An early 20th-century ragtime-inflected composition that bridges the gap between classic ragtime and nascent boogie-woogie styles. Its distinctiveness comes from its driving rhythmic pulse and syncopated harmonic shifts.
Maintain a strict, metronomic left hand to support the syncopated melodic jumps in the right hand.
Comparable difficulty and character — good candidates for what to learn next.
Boogie Rag is rated Henle level 4 of 9 — intermediate repertoire, roughly ABRSM grades 5–6. In the RCM system it corresponds to about level 5.
You should be comfortable at Henle level 4 — meaning you can already play level 3–4 pieces cleanly. Learning it one level early is possible as a stretch piece, but more than that usually leads to months of frustration.
A typical performance of Boogie Rag lasts about 3 minutes.
Boogie Rag is available as free public-domain sheet music on IMSLP — the score is linked directly from this page.
Pieces at a comparable difficulty and character include Alexander's Ragtime Band by Irving Berlin, 'S Wonderful by George Gershwin, Solfegetto in C minor, H 220 by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach — see the full similar-pieces list on this page.