Visual & Performance Arts

Running Head : THE ENTERTAINER

Scott Joplin 's The Entertainer

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Scott Joplin 's The Entertainer

Scott Joplin is an African-American composer born in Texas on the year 1868 . His father was a laborer and a former slave , so their life during his young years was not that easy . Stories have it that Scott gained access to the piano , his main instrument , from a white-owned house where his mother worked . He was merely self-taught during his first tries at the instrument . His talent was

then discovered by a German music teacher by the name of Julius Weiss , who further enhanced his skill and introduced to him to European art forms , such as the opera on which he wrote some of his own during his latter years as a composer (Berlin 1998

A man of many talents , Joplin was crowned as the King of Rags ' Rag is the genre of music that became popular during the 1900 's , especially in black communities . This kind of music seems to be related to other styles famous during that time - such as the jazz and the blues . All of these were given importance by many African-Americans as a kind of protest against Western and American views . The slave trade and slavery issues brought about a lot of changes and introduced American culture to these African-Americans . One of this is the straight with evident downbeat , and strong backbeat marching songs of the Americans . This music is connotatively connected with the army , and invokes a feeling of command and authority . The blacks then made their own music , opposing that of what the oppressors have (Marsalis , 2008 . This music , and those derived from it , contains the elements of swinging and dancing . Jazz for example , intentionally misses the downbeat and accents the upbeats to create a feeling of moving forward ' which in turn creates a dancing sensation . Rag , on the same line , also contains these components which are used to express the black 's sentiments and opposition to the powers of authority . Scott Joplin then became a popular figure in this movement . Through his rag songs , he made an impact in the history of reviving the African-Americans pride

One of his songs that made this impact is The Entertainer , written for piano at around 1902 . As a whole , the piece is of a happy tune played at a moderate tempo , with a lot of repetitive figures . It generally follows a form of A-B-A-C-D where the different letters stand for the different figures present in the piece (Blesh , 1981 . The melody line uses a lot of broken sixteenth notes , creating a mood that is flowing but jumpy at the same time . It is usually played in higher octaves during the repeats , which results to a repetitive form of music without being so dragging or boring . The piece 's time signature is in 2 /4 , and strongly stressed by the bass rhythm pattern which does a kind of walking , a style common in rags and in...