Tom Baxter's posting reminded me of a few QRS modern (well, 1970s)
rolls I have, labeled "played by Scott Joplin."  I have Magnetic Rag
and another one or two such.

I've always wondered about the left hand bass lines on these rolls --
there seem to be a lot of rolling boogie-woogie licks added in places.
The official word is that Joplin intended his compositions to be played
as written, but (a) that may have been hype to help establish ragtime
as serious music as opposed to "jass", and (b) when Joplin played for
fun or in public, maybe he improvised a little extra, and (c) if he
wrote in *all* the details, his scores might have looked unplayably
complex, and potential sheet music buyers would have looked for
something easier to take home.

And (d) Joplin may have spiced up the "ornamentation" a la Bach and
Mozart and that's fine, as opposed to treating the written page as
merely a "chart" for improvisation and "faking."

A ragtimer's left hand is especially prone to seek improvements to a
plodding bass line!  If I played the extra stuff more than three times
in my own rag compositions, I added them to the score -- "if you
document it, it's a feature, not a bug." ^-)

I learned to play Joplin et al back in the '70s revival, and composed a
few rags of my own, and pondered the question of how closely to stick
to the printed page.  For the most part I felt that the written score
pretty well expressed the piece, and that throwing in extra licks
changed the feel of some (but not all) rags.

But the question remains -- for each "Joplin played" roll that deviates
from the score, who added the extras, and when?  And would Scott have
approved?

Mike Knudsen