Sokolow - Ragtime Fingerstyle Ukulele

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The ukuleles popular resurgence has elevated the instruments role in many types of music. We all know the uke can be strummed to accompany singers, but uke virtuosos have demonstrated brilliantly that the uke can also play beautiful, dazzling instrumental versions of any stylepop, classical, blues, rock, jazz, bluegrass, and you-name-it. Why not tackle the uniquely American form known as ragtime? Often called the predecessor of jazz, ragtime features striking chord changes, memorable melodies, and syncopated rhythms. The ukes first ascendance in the U.S., in the early 1920s, coincided with the end of the ragtime era, so we only have a few recordings of uke instrumentalists playing rags. Its time to fill that gap!

Its often said that ragtime resulted from African-American rhythms being applied to marches (like those of Sousa), which were popular in the late 19th century. Its syncopation was startling and exciting in the 1890s, when the ragtime craze began, and it inspired strenuous dance music (the word ragtime was probably a play on the musics ragged rhythm). Though its frequently played on classical music radio stations today and sounds sedate by our standards, in 1900 it was the shocking new music that older, respectable middle class folks decried as a corrupting influencemaking it, of course, irresistable to young people. After all, ragtime grew up in the brothels of St. Louis, where African- American pianists provided music to which the working girls could dance provocatively. Remember how Harold Hill characterized it in The Music Man: Ragtime, shameless music thatll drag your son, your daughter to the arms of the jungle animal instinctmass hysteria!*

If that hasnt made you want to play ragtime on the ukulele, nothing will! This book is a sampling of some of the more popular rags of the Ragtime Era (from around 1895 to 1918). Each rag is rendered as faithfully to the original piano version as possible. Some changes have been made to accommodate the limitations of the uke fretboard (and lack of bass notes). Since most rags have four distinct sections, there is a lot of material here! Therefore, 15 rags is the equivalent of nearly 60 tunes. If that seems daunting, keep in mind that you can learn the easiest section of a rag, and it will stand alone as a tuneful performance. You can also learn all four sections and have a piece in your repertoire that takes three or four minutes to play. Needless to say, ukesters of different skill levels can all find something playable in these pages!

Incidentally, if youre thinking that ragtime is just for piano, back in the first decade of the 1900s, Vess Ossman, Fred Van Eps, and other prominent fivestring banjo players performed fingerstyle ragtime pieces and recorded them on Edison cylinders, which preceded records. The banjo was extremely popular back then, and ragtime was pop music! Later, in the 1960s and 70s, many fingerpicking guitarists arranged rags for the guitar.

Like the novelty piano solos of the time, ragtime was instrumental. The popularity of Scott Joplins Maple Leaf Rag, published in 1899, helped turn the genre into a pop phenomenon. By 1920, Tin Pan Alley had co-opted the form, and hundreds of amusing

*In January of 1900, the music monthly The Etude, in a piece entitled Musical Impurity noted: The counters of the music stores are loaded with this virulent poison, which, in the form of a malarious epidemic, is finding its way into the homes and brains of the youth to such an extent as to arouse ones suspicions of their sanity. It went on to describe the melodic rhythm of ragtime as double-jointed jumping jack airs that fairly twist the ears of an educated musician from their anchorage.

Dont be daunted by the length of these tunes! The sections of each rag are named A, B, C, and D, and a typical rag repeats sections with this format: AA BB A CC DD. (In most rags, the C and/or D sections change keys, usually going a 4th higher.) Also, each individual section is an eight- or 16-bar phrase that is played twice, with a different ending the second time. Considering all this repetition, each rag is about half (or, in many cases, a fourth) as long as it appears to be on paper.

1. Start with the easier arrangements! Some of these rags are easier to play than others because they have less playing upthe- neck and less rapid chord changes. The rags in this book are sequenced from easier to more challenging. Each rag has several sections, and some rags have easy parts and harder parts. Here are some easy sections with which to start:

Pine Apple Rag: A

Reindeer Ragtime Two-Step: A, B, and C

Smoky Mokes: A and B

St. Louis Tickle: A and B

Stumbling: Verse and Chorus

Swipesy Cakewalk: B

2. Listen to a rag several times before attempting to play it.
Having the tune in your head is half the battle.

3. Play slowly at first and speed up when youve learned a section of a rag. Its always best to practice at an even tempo, rather than playing the easy parts faster than the difficult parts.

4. Play the chords that are indicated by grids. Theyll get your fretting hand in the right position to play the music/tab.

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