The mission of the New Orleans School of Ragtime is to break down all the barriers that keep most musicians from delving into the classic ragtime repertoire by investing in 3 critical pillars:
Providing High-Quality Charts - First, we provide excellent, readable charts for all common orchestral, jazz, and folk instruments. These charts are then placed in the hands of veteran New Orleans musicians, who edit and mark the charts to guide the player in developing their own interpretation. High-level professional players have been consulted on every aspect of these arrangements; this is undoubtedly the most accessible ragtime has been in generations.
Cultivating a culture of mastery - The expertise of these masters is the second pillar of our program. Though it is not often recognized, New Orleans' performers over time have kept alive many practices that originated with the ragtime era and even inspired some of the original compositions. These styles transcend the usually assumed connections with "dixieland" music, and influence everything from light classical to heavy funk in this most musical of American cities. And the best of the musicians know this, and can speak about it with great authority. The current pandemic conditions have caused many of these high level musicians to look for new ways to share their wealth of knowledge in new ways, and The New Orleans School of Ragtime intends to be a resource for them as well as the public.
Bringing musicians together- Each of our arrangements is specially designed to work with any combination of instruments, from duets to large ensembles. This means that we have everything you need to start playing ragtime with your friends, no matter what combination of instruments! As long as the instruments have modern, chromatic A440 scale—as most do—anyone in the world can start their own ragtime group, for fun or even for money. Your local vintage dance society will be thrilled to have live musicians play for their events. And with our community on social media, you can "duet" all you want with musicians from all over the world wide web. This is a repertoire for the 21st century virtual parlors, porches, clubs and concert halls.
Ragtime until now has been almost exclusively piano music, which is why other musicians don't know about it. What we offer is absolutely unique--sheet music for any instrument especially arranged to be played with others in any combination. This flexibility is unheard of in music arrangements, which are almost always very specific to certain ensembles. We have the key to open the door to a part of our national heritage that is virtually unknown except to a few enthusiasts.
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How do we manage to build these kinds of arrangements? This "innovation" can actually be found in the original scores—for anyone who wants to see it. Encoded in the "Higher Class of Rags" is a whole chorus of different voices and rhythms, and with a bit of attention it is easy to recognize them. The hard work of teasing these voices out into separate parts, and setting them properly for so many instruments, and finally editing to preserve the original voice-leading intentions of the composers—all of this time consuming and detail intensive work is done by our arrangers so that the player can dive deeply into the pieces and get the most out of their study and performance.
We are also planning a wide variety of video tutorials, online interaction, and content in history and theory which will greatly enhance the amateur instrumentalist's depth and skill with this great material. We make all of the richness and energy imbued in Classic Ragtime available for the 21st century recreational and professional musician.
We are new. The New Orleans School of Ragtime has been in the works for many years; however, the COVID 19 crisis has choked off so many revenue streams for our master musicians, that some have asked us to . We have a consortium of some of the best musicians in New Orleans on our team, who are not able to gig, but they can teach! Our collection of arrangements will soon be quite large, of some of the greatest music written specifically to be played at home for recreation.
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Ragtime is fundamentally about people coming together from different backgrounds. The people who created it, long before it was ever called "ragtime", were building a new culture for themselves out of the many different groups from which slavery had separated them. The imprint of these efforts, and the hope for the future that it represents, has ever since inspired people to come together in the face of a long history of enforced separation. The music has inspired innovations for more than a century and built many bridges in societies all over the globe.
The New Orleans School of Ragtime is just another of these forward-looking innovations. The 21st Century has seen the greatest coming together of people in the history of our species. We believe the music of the Ragtime movement can still be a vessel for the values of individual excellence and strong communities.
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Besides, it is a LOT OF FUN TO PLAY!