Description

Instrumentation: standard Wind Band

As the title suggests, this is intended to evoke the spirit and style of ragtime music. As such, its tempo should be steady, march-like.

There is plenty of use of syncopation and it will be noted that trombone players have the opportunity to indulge in some use of glissando during the four-bar introduction: this effect should be restricted to this passage (and its subsequent re-appearances), otherwise, its use loses its effectiveness.

The main thematic idea, beginning in bar 5, recurs after each new idea and the aim is to enable the different sections of the band to contribute to the melodic and rhythmic content of this piece.

Unusually, it is not an arrangement of an existing piece but an original composition.