response 56 of 256:

Mar 20 00:42 UTC 1997

Michigan ragtimer Bob Milne will be performing at the Kerrytown
Concert House in Ann Arbor this coming Saturday, March 22. I'll
be there. Haven't heard him play before. Stay tuned for a review
here.

(Milne was scheduled to appear at the Savannah ragtime fest.
that I reported on earlier, but unfortunately broke his leg.)

response 58 of 256:

Mar 22 14:27 UTC 1997

This was a *wonderful* concert.  He spent a good deal of time
talking about music and his experiences as a performer and
I found his commentary fascinating.  The music was some of the
best Ragtime I've ever heard.  

(Thank you, John, for encouraging me to attend.)

response 60 of 256:

Apr 17 13:06 UTC 1997

1-800-863-799(?)  Shouldn't there be one more numeral in that phone number?

response 62 of 256:

Apr 26 13:38 UTC 1997

I drove up to Frankenmuth last Thursday to attend the opening
night of the Ragtime Festival. The headliners were going to be
presenting informal concerts at various locations, the principal
ones being Zehnder's Tap Room and the Main Street Tavern.

As I drove into Zehnder's parking lot, I noticed large numbers
of folks dressed to the nines -- men in suits, women in fancy
dresses -- and wondered for a few moments if I hadn't under-
estimated the dress code, which would be odd because the attendees
at ragtime festivals are not ordinarily that dressy a crowd. It
turned out there was a private party elsewhere in the building
for the medical staff of some hospital, and that's where the
dress-ups were going. Nothing to do with the Festival.

My evening started out in Zehnder's tap room. Bob Milne, whom I'd
heard perform in Ann Arbor a few weeks earlier, did the first set. 
Milne plays a wide range of music and tends to learn pieces by
listening rather than studying the printed notes -- somewhat sur-
prising for a classically trained musician (Milne has a degree
in music and played french horn in symphony orchestras). He did
his usual mixture of classical ragtime, novelty ragtime, stride,
and boogie-woogie, and was well-received by the audience. It being
the dinner hour and Zhender's being famous for chicken, I ordered
the chicken dinner and was overwhelmed by all the accompaniments:
appetizers, bread, veggies, salads, etc. Quite a feast, for a
surprisingly low price. Decently prepared, too.

After dinner and feeling stuffed, I went up the road to Main
Street Tavern, a rough-and-ready hangout for locals, to catch Glen
Jenks' act. The piano there was an old upright and unfortunately
something of a PSO ("piano-shaped object"), to use Milne's
terminology.  Musicians who play piano in bars, country clubs,
and schools encounter lots of PSO's. This one wasn't in too bad
tune, and thankfully none of the keys appeared to stick. Jenks, a
hard-core ragtimer from Camden, Maine, who does lots of Joplin,
Lamb, and Scott, played an exciting set. He took requests, so I
requested Joplin's "Rose Leaf Rag" and his own lovely contemporary
rag "Sosua". He gave them delightful performances but seemed
surprised that anybody'd heard of them. During a break, I reminded
him that we'd met in Savannah, and he recalled the occasion.

I wandered back to Zehnder's to catch Sue Keller's set. I'd not
heard her perform before, and was curious. She turned out to be
really good. Plays a wide variety of music -- ragtime, jazz, pop,
blues -- and does vocals as well. Her recent appearance on
"Jeopardy" was alluded to and she did the "Jeopardy" theme song.
Did a nice rendition of Joe Lamb's unpublished "Brown Derby Rag"
and the pop tune "Alley Cat" (with vocal). During the break I
purchased one of her CD's, which she nicely autographed for me.
Requested that she play some May Aufderheide, a Hoosier ragtime
composer I'm fond of, but she declined, saying that she doesn't do
Aufderheide.

(Ragtimers make recordings, but usually not on major labels, and
you will not often find their work in retail record stores. You
have to mail-order them, or buy them at festivals such as this
one.)

After Keller was done, one of the festival organizers struck
up a conversation with me. Guess he noticed from my requests
that I knew something about the music and was curious who I
was. I mentioned that I performed the stuff too, and he said
I should feel free to sit down and play anytime the piano was
unoccupied; they like hearing new musicians. Being as I like
to perform in front of audiences, that was music to my ears, and
I decided that if an opportunity arose later, I'd take advantage.

Keller was followed by another Glen Jenks set. By that time it was
late in the evening; the crowd at Zehnder's had thinned out and was
pretty sparse. During Jenks' break, I remarked to him that the piano
at Zehnder's was a lot better than the PSO at the Main Street Tavern;
he agreed. I asked if it'd be okay with him if I tried it out. He
said sure, so I sat down. Since Keller didn't do Aufderheide, I
decided to do some myself and started with her "Richmond Rag".
Jenks and Keller (who was still in the room) said they liked it
and asked me to do more, so I played Annie Huston's "Motor Bus"
and Aufderheide's "Totally Different Rag". At that point I decided
it was time to turn the piano back to Jenks, who finished out his
set.

When Jenks was done, that was the end of the scheduled events for
the evening, so -- encouraged by the earlier reception -- I sat
down at the piano to do some more. Jenks and Keller hung around
to listen. Did a few more pieces -- some Joe Lamb, James Scott,
Laverne Henshaw, Julia Niebergall, Tom Shea. When I was done,
Jenks invited me to join him and a couple of Maine buddies for a
drink or two. So I sat with them for a while and then, it being
late and a drive back to Ann Arbor ahead of me, took my leave.
(Don't be concerned, I wasn't drinking alcohol.) They invited me to 
come up early on Saturday and hang out before the official events
begin. Maybe do a little jamming. Hm, that's today. Mary and I are
going to head up there to attend the evening concert. I'll file a
report later.

response 64 of 256:

Jun 30 19:50 UTC 1997

Oops, sorry. Forgot about it. It's been a few weeks, but I'll
relate what I can from memory.

Mary and I drove up to Frankenmuth early on Saturday afternoon.
It was a delightfully sunny spring day and the main drag was
well populated with tourists, not all of them there for the
Ragtime Festival by any means.

After walking about for an hour soaking up the ambience and
browsing a few gifte shoppes, we headed for Zhender's Tap Room
for the "Meet the Artists" session. The principal performers
were there, chatting informally with people and selling their
CD's, tapes, and sheet music. Once in a while one of them would
go play a set on the piano.

We chatted for a while with Glenn Jenks, whom we'd both met last
fall at the Tom Turpin Ragtime Festival in Savannah, GA. Somehow
the conversation turned to Louis Moreau Gottschalk, the 19th
century American pianist and composer many of whose works for the
piano -- "Bamboula", "The Banjo", "Souvenir de la Havane", etc. --
incorporate American folk themes and Carribean rhythms. His
work presages ragtime in some ways, and many ragtime composers
regularly perform Gottschalk as well. I recently acquired the
Dover edition of Gottschalk's piano music and have been sight-
reading some things. In response to my remark that I would love
to learn "The Banjo" but found it hard as hell, Jenks said that
it's actually one of Gottschalk's easier pieces (but he agreed
that it's hard).

I also chatted with Sue Keller, who in addition to performing
runs the Ragtime Press with her husband. They specialize in
publishing contemporary rags by little-known (mostly) composers.
I parted with my hard-earned money in exchange for some of their
sheet music. Did the same for some of Bob Milne's sheet music
-- his wife was doing the selling, and she remembered me from
Milne's Ann Arbor conert a few weeks earlier.

Around 5:00 the Tap Room started to fill up with the cocktail hour
crowd, and the headliners left to get ready for the evening's
dinner concert ballroom. I stayed around for a little while
to take advantage of the vacant piano. Sat down, played a few
tunes, got some nice applause. After I was done, a young man
whose name I can't recall -- he looked high school or college
age -- sat down and belted out a few pieces, including "Maple
Leaf Rag", in a rousing barrelhouse style.

The evening concert was held in Zhender's big ballroom and
began with a sumptuous buffet dinner as only Zhender's can
do it. The ballroom was just about full; I estimate that the
audience numbered several hundred. As in Savannah, it was mostly a
middle-aged to elderly crowd.  There were two fine Yamaha concert
grands on the stage, Bob Milne emceed, the performers were all in
good form. Jenks played Gottschalk's "The Banjo", first performing
a bit of it on banjo (easy), then on the piano (hard as hell, as
I said). It's really an exciting piece and Jenks did it well. In
addition to emceeing, Milne did some performing. Although all
the performers were excellent, I think he's the best of the bunch.

Earlier in the day I'd been putting two and two together and
thinking that I might actually have met Milne once before, a
long time ago.  I'd learned that in the 1970's he used to play
at night clubs in the Detroit area. Back in 1972 or 1973, when I
was first getting into ragtime music and had been practicing it
quite intensively, I had wandered into the piano bar at a Chuck
Muir restaurant in Dearborn called The Sun Dog (now defunct),
and there had been a guy at the piano playing rags by Scott
Joplin and other composers of that ilk. The bar wasn't crowded,
I chatted with the pianist for a while and when it came out that
I played ragtime myself, he invited me to sit down at the piano
and play some stuff, which I did.

So I'd gotten to thinking that the piano player I'd encountered
in the bar might have been Milne. He looks older than the
person I remember from the Sun Dog, but it was 25 years ago and
goodness knows I look older too. So I determined to find out if
my recollection was correct. During the concert intermission,
I asked Milne's wife, who was out in the lobby selling CD's and
sheet music, if her husband had played at a Chuck Muir restaurant
in Dearborn in the early 70's. She said that indeed he had. After
the concert I introduced myself to Milne, told him the story,
and he confirmed that it had been him.  It's a small world, but
then the ragtime world is not a terribly large one these days.

After the concert we headed back to Ann Arbor. The whole thing
had been a very enjoyable experience for me.

response 66 of 256:

Jul 1 07:42 UTC 1997

Thanks for the review.  Sounds like fun.  Interesting that you got into
ragtime in 1972 or thereabouts.  That's when I started learning ragtime
too.  I believe the first rag I ever learned was by Tom Turpin, but
I can't recall the name of it.  "Maple Leaf Rag" and "Gladiolus Rag"
became my staples for years...  I got paid to play ragtime twice, in
1974 and 1975, at the Philadelphia Folk Festival.  I even got
mentioned in the New York Times...  Those were heady times.

response 68 of 256:

Jul 24 08:39 UTC 1997

Zow.. mine eyes have surely been opened.  I often cringe at the raw power and
depth of knowledge the people possess on this conference.  Sadly to say, I
know precious little about ragtime.  (I did understand the reference to stride
piano, however.)  So of course, you can rightly assume most of my studies are
with Joplin.  I started young with simplified arrangements; the time when I
got full scores was when I got a small compliation book for my birthday.  I
haven't built up enough technique for Joplin; I usually got really tired and
sore on some of his more popular pieces.  Oh, I had played edits from _Sheet
Music_ magazine, but some of his Codas and Codettas were exhausting, not to
mention I still can't play "Maple Leaf Rag" at all, or at least when I last
tried 5-6 years ago.

Anyone know about the ragtime-military music exchange?  I did do some research
on Joplin's biography, and learn that he met Sousa and was very impressed with
his music.  My h.s. band teacher said the two genres influenced each other,
and pointed it out in the Sousa and Carl King pieces we studied.  (We did a
very low-profile and under-promoted premiere of an undiscovered version of
one of King's marches that had been loaned to our teacher while he was
starting doctorate work at Northwestern).  I can think of "Original Rags" on
Joplin's end, for one example, but can't really think of any King or Sousa
pieces.

Help!

response 70 of 256:

Jul 24 17:54 UTC 1997

They do indeed.  I didn't know Gottschalk's dates & was assuming they were
late enough to have ragtime influence, but very likely it's common influence
with ragtime instead.  I suspect anyone who really likes classic ragtime
will like quite a bit of Gottschalk's music.

response 72 of 256:

Jul 25 00:49 UTC 1997

Just out of curiosity, what is "stride piano"?

response 74 of 256:

Aug 2 15:44 UTC 1997

I'd never sat down and figured out what my playing repertoire
actually is. So I went through the various ragtime books and
sheet music that I have, listing the pieces that I would
feel comfortable playing from memory today in front of an
audience. Here's the list I came up with, grouped by composer.

(There's numerous others that I can do if I have the music in 
front of me.)

Scott Joplin

        Maple Leaf Rag
        The Entertainer
        Elite Syncopations
        Bethena
        Gladiolus Rag
        Swipesy Cakewalk (with Arthur Marshall)

James Scott

        Frog Legs Rag
        Ophelia Rag
        Evergreen Rag
        Honey Moon Rag

Joseph Lamb

        Sensation
        Ragtime Nightingale
        Old Home Rag
        Cottontail Rag
        Ragtime Bobolink
        Arctic Sunset

May Aufderheide

        Richmond Rag
        A Totally Different Rag

Julia Lee Niebergall

        Hoosier Rag
        Horseshoe Rag

Billy Talbot

        Imperial Rag

Annie Huston

        Motor Bus

Laverne Hanshaw

        Niagara Rag

Thomas Shea

        Brun Campbell Express

response 76 of 256:

Aug 3 12:28 UTC 1997

I took piano lessons throughout elementary and secondary school
and was trained to memorize things. Ragtime music is actually
easier for me to memorize than other forms because of its
regular structure. Actually, I find that I almost *have* to
memorize a ragtime piece in order to play it accurately, because
in order to to those big leaps in the left had without missing,
I have to look at the keyboard. Can't be looking at the music
at the same time.

response 78 of 256:

Sep 7 20:58 UTC 1997

Short performance note: At the Summerkeys music camp in Lubec,
Maine last month, I played James Scott's up-tempo "Frog Legs
Rag" at one of the student recitals. (On the same program, in
fact immediately before, I also performed the first movement
of Mozart's Piano Sonata #4 in E flat, a lovely adagio piece.
A rather blunt contrast to the rag.)

(When I get the time and energy, I plan to enter a report on
Mary's and my music camp experience, in a separate item.)

response 80 of 256:

Sep 9 18:02 UTC 1997

The way I learned to play ragtime was to listen to lots of
recordings and then acquire books of ragtime music for practice.
Listening to the recordings gave me a feel for appropriate style
and interpretation when I started working on playing the pieces
myself.

Look for ragtime recordings by Joshua Rifkin, Richard Zimmerman,
John Arpin, William Bolcom, William Albright. They are excellent
interpreters of the genre and stick pretty close to the music
"as written". Rifkin's recordings of Scott Joplin, from the
early 1970's, are classics that inspired many musicians to get
into ragtime, myself included.

There's a tremendous range of difficulty in ragtime music. I
don't know what level of piano playing you're at, but even
relatively accomplished performers of classical music tend to
find ragtime playing difficult at first exposure. For starters,
I'd recommend getting a volume of Scott Joplin's works -- either
"Collected Piano Works", published by Belwin-Mills, or "Scott
Joplin's Complete Rags", published by Dover -- and an anthology
of other composers, e.g. "World's Greatest Ragtime Solos",
edited by Maurice Hinson and published by Alfred Pub. Co.

Start with fairly easy stuff and work up. Scott Joplin's
"Peacherine Rag" and "Country Club" are good for openers.