A RAGTIME COMPENDIUM
A free index of ragtime titles, with details of composers, lyricists, dates and publishers plus where to find MIDIs of many of the titles on the Web.
On this site there is a free downloadable spreadsheet file with details of 15,256 ragtime tunes, including composer, lyricist (if pertinent), year of copyright and publisher. In addition there are associated notes and a sheet music folio list. Of the 15,256 titles there are 214 song versions of separately listed instrumentals. If Excel 6 doesn't suit you, the spreadsheet can probably be supplied in alternative formats.
Version 10 (as at 30 June, 2010) includes web site sources for those 5,095 tunes identified for which MIDI renditions can either be found on the Web or made available.
When the concept for this site/project was being developed it seemed to fill a void. With the developments in web technologies (broadband in particular, and the digitising of scores by many libraries (and individuals), much of the material can now be readily accessed elsewhere although not as a comprehensive index. The time required to maintain it, given the new material being added to the web daily, has become too great for me and with this 10th version (which represents 10 years of reviews) the project is closed and the data provided here for “posterity”.
This index is the personal contribution to the ragtime community that has given, and continues to give, each of the contributors so much enjoyment. It is hoped that this material will aid other interested parties to find tunes they would like to hear and that it will encourage players/sequencers to record/sequence some of the currently unrepresented tunes. It is, hopefully, also a lead to sources of scores for performers.
From here you can download four files – a sample of the spreadsheet, the spreadsheet, the notes and the Watanabe folio list.
- For convenience first there is a sample of the spreadsheet so you can see if it suits you before downloading the much large spreadsheet file. Click here to see a sample (file is 20.5 Kb) of what the spreadsheet looks like.
- The spreadsheet is large (1.15 Mb in zipped format). It is set up alphabetically by title, but you may sort the spreadsheet anyway you wish - by composer, by year of composition or just by which titles have MIDIs available. Alas, there are inevitably some unintentional transcription errors. Click here to download the main spreadsheet.
- To fully understand the spreadsheet you need first to download and read the explanatory notes (14 x A4 pages - 57 Kb in zipped form). They explain how the spreadsheet is laid out, what the references mean and give the
MIDI sequencers home pages. There are no links toMIDI sites but they are listed in the Notes. You may need to repaginate this before printing if A4 (297 x 210 mm) is not your normal page size. Click here to download the notes. - The smaller Excel 6 spreadsheet (zipped down to 46 Kb) gives the detailed contents of 34 sheet music folios and the publishers of them. Click here to download the Watanabe folio spreadsheet.
Without the help of many people this compendium would never have been produced. Many helpers are cited in the notes but here I should especially mention David Beattie, Tom Brier, Rob Crausaz, Benjamin Intartaglia, Oleg Mezjuev and Luigi Ranalli who have all been there to help for almost the entire 10 years. The compendium belongs to them as much as it does to me.
If you would like to contact me for particular MIDIs or the like, and I will always help where I can, then contact bandmmathew[at sign] hotmail.com
Michael Mathew
As at 30 June 2010
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