
Smith College for Negroes during the 1890s and also worked as a teacher and mentor to other ragtime musicians. Joplin studied music at Sedalia's George R. He later settled in Sedalia again while continuing to travel, with the waltzes "Please Say You Will" and "A Picture of Her Face" becoming his first two published songs. Joplin lived for a time in Sedalia, Missouri in the 1880s and in 1893 he fronted a band in Chicago during the World Fair. Joplin left home during his teen years and began work as a travelling musician, playing in bars and dance halls where new musical forms were featured that formed the basis of ragtime, which had distinct, syncopated rhythms and a fusion of musical sensibilities. Joplin was also a vocalist and would play the cornet as well.

Julius Weiss, a German music teacher who lived in Joplin's hometown, gave the young pianist further instruction.
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The Joplins were a musical family, with Florence being a singer and banjo player and Giles a violinist Scott learned how to play the guitar at a young age and later took to the piano, displaying a gift for the instrument. Born to Florence Givens and Giles Joplin, Scott grew up in Texarkana, a town situated on the border between Texas and Arkansas. Scott Joplin's exact date of birth and location is not known, though it is estimated that he was born between the summer of June 1867 and January 1868. He died in New York City on April 1, 1917. Joplin also penned the operas Guest of Honor and Treemonisha. He immersed himself in the emerging musical form known as ragtime and became the genre’s foremost composer with tunes like "The Entertainer," "Solace" and "The Maple Leaf Rag," which is the biggest-selling ragtime song in history. Born in the late 1860s somewhere along the border between Texas and Arkansas, Scott Joplin took up the piano as a child and eventually became a travelling musician as a teen.
