(800) 759-3036

Home

Piano Music in Every Issue—Pop Hits...Jazz...Classics

Plus Self-Help, Lessons & Insights For All Levels

Old-Time Piano

IT’S A TEENAGE THING

Seventeen-year-old Adam Swanson, a seemingly unstoppable force in the world of old-time music, won his second consecutive World Champion Old-Time Piano Player title in Peoria, Illinois this past Memorial Day weekend. The occasion was the annual Old Time Piano Contest where the music is always hot, and the competition keen. Swanson, a high school student from Shenandoah, Iowa, had won the Junior Division three times, and was given a waiver to compete in the Adult Division. Adam plays regularly at ragtime festivals around the country. The new Junior Champion, sixteen-year-old Wesley Reznicek continues the tradition of youth carrying the old time piano torch.

Hundreds of spectators thoroughly enjoyed the two days of competitions, participated in music workshops, joined singalongs of the old standards, played a calliope on an Illinois River paddle wheeler, and performed on their own instruments in the Old-Time Orchestry. As the Friday morning boat cruise departed from the Peoria river front, the players flocked to the front deck waving farewell for the video crew taping a documentary about the contest. A preview trailer can be seen at: www.theentertainersmovie.com/ trailer-hq.htm

The Old-Time Music Preservation Association, Inc. (OMPA), a not-for-profit organization that promotes knowledge and performance of music from the late 1800's through 1929, including ragtime, honky-tonk, Tin Pan Alley and popular music, sponsored all the events. Ted Lemen, who has emceed the event for 35 years, has been persuaded to stay on for 2010. Todd Robbins, former ringmaster for the Big Apple Circus, an accomplished magician, sword swallower and sometime piano player with Woody Allen's band, conducted the Friday night workshop, peppering it with vintage movie clips of unusual and bizarre entertainment from the 1920s. More Friday night fun—composer Bill McNally of Warrington, PA became a two-time winner of the New Rag Contest, with his Mocha Monkey Rag.

Each night of the weekend, after the workshops and competitions ended, the music played on in a piano-only room where solos and impromptu duets reigned, and in the instrumental room where banjoes, a tuba, horn player, accordionist, and more piano players shared the spotlight for playing and singing. Saturday was devoted throughout the day to competition, enthusiastically enjoyed by all. Saturday evening, Todd Robbins returned to host a laughfilled sing-along show, topped off by the return of the Old- Time Orchestry. By mid-afternoon Sunday, the Final Five were selected and had a chance to entertain again. Adam Swanson emerged victorious, and 2007 champ Ethan Uslan, of Charlotte, North Carolina, placed second...

NEWS!

Online Sheet Musc Index
Right Here. Download it.

Ed has started a blog! Get the latest on what he's playing and planning for MusicBooksNow and Sheet Music Magazine!

We want to hear from you! Send us your Sheet Music Magazine memories and stories here.

Find us on Facebook
We have just joined the gang. Become part of our online community!

LOOK AT THIS!

You can find the title to each and every song in a split second that was ever published in Sheet Music Magazine, by issue, simply by typing it into this library's database. Go to this url and type in "I Keep Going Back To Joe's," for example. You'll see that the only existing copy of this great torch song is in the magazine! What a resource! They have every issue -Ed

Click here to search>>

Thank you
Santa Cruz Public Library