Level: 4
Tuning: Dropped D

James Scott was the most “pianistic” of the early ragtime composers. He composed Ragtime Oriole in 1911. His use of the entire piano keyboard makes his work very hard to transfer to the more limited range of the guitar. I learned this piece from an early Fred Van Eps rendition on tenor banjo, with piano accompaniment. The range problem is helped by using an unusual “drop” tuning, plus some opportunistic natural harmonics. The guitar is tuned to a Dropped G tuning: DGDGBE