{"id":143401,"date":"2025-07-04T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/?p=143401"},"modified":"2025-07-03T10:03:59","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T17:03:59","slug":"learn-to-play-dave-van-ronks-freewheeling-take-on-the-entertainer-ag-patreon-song-of-the-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/learn-to-play-dave-van-ronks-freewheeling-take-on-the-entertainer-ag-patreon-song-of-the-month\/","title":{"rendered":"Learn to Play Dave Van Ronk\u2019s Freewheeling Take on \u201cThe Entertainer\u201d | AG Patreon Song of the Month"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This Song of the Month is an arrangement of Scott Joplin\u2019s ragtime classic \u201cThe Entertainer\u201d by the folk icon Dave Van Ronk. Much like Van Ronk himself wasn\u2019t concerned with strict adherence to societal norms, the version doesn\u2019t follow the original chords exactly. \u201cIt’s a pretty free extrapolation,\u201d he told contributor Beth C. Fishkind in an interview for Acoustic Guitar<\/em>‘s November\/December 1992 issue<\/a>. \u201cIt sounds close enough, but there are many liberties.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Van Ronk went on: \u201cI worked out this arrangement the year that it appeared in the movie The Sting<\/em>. At that point, I felt I had arranged my last classic rag, but two or three students ganged up on me and insisted that I do an arrangement. Once I started working on it, I fell in love with the piece. I knew the tune from when I was a kid, because my grandfather played ragtime piano, so I did my arrangement mostly from memory (and maybe in some places I didn’t remember it quite right!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2018The Entertainer\u2019 should not be played up-tempo. Joplin used to call pieces like this his \u201cmeditations.\u201d The tempo should be loose but not fast. Bring out as much lyricism as you can.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\u00a0TAB and notation for \u201cThe Entertainer\u201d<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0is available to members of the\u00a0Acoustic Guitar Patreon\u00a0<\/a><\/strong>page at the Supporters tier or higher. Join our community to access live workshops, song transcriptions, exclusive podcast episodes, and more!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Much like Van Ronk himself wasn\u2019t concerned with strict adherence to societal norms, the version doesn\u2019t follow the original chords exactly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":143403,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"Much like Van Ronk himself wasn\u2019t concerned with strict adherence to societal norms, the version doesn\u2019t follow the original chords exactly.","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1151],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[1541],"class_list":["post-143401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-instrumentals"],"blocksy_meta":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/dave-van-ronk-featured-image-05_The-Entertainer-copy.jpg?fit=1500%2C900&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":1541,"user_id":24,"is_guest":0,"slug":"adam-perlmutterstringletter-com","display_name":"Adam Perlmutter","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Adam-Perlmutter.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Adam-Perlmutter.jpg"},"author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"Perlmutter","first_name":"Adam","job_title":"","description":"Adam Perlmutter holds a bachelor of music degree from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro and a master's degree in Contemporary Improvisation from the New England Conservatory. He is the editor of Acoustic Guitar<\/i>."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143401"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":148171,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143401\/revisions\/148171"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143401"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=143401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}