Scott Joplin

Scott Joplin (1868-1917)

Scott Joplin, commonly known as the "King of Ragtime" music, was born on November 24, 1868, in Bowie County, Texas near Linden. Joplin came from a large musical family. His father, Giles Joplin was a musician who had fiddled dance music while serving as a slave at his master's parties. His mother, Florence Givens Joplin, born free and out of slavery, sang and played the banjo, and four of his brothers and sisters either sang or played strings.

Joplin's talent was revealed at an early age. Encouraged by his parent's, he became extremely proficient on the banjo and gained an interest for playing the piano. After Joplin's parents purchased a piano for the family, he taught himself how to play the instrument so well that his piano playing became remarkable. Joplin soon began playing for church and local social events. By age eleven, while under the teachings of a German music teacher named Juliuss Weiss, Joplin was learning the finer points of harmony and style. As a teenager, he played well enough to be employed as a dance musician.

In 1884, Joplin left home and traveled the Midwest for some time as an intinerant pianist playing in saloons and brothels. He settled in St. Louis a few years later and continued his studies. He found employment there in the city's prostitution district playing as a cafe pianist.

Joplin left St. Louis in 1893 and performed at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He left there in 1894 and arrived in Sedalia, Missouri, where he spent the next year or so entertaining the patrons of a private club on the second floor of a saloon by the name of "Maple Leaf Club." In 1895, Joplin continued his studies at the George R. Smith College for negros where he soon published his first composition, the song Please Say You Will. From there, Joplin toured with an eight member Texas Medley Quartet across the country all the way up to Syracuse, New York. This Quartet disbanded in 1897 and Joplin organized another group, the Seda Quartet, which performed off and on during the next few years.

In 1899, Joplin composed the Maple Leaf Rag. This song soon became the most popular piano rag of the period. It brought Joplin popularity, which inspired him to compose several more original rags.

Joplin headed for New York in 1907 where he continued composing music and began instructing others in music. He son sought a publisher for one of his most famous operas Treemonisha. During this time, though, it never reached any success. This opera did not actually reach popularity until some 60 years later. New York proved to be stimulating for Joplin's creative mind. There he published many ragtime jewels, on right after another.

In 1916, Joplin's career came to an abrupt end. Joplin contracted syphilis and began suffering the terminal effects of this disease. He suffered from paranoia, dementia, penalization, and other symptoms. In the latter part of 1916, he was admitted to Manhattan State Hospital, a mental hospital, where he would never leave until he passed away on April 1, 1917. After his death, Joplin's body was buried in the Astoria section of Queens, New York in St. Michael's Cemetery.

In Joplin's many years of composing, he was never actually

acknowledged as the great composer that he really was. There just was not any opportunities for black musicians during those times to have their music heard by anyone in the serious musical world. Joplin's music received recognition posthumously as a result of the revival of ragtime music in the 1970's, as well as during its popularity in the 1920's and 1930's.

Throughout his entire life, Joplin was mostly influenced to increase his musical skills by his mother and father, both being musicians themselves. More than type of influence upon himself, Joplin was one to place the influence on others. His works sparked the writings of his contemporaries, all those who studied with him, and all those who studied his music.

Joplin led