VOA标准英语2010年-You've Heard of 'The Birth of the Blue

Scott Joplin played the piano at clubs and bars throughout Sedalia. He wrote 44 original rags that put an emphasis on the off-beats within scores. He also wrote a complete ragtime¹ opera.

Here's one of those word-association games.

If we said waltz, you'd probably think of Vienna, Austria.

In an American context, if we said Dixieland, New Orleans, Louisiana, would likely rush to mind.

Country music?  Nashville, Tennessee.  Blues²?  Memphis, also in Tennessee.

Scott Joplin
The Motown soul sound?  Detroit, Michigan.  Folk?  San Francisco or New York City's Greenwich Village.

Now here's a tougher one: How about ragtime? 

Ragtime was born, and is still king, in a little town that even many Americans have never heard of.

It's Sedalia, in the Midwest state of Missouri.

Sedalia is a factory town of about 21,000 people.  But you should have seen it at the turn of the 20th century.  Cattle drives from Texas still passed through Sedalia, and two cross-country railroads had big engine shops there.

And with all those cowboys and railroad workers came saloons and what the folks called sporting houses - a fancy term for brothels.  That meant lots of jobs for the piano and banjo players who had found their way to Sedalia.

aexir, Wikipedia Commons
This is a player piano, also called a pianola. The piano roll, inserted into the opening, can play a tune³, or the instrument can be played like a normal piano.

Into this scene came Scott Joplin, who played piano in some of those lively establishments.  And to keep his sometimes-intoxicated audience interested, he developed a ragged⁴, herky-jerky style of music called Ragtime. 

It really caught on, in part because it was ideally suited for piano rolls, which were then wildly popular.  As rolls of heavy paper punched with holes slowly turned within so-called player pianos, they activated⁵ the keys and produced tinkly⁶ music all by themselves.

That's the short version of the story about ragtime, Scott Joplin, and Sedalia, Missouri.
 

1 ragtime   

n.拉格泰姆音乐

参考例句：

• The most popular music back then was called ragtime.那时最流行的音乐叫拉格泰姆音乐。
• African-American piano player Scott Joplin wrote many ragtime songs.非裔美国钢琴家ScottJoplin写了许多拉格泰姆歌曲。

2 blues   

n.抑郁，沮丧；布鲁斯音乐

参考例句：

• She was in the back of a smoky bar singing the blues.她在烟雾弥漫的酒吧深处唱着布鲁斯歌曲。
• He was in the blues on account of his failure in business.他因事业失败而意志消沉。

3 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

4 ragged   

adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的

参考例句：

• A ragged shout went up from the small crowd.这一小群人发出了刺耳的喊叫。
• Ragged clothing infers poverty.破衣烂衫意味着贫穷。

5 activated   

adj. 激活的 动词activate的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• The canister is filled with activated charcoal.蒸气回收罐中充满了活性炭。

6 tinkly   

叮当响的

参考例句：