From the score library
The Entertainer
by Scott Joplin
An upper-intermediate piece from the Ragtime period, in C major, and about 3 minutes and 30 seconds to play.
About this edition
Joplin's own instruction sits right in the score: "Not fast." The Entertainer became the most recognized piece of American ragtime decades after its 1902 publication, riding a wave of revival on film — it is still the tune most people mean when they say "that ragtime song," even if they've never seen the title. First piece in the catalog outside the European classical tradition.
Resist speeding up — the syncopation only reads as swung and playful at a relaxed tempo; rushed, it collapses into noise. Lock the left hand's steady oom-pah in first, slowly, before layering the right hand's off-beat accents on top.
Scores and source editions retain their credited public-domain or licensed provenance.