ABSTRACT
ONe Way A Musical Style stays alive is by inspiring experimentation. An enduring musical form, like good sculpture, invites examination from all sides. It makes musicians want to add to it, subtract from it, poke it, stretch it, see how far it will bend. Classic ragtime did (and still does) this, as the cakewalks, intermezzos, and idylls of the early century do not. Even offshoots of a form may be large enough to warrant conceptual exploration, as were novelty rags and stride piano. Sometimes the experiments produce good music, sometimes merely oddities and dead ends, such as George Antheil's novelty rag-based multipiano works. There was not much experimenting done with stride piano because to tinker with it, you had to be able to play it well, and most pianists couldn't.
