Music Assignment: Ragtime and Jazz Music Comparison and Analysis

This report examines two distinct musical forms: ragtime and jazz. It begins by exploring the contributions of Scott Joplin, a key figure in ragtime music, and the influences that shaped his work, including the World's Fair. The report highlights the popularity of Joplin's music, noting his ability to incorporate emotional depth into his compositions, and also touches on the challenges he faced with his opera, Treemonisha. The second part of the report focuses on the comparison of ragtime and jazz, discussing the instrumentation, the role of improvisation, and the structural differences between the two genres. It also traces the historical roots of jazz back to ragtime and the African slave trade. The report concludes by summarizing the key distinctions and similarities between these two influential musical styles, providing a comprehensive analysis of their origins, characteristics, and impact.

Running head: MUSIC
Music
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Contents
Answer 1:.........................................................................................................................................2
Answer 2:.........................................................................................................................................2
References:......................................................................................................................................4

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Answer 1:
An African-American composer Scott Joplin was known as the “King of ragtime for his
popular rag time music which is composed during his brief career. Born into railway labourer’s
family in Texarkana, Arkansas, Joplin developed his musical knowledge and tastes from the
local music teachers. He was taught mandolin and guitar along with vocal quartet. After leaving
his job as a railway labour he went to Chicago to attend the World’s Fair in 1893. This
influenced Joplin’s ragtime music most than anything else1.
The reason that Joplin’s ragtime music achieved huge popularity was mainly due to his
ability to include melancholy or adversity even in his most high spirited lyrics. On the other hand
the reason for failure of Treemonisha is mainly the fact that with European Opera setting Joplin
struggled to merge his soft ragtime notes.
Answer 2:
In case of ragtime music generally a single piano is used however, there are musicians
who have used other instruments while playing ragtime music. In contrast a group of musicians
are required to play jazz music. Improvisation is the main foundation of jazz music whereas
ragtime music is generally written down with songs more structured than jazz music2.
1 Michelson, Joel, Hong Xu, and Phillip B. Kirlin. "Probabilistic Generation of Ragtime Music
from Classical Melodies." In International Conference on Mathematics and Computation in
Music, pp. 350-360. Springer, Cham, 2017.
2 Shepherd, John. "The ragtime era." In Tin Pan Alley, pp. 46-64. Routledge, 2016.

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Ragtime and jazz music are quite similar in nature with many scholars race the root of
jazz music with the development of ragtime music. In fact jazz music genera can be traced back
to the African Slavery as that of ragtime of music.

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References:
Michelson, Joel, Hong Xu, and Phillip B. Kirlin. "Probabilistic Generation of Ragtime Music
from Classical Melodies." In International Conference on Mathematics and Computation in
Music, pp. 350-360. Springer, Cham, 2017.
Shepherd, John. "The ragtime era." In Tin Pan Alley, pp. 46-64. Routledge, 2016.