What would you use to improvise over a tritone substitution in Ragtime? (Progression provided)
Hello, I am currently working on Scott Joplin rags.
In “School of Ragtime,” Joplin demonstrates some common techniques of the style. The first exercise if Fmaj-GbDimimished-Cmajor-G7-Cmajor.
I’ve deduced that Ragtime uses tritone substitution. Typically, when seeing a fully diminished chord, my go to scale choices are whole-half/Half-Whole, Whole Tone, or Locrian b4. In practice, the chord only exists for 2 beats, almost useless in an improvisatory context. Joplin simply stays within the diatonic scale, I presume giving Ragtime its stereotypical jovial sound. I presume taking a synthetic scale or melodic minor mode would give a jazzy sound. I also presume I could take major pentatonic over top to have a sort of country/western sound.
Are there any other approaches that could be musically applied? The age old wisdom of “do anything with anything” applies, and of course “listen to ragtime players,” but for practicality sake I would absolutely love any pointers toward further compositional/improvisational recommendations.