Crazy for Ragtime

Abstract

Publishers of CD-ROMs about vernacular music are finally starting become competitive. last few years have seen the appearance of products about specific artists such as Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan, Prince, Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, and David Bowie. Some are more broadly conceived, purporting introduce the history of blues, country music, jazz, folk music, rap, and rock - or even teach aspects of music theory through these genres. It is not surprising then that two discs regarding ragtime appeared during 1996. Crazy about Ragtime takes a broad view of the cultural and musical history of ragtime, its predecessors, and successors, while Total Joplin focuses on Scott Joplin, who is often referred as the King of Ragtime. two programs share similarities in approach, but there are also differences that are worthy of special attention. Robert Winter's Crazy for Ragtime was the first CD-ROM produced by Calliope Media, which the author founded with Jay Heifetz, son of violinist Jascha Heifetz. According the information on Calliope's Web site (http://www.calliope.com/about), the company's mission is to change the way people experience interactive media titles. Winter has taken significant strides in helping Calliope fulfill its mission with Crazy for Ragtime, which both entertains and educates in a fascinating manner. Those familiar with Winter's earlier products for Voyager, such as Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and Antonin Dvorak's New World Symphony, will again experience the author's golden touch with multimedia and will be reminded why he is so highly respected as a teacher, performer, and historian. curtain frame begins by showing an old map of the United States as a ragtime piece plays in the background. From the map's location of St. Louis, Missouri, often regarded as the birthplace of classic ragtime, emerges an image of a maple leaf, an obvious reference Scott Joplin's popular Maple Leaf Rag. A video box displays a series of brief excerpts from very old black-and-white silent movies, starting with rare footage of the dance known as the cakewalk. Still images of illustrated sheet music title pages and portraits of musicians flash across the motion-picture panel as the title frame opens. Users who want proceed directly the title frame can simply hit a key escape from the curtain frame. title frame displays an interactive table of contents on the U.S. map, which now also contains a multiplicity of blinking city names. Clicking on a city displays a captioned illustration of a musician or a piece of sheet music associated with ragtime there. A collapsible menu bar offers options for a glossary, for a Find tool that allows keyword searching of practically the entire contents of the program, for an excellent contextual help function, for back-tracking, and for a table of contents for the CD-ROM's seven major sections. The Ragtime Craze, which is the historical portion of the program, traces the sociocultural and musical context of ragtime from minstrelsy, Victorianism, and salon music dancing, Tin Pan Alley, and jazz. Winter does not neglect the influence of ragtime on vernacular music and on the works of such composers as Claude Debussy, Igor Stravinsky, and Charles Ives. stimulating and lengthy audiovisual presentation is accompanied by a script that one can peruse separately. Among the strengths of the seven subsections of The Ragtime Craze is Winter's treatment of coon songs, a turn-of-the-century genre that stereotypes African-Americans in a way that is now very offensive. author approaches the subject clearly and cogently without being squeamish. Those unfamiliar with the history of dance will be enlightened by the subsection titled Animal Dancing, which discusses the cakewalk, turkey-trot, grizzly bear, and chicken scratcher, not mention the foxtrot, which was named after the movie mogui Harry Fox. Accounts of ragtime performance at the Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago are examined in an inquisitive manner without breaching the bounds of musicological objectivity. …