It generally originated in the southern United States as early as the 1830s and 1840s. By the 1890s, ragtime was very popular in the south and began to spread to other parts of the United States and well as Europe. The main features of ragtime include a syncopated melody over a steady bass pattern. Syncopation is the shifting of an accent from a strong beat to a weak beat. Ragtime is primarily written for piano, and sometimes for small brass bands.
Rags are typically happy, bouncy, and have very steady rhythm.
Ragtime heavily influenced the jazz style of music which came later, but it is considered a different musical genre. Ragtime is typically composed, while jazz is usually improvised. Joplin also emphasized that ragtime is never fast. One of the greatest strengths of ragtime is accurate syncopation and steady, even rhythm. While ragtime was a popular style in its day, it had a big revival in 1973 with the movie The Sting .