The Entertainer · piano sheet music & MIDI file
The Entertainer as a free MIDI file, with its sheet music PDF and a playable piano preview: all of Joplin's classic on one page.
Preview played right in your browser with the app's real piano (lightweight version). Inside Pianovera: full multi-layer sound, fingering display and Wait mode.
Joplin sold this rag in 1902 for a handful of dollars. Seventy years later it won an Oscar in The Sting and became the sound of ragtime for everyone alive since. This MIDI lays the whole recipe bare: a metronomic left hand leaping between bass and chords, a syncopated right that always seems a sixteenth ahead of the beat. It still works.
Joplin printed the warning on his own scores: ragtime should never be played fast. We'll repeat it, because it's the number one mistake with this file. At a moderate tempo the swing settles in by itself. Push it, and the piece turns into a typing exercise while the left hand starts missing its jumps.
What you'll be working on
- The stride left hand: bass, chord, bass, chord, forever
- Right-hand syncopation locked against a steady beat
- The parallel thirds and sixths of the main theme
- Staying loose on the leaps (from the shoulder, not the wrist)
Playing The Entertainer on piano with Pianovera
Start left hand alone in Wait mode until the stride is a reflex, then add the tune. Pianovera's hand colors make this split very readable, and an A·B loop isolates the two widest jumps in the trio section.
Open The Entertainer in Pianovera: notes fall toward the keyboard, each hand gets its color, and Wait mode is there if you're starting out.
Try Pianovera for freeDownload the The Entertainer MIDI and sheet music
Two files are waiting for you: the The Entertainer piano MIDI file (22 KB, opens in Pianovera or any MIDI player) and the The Entertainer piano sheet music PDF (249 KB, printable). Both come from the same engraving: what you read on the score is exactly what you hear in the preview.
The work itself is in the public domain, and this MIDI engraving was placed in the public domain by its typesetter on the Mutopia Project. Use it freely, videos included.
About this piece
Is The Entertainer hard to play on piano?
We rate it intermediate: 2621 notes over 4:13, spanning F1 to F#6. The first thing to work on: the stride left hand: bass, chord, bass, chord, forever.
Where can I get the sheet music for The Entertainer?
Right on this page: the "View the sheet music" button opens the PDF (249 KB), engraved by the Mutopia Project from the same source as the MIDI file, Public domain license. View it, print it, keep it.
Is the The Entertainer MIDI file really free?
Yes. Scott Joplin died more than 70 years ago, so the work (1902) is public domain. This MIDI engraving is public domain too: download it and use it freely, videos included.