Maple Leaf Rag is the definitive American ragtime work that combined syncopated rhythms with traditional European march structures. Its distinctive syncopated melodic line against a steady oom-pah accompaniment revolutionized popular piano performance.
Students must focus on keeping a strictly metronomic left hand while maintaining complete rhythmic independence in the right.
Comparable difficulty and character — good candidates for what to learn next.
Maple Leaf Rag is rated Henle level 4 of 9 — intermediate repertoire, roughly ABRSM grades 5–6. In the RCM system it corresponds to about level 6.
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 Maple Leaf Rag lasts about 3 minutes.
Maple Leaf 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 The Entertainer by Scott Joplin, Binks' Waltz by Scott Joplin, Solace by Scott Joplin — see the full similar-pieces list on this page.