If you are looking for free high quality ragtime piano and ragtime orchestra music and scores you have come to the right place.
The Piano/Piano rolls page contains 218 authentic ragtime piano rolls converted to mp3-format without loss of sound quality. Although most of these recordings were sequenced by skilled arrangers - especially the ones recorded during the first 10 - 15 years of the ragtime era ca 1898 - 1918, some of the ones presented here were actually hand played by their respective composer - among them four with Scott Joplin playing his own compositions.
Unfortunately I haven't yet been able to find all the classical ragtime piano rolls that I wanted for the piano rolls page. The Piano/Virtual piano page attempts to fill this gap with 103 rags, 91 of which have been transcribed and sequenced by me and the remaining 12 by Raymond Robijns.
As per October 2019 I have decided to include syncopated ragtime waltzes written by ragtime composers in the collection. I have previously not considered them to be true ragtime pieces - but I've changed my mind.
Most ragtime pieces were originally written for piano but in many cases also arranged and published as so called stock arrangements for orchestras and brass bands.
The Orchestra/Small band page contains such arrangements for orchestra. The collection includes 151 original ragtime era arrangements including all 15 rags contained in the famous Red Back Book, published by Stark Music Co.
The Orchestra/Brass band page contains arrangements for brass bands. The collection includes 29 original ragtime era arrangements. Brass band arrangements are still by far outnumbered by orchestra arrangements on this web site but this will gradually change as I have a considerable backlog of brass band arrangements waiting to be processed.
The Early Jazz page contains examples from the music genre - jazz - that in just a few years superseded ragtime and started a new era of hot music. The most important year for jazz breakthrough was 1917 when the first jazz records by Original Dixieland Jazz Band were released. The collection includes 12 of their best known original recordings with the simultaneously released orchestra arrangements.
All orchestral and brass band arrangements are presented as virtual recordings (see the About page for more information) and the complete score for all instrument parts.
YouTube contains many ragtime related videos. A selection of them are presented on the Videos page.
On the Links page I have listed the ragtime related websites which have helped me the most building this site.
Finally, on the About page I give some background to the music on this site and how and why it was made.
Ragnar Hellspong
Krusenberg, Sweden