"4 Ragtimes - Score and Parts" Sheet Music by Scott Joplin

After the 1893 world fair in Chicago, where a larger audience had listened to this style of music for the first time ever, ragtime came down the country with a vengeance and was played everywhere. Though ragtime may be regarded as the precursor of jazz, it is still fully composed music. The most important ragtime composer was Scott Joplin, the "King of Ragtime writers". Though he may have been the most productive, best known and maybe even the best ragtime composer, the pieces written by Tom Turpin and Charles L. Johnson are nonetheless also worth playing.