The connection between Joplin and Scarlatti may not immediately be evident, but aside from any musical resemblances, there is a technical factor. Both artists' works depend on an artistic decisiveness about articulation, texture (how many notes played at the same time), ornamental activity, rhythmic sensibility (timing) and dissonance, rather than actual dynamic variety. The dynamics (piano, forte, crescendo, diminuendo, accent, etc.) must be created illusively on the harpsichord, and must be carefully orchestrated on the piano, so as not to sound too Brahmsian. All these features make the harpsichord a natural instrument for playing ragtime. My first harpsichord teacher, Fernando Valenti, while he never played ragtime (to my knowledge), was a master of all these elements, and a powerful influence in my first years of harpsichord playing. His playing of Scarlatti, of course, was legendary, and became more and more rhythmically daring over the years. He would have been a great ragtime player. But he did know the great jazz pianist Johnny Guarnieri, who made spectacular jazz harpsichord recordings in the 1940s. In fact, on a taxi ride in Ithaca, NY (1978), sitting in the back seat with Valenti and Bill Dowd (the harpsichord builder), I heard Valenti admit to Dowd that he had rented his harpsichord to Guarnieri for those sessions and made more money from that than he ever did from his concerts.