The Entertainer

Toby is studying the book Holes by Louis Sachar, which is set in Texas, and was given a project with lots of Texas-related options. We found out about the project rather later than we would have liked, so were very pleased to discover that one of the options was to learn to play The Entertainer by Scott Joplin. Toby did that for his second grade piano exam! He hadn't played it in ages so has needed lots of practice, and we also had to do some research so he could present a little background on the piece.

Yesterday, after Israel's trumpet lesson, Shep and Andrew helped him out. It's a shame they can't do it at school with him, three people on a piano is pretty impressive.

Part of the background we uncovered is that ragtime was dance music played in the red light districts of African American communities and that Scott Joplin died of syphilis. I decided to leave a few of those details out for Toby's Year 5 project at the Christian College.