Time to play Scott Joplin

When we begin to feel dismay at the slowness with which we work, and we bemoan the aches and pains that accompany tasks that were once accomplished with ease and pleasure, - and when we start to feel weary and irritated and the joy of each day doesn't buoy us up, - that's the time to stop practising hymns for the organ and start to play Scott Joplin!!!!

I know that the Elite Syncopations or the Pineapple Rag will elicit a positive response from my husband, no matter what he is doing.

Music is such a wonderful "pick-me-up" - or "calm-me-down" - whichever is required. Our emotions are attuned to the lilt and the rhythm, and the memories evoked by favourite tunes seem guaranteed to lift the spirits.

We don't dance around the kitchen much anymore, but the dance tunes of the era we grew up in, and the songs of wartime and the years immediately after, can make us feel young again and full of spunk.

And so I play Scott Joplin for our enjoyment, - with fingers that have stiffened somewhat and don't play with the same sureness they once did. But the magic is still there, and half an hour of Rags can put a little spring in the step and a little hope in the heart.

And for melancholy times there is always Joplin's beautiful and haunting Solace.