

Meanwhile, Scott continued to study with Weiss until the latter’s departure in 1884. Sometime in early 1880s, Giles moved in with another woman. While Florence encouraged her son to pursue a career in music, Giles wanted him to learn something practical. Very soon young Scott was spending all his spare time on the newly acquired instrument, which caused frictions in the household.

Rodgers, with whom he lodged, bought a new piano, he made sure that the old square one was sold to the Joplin’s at a discounted rate. Weiss also introduced him to the world of classical music, especially opera.
#Scott joplin cause of death free#
Soon, Weiss started giving him lessons in piano, ear training, sight reading and harmony free of cost, a gesture Scott Joplin never forgot. He was by then seven years of age.īy eleven, he had become proficient enough to draw the attention of a German piano teacher, Julius Weiss. To supplement the family income, his mother too took up house cleaning and laundry and it was at one of her employers house that young Scott first started tinkling with a piano he was allowed to play the instrument while his mother cleaned the house. There he started going to school while his father and elder brother worked as railroad laborer. While it is not known when exactly they made the move, some sources believe it to be 1875. In the June 1880 census, we find the family located in the newly established town of Texarkana. However, they did not remain there for long.

Nothing is known about his childhood except that he grew up in the farm, listening to his father playing the violin and his mother the banjo.

Born second of his parents’ six children, he had an elder brother called Monroe, and four younger siblings Robert, Josie, William and Johnny. His mother, Florence Givens, was freeborn. His father, Giles Joplin, was a former slave, who at the time of Scott’s birth worked as a tenant farmer in East Texas. However, that might not be true as the June 1870 census locates him in Linden, Texas, as a two-year-old, implying that he was born a little before June 1868. Scott Joplin is believed to have born on Novemin Texarkana, a city located in the US state of Texas. Recommended Lists: American CelebritiesPianistsComposersAmerican MenTexas Musicians Childhood & Early Life Recommended For You Billy Joel Quincy Jones John Williams Rick Rubin Place of death: Manhattan, New York City, United StatesĪwards: 1976 - Pulitzer Prize - Grammy Award - Academy Award for Best Original Song Score and Adaptation Siblings: Monroe Joplin, Myrtle Joplin, Ossie Joplin, Robert Joplin, William JoplinĪfrican American Men African American Singers Recommended For You Billy Joel Quincy Jones John Williams Rick Rubin DID WE MISS SOMEONE? CLICK HERE AND TELL US WE'LL MAKE SURETHEY'RE HERE A.S.A.P Quick Facts Image Credit (Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons) Image Credit (playingmusiconmars) Image Credit (The Roaring Ragtime Channel) Previous Nextīorn In: Texarkana, Texas, United States 93 9 Pianists #88 Composers #157 Musicians #1195 Pianists #88 Composers #157 Musicians #1195 93 9 Interest in his works waned after his death in 1917 and he was forgotten until interest in his music was stimulated in the 1970s by the use of his music in the Academy Award-winning score to the film The Sting it earned him his only award, a posthumous Pulitzer Prize in music. His most popular piece is Maple Leaf Rag. At the age of 27, he managed to publish his first work and wrote over 100 original ragtime pieces during his brief career. He spent a large part of his early years in St. Leaving home around the age of nineteen, Scott Joplin first became a traveling musician, playing in brothels because nobody was willing to provide scope to the Black musicians. By eleven, he caught the attention of a German music teacher, who gave him lessons free of cost. Born into a music-loving working class African-American family, he learned to play the banjo as a child and the piano at the house of his mother’s employer around the age of seven. He is credited for upgrading and introducing “banjo piano”, a plebian form of entertainment often affiliated to salons and brothels, to elite American art form. Scott Joplin, known to the world as the King of Rags, was an American composer and pianist. Scott Joplin Biography (American Composer and Pianist Known as the ‘King of Ragtime’)īirthday: November 24, 1868 (Sagittarius)īorn In: Texarkana, Texas, United States Advanced Search
