocal quartet and taught mandolin and guitar. During the late 1880s, he left his job as a railroad laborer and traveled the American South as an itinerant musician. He went to Chicago for the World's Fair of 1893, which played a major p ...
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Ragtime
Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style that flourished from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers such as Scott Joplin, James Scott and Joseph Lamb. Ragtime pieces (often called "rags") are typically composed for and performed on piano, though the genre has been adapted for a variety of instruments and styles. " Maple Leaf Rag", "The Entertainer", "Fig Leaf Rag", " Frog Legs Rag", and " Sensation Rag" are among the most popular songs of the genre. The genre emerged from African American communities in the Southern and Midwestern United States, evolving from folk and minstrel styles and popular dances such as the cakewalk and combining with elements of classical and march music. Ragtime significantly influenced the development of jazz. In the 1960's, the genre had began to be revived with the publication '' The All Played Ragtime'' and artist ...
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Musical Notation
Music notation or musical notation is any system used to visually represent aurally perceived music played with instruments or sung by the human voice through the use of written, printed, or otherwise-produced symbols, including notation for durations of absence of sound such as rests. The types and methods of notation have varied between cultures and throughout history, and much information about ancient music notation is fragmentary. Even in the same time period, such as in the 2010s, different styles of music and different cultures use different music notation methods; for example, for professional classical music performers, sheet music using staves and noteheads is the most common way of notating music, but for professional country music session musicians, the Nashville Number System is the main method. The symbols used include ancient symbols and modern symbols made upon any media such as symbols cut into stone, made in clay tablets, made using a pen on papyrus ...
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Rondo
The rondo is an instrumental musical form introduced in the Classical period. Etymology The English word ''rondo'' comes from the Italian form of the French ''rondeau'', which means "a little round". Despite the common etymological root, rondo and rondeau as musical forms are essentially different. Rondeau is a ''vocal'' musical form that was originally developed as monophonic music (in the 13th century) and then as polyphonic music (in the 14th century). Notably, both vocal forms of rondeau nearly disappeared from the repertoire by the beginning of the 16th century. In French, ''rondeau'' is used for both forms, while in English ''rondeau'' is generally used for the ''vocal'' musical form, while ''rondo'' is used for the ''instrumental'' musical form.Don Neville, "Rondò", ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'', 4 vols., edited by Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan, 1992). Form In rondo form, a principal theme (sometimes called the "refrain") alternates with one or more contras ...
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Magnetic Rag
"Magnetic Rag" is a 1914 ragtime piano composition by American composer Scott Joplin. It is significant for being the last rag which Joplin published in his lifetime, three years before his death in 1917. It is also unique in form and in some of the musical techniques employed in the composition. Background "Magnetic Rag" was written by an ailing Joplin near the end of his career, when interest in ragtime was waning. He was suffering from the latter stages of syphilis, the disease from which he died only three years later. Possibly as a result of Joplin's mood at this time, the piece expresses a melancholy almost entirely unheard in his earlier works. Form While many of Joplin's piano rags fit the classic rag scheme, "Magnetic Rag" is unique in its form of AABBCCDDAA. Due to its novelty at the time, the form has been described as "progressive". MaGee (1998): 400 It has been suggested that Joplin was trying to merge ragtime elements with the classical sonata form. The form is cyc ...
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Introduction (music)
In music, the introduction is a passage or section which opens a movement or a separate piece, preceding the theme or lyrics. In popular music, this is often known as the song intro or just the intro. The introduction establishes melodic, harmonic or rhythmic material related to the main body of a piece.Pease, Ted (2003), p.172. ''Jazz Composition : Theory and Practice''. . Introductions may consist of an ostinato that is used in the following music, an important chord or progression that establishes the tonality and groove for the following music, or they may be important but disguised or out-of-context motivic or thematic material. As such, the introduction may be the first statement of primary or other important material, may be related to but different from the primary or other important material, or may bear little relation to any other material. A common introduction to a rubato ballad is a dominant seventh chord with fermata, an introduction that works for many song ...
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QRS Records
QRS Music Technologies, Inc. is an American company that makes modern player pianos. It was founded as Q•R•S Music Company in 1900 to make piano rolls, the perforated rolls of paper read by player pianos to reproduce music. The company also produced vinyl records in the 1920s and 1930s and radios beginning in the 1920s. Today, it makes modern, digital variations on the player piano and the recordings to drive them. History QRS was founded in Chicago, Illinois, by Melville Clark (ca. 1850-1918), who also founded the Story & Clark Piano Company, to make piano rolls. It recorded early ragtime and jazz musicians, such as Fats Waller and James P. Johnson. In 1912, the company introduced the QRS marking piano, one of the first mechanisms for recording the performance of a live pianist to a piano roll, rather than transcribing notes by hand. The first "hand-played" roll that QRS released was "Pretty Baby" by ragtime pianist Charley Straight. The company went on to capture live p ...
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List Of Compositions By Scott Joplin
The following is a complete list of musical compositions by Scott Joplin ( 1867 – April 1, 1917). Scott Joplin was born in Arkansas in around 1867, just outside Texarkana, and was a street performer before settling in Sedalia, Missouri, St. Louis, Missouri, and finally New York City where he died in 1917. He was an American composer and pianist, who achieved fame for his ragtime compositions, and was dubbed "The King of Ragtime." During his career, Joplin wrote over 40 original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas. One of his first pieces, the "Maple Leaf Rag" (1899), has been recognized as the archetypal rag and influenced subsequent rag composers for thanks to its rhythmic patterns, melody lines, and harmony. His finances were precarious throughout his career, despite a steady income from the "Maple Leaf Rag." Joplin had the majority of his works published by John Stark of Sedalia, Missouri, although he did use other lesser-known companies including his o ...
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