No. 083 - Scott Joplin’s “Solace” changed my life
Lost to memory for over three years, the composition that Adam D’Agostino needed to discover and re-discover
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• 4 min read •
Scores and theme songs were among my more frequent projects as a young learning pianist. There was always something special about the way I could capture and preserve complex emotions from movies and release them again through my fingers. I could sit alone at the piano for hours, conducting feelings I was experiencing or ones I simply wanted to. While film and game pieces typically held the most weight over me, one composition stood apart: “Solace” by Scott Joplin — specifically, a movement that begins about three minutes in (depending on what version you’re listening to).
It first fell onto my lap when it was assigned to me by my piano teacher. Just another song I’ll be learning for an upcoming recital, I thought. I did play it at a recital, but I wasn’t quite prepared for the perpetual dominance that this song would have over my life.
I must have been around 12 years old, learning several Scott Joplin pieces simultaneously. Most people would recognize the “Maple Leaf Rag” or his other ragtime compositions. “Solace” was different. It had a soft and fluid pacing, leaving much room for interpretation. No two pianists would play this song exactly the same, I'd put money on that. While I enjoyed the jovial energy of Joplin’s other works, “Solace” kept space for me where no other composition could. It allowed me to feel bitter, nostalgic, blissful — whatever I needed, all while playing the same motifs. It was a song that could wear any face, depending on how I chose to sport it.
I never had a close relationship with my maternal grandfather, Jerry. He was a really sweet, creative man, but he lived in Florida and I grew up in Connecticut. He and my maternal grandmother were divorced, and she was much more present, while I saw him only once every three to five years, if that. There was one week that he drove his camper all the way up to Connecticut to visit us, and it was at this time that we built one of our strongest relational connections: he was a huge Scott Joplin fan, and he loved hearing me play all of the Joplin songs that I was learning at the time. “Solace” was niche, but he knew it. Every time I spoke to him or checked in with him from that point on, he would always ask me, “How’s the Joplin coming?”
Jerry passed away in 2018, and as I reflected on my few core memories with him, I immediately remembered that special Joplin piece I used to play — the one that felt different, the one he loved to hear — but the name escaped me. That's when I went digging. Nowhere in my white three-ring binder of sheet music could I find what I was looking for. Super Mario Bros, Star Fox, Gremlins, but no Joplin piece. The worst part was that I could remember the melody, and I tried to sing or hum it to people, but nobody knew what it was. I spent days combing through Joplin’s full discography hoping that I’d hear it, but it never came up. I started to question whether it was even a Joplin piece at all.
I kept looking for this piece for over three years. It felt like a part of me was missing, and if I could find it, I knew I would play it every day. That’s when I had the idea to borrow my mom’s phone. There was this early feature on the Google app where it could search for songs using your voice. I was doubtful that it would work but gave it a try, humming the melody from deep in my psyche into her Galaxy S7. It got it right immediately, first try. I couldn’t believe it. I purchased a digital copy of the sheet music and printed it out. Even just looking at the pages felt like going back in time. And when I first started playing it again, the muscle memory kicked in.
My brother, Nick, heard me playing it on this day. He said, “Oh, that’s the song from Bioshock.” Bioshock was a cool steampunk video game from 2013 that Nick used to like. I never got personally involved with it, although I always knew I’d enjoy it. The hardest part about hearing this was that I had given Nick the whistle and hum test, and he never recognized the song in that way, leaving me in limbo, aimlessly looking for the lost composition for years.
“Solace” taught me how deeply we can rely on music, introducing me to a level of emotional expression that I, as an aspiring musician, needed to discover. It showed me that music could defy expectations, just as it defied the rigid box I had put Scott Joplin in as “the ragtime composer.”
I'm 28 now, and every time I play this piece, I think of my grandfather and the song that almost got away. ◆
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About Adam
Adam D’Agostino is a music producer, songwriter, audio engineer and vocalist with engineering and physics foundations. He is employed through Hans Zimmer's recording studio, Remote Control Productions in Santa Monica where he leads an agile software team in developing cutting edge audio software for musicians.
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