A RAGTIME COMPENDIUM

VERSION 17 (30 September, 2021)

This free data base contains listings of ragtime compositions, their composers (and lyricists if pertinent), their publishers and the year of publication. It also cites sources for MIDI renditions of about 45% of the tunes.

Faced with extended lockdowns here in Australia due to the Covid 19 epidemic, and in the absence of a volunteer coming forth to take over the co-ordinating role of this project, I decided to make one final revision. This involved searching the web for material on all pre-1970 tunes where we had not previously cited a MIDI (or, in the case of ragtimedorianhenry, a mp3) rendition to exist. And when I had almost finished this Mississippi State University gave me access to Janice Cleary’s personal index to her extensive collection that she had bequeathed to them.

The outcome has been several additions, a few deletions (usually alternate titles), a few new MIDIs, many new mp3s from ragtimedorianhenry plus some I had previously overlooked from Benjamin Intartaglia, a few corrections and added sources for hundreds of tunes.

In this final version there are some significant changes of format. There is no longer any highlighting of changes and the Status column has been omitted. The (x) preceding renditions under Others has been deleted and they are separated by semicolons rather than commas. The Notes have been revised and extensively expanded with over 100 new sources. I have also sought to identify tunes for which the original sheet music (rather than transcriptions) is available as scans in the hope that this may encourage pianists to get hold of these scarce sheets and record these tunes for posterity.

There is always more that could be done – for example one could search YouTube for downloadable renditions of tunes for which we do not cite a rendition (and there are many of these as many tunes were only ever recorded or presented to the public as piano rolls without published sheet music).

I offer profuse thanks to those ragtime enthusiasts from all continents that have helped me get this far, even though I know it will always remain incomplete. I remain hopeful that some other enthusiast will take up the reins and there will be future revisions as ragtime is still alive and kicking.

In this final version everything has been put into the one file. The first sheet is the explanatory notes that detail what the columns in the data spread sheet mean, the sources of the data and the sources for the MIDIs. You need to go through this to get best value out of the spread sheet.

The title data remains split into pre-1971 and post-1970 tunes. I’d like to think the pre 1971 data was comprehensive, but as rarities keep emerging I know it isn’t. And the post-1970 data is equally deficient as printed and published sheets have become far less prevalent and tracking down new compositions has become more complex.

The fourth sheet is a list of music folios provided to us by Sakae Watanabe. These are noted against each relevant title in the data Spread sheet.

I hope this site helps you in some way – by broadening your knowledge, by letting you “chase” a particular composer, by looking for title options that don’t clash with existing ones, etc.

If the MIDIs you seek can no longer be downloaded, contact me at bandmmathew at hotmail dot com and I will endeavour to help you out from my collection.

Ragtime Compendium Version 17 Excel Spreadsheet Download. Compendium_17

Michael Mathew

As at 30 September, 2021

The End