Continued: The Ragtime Machine

DR: Would you like to be a professional musician?

MS: I just want to play piano in general, classical, rags, anything I can get my hands on.

DR: Between now and then, there are a lot of decisions. But what gives you the confidence even to think about it?

MS: Really, I just play piano, and I find that confidence inside of me. I let my hands loose and they go.

DR: "I let my hands loose and they go." That would be a very good thing for every music student to write on the wall. It's a good attitude. Have you tried to play rags or anything else and find that you can't play them for some reason?

MS: I don't think I've ever given up on a piece. If we start it, we finish it.

DR: That's a good approach from the teacher.

MS: Usually they come pretty good, and after a while they get even better.

DR: Do you think you might ever write a rag?

MS: Maybe in the next few years.

DR: Is it possible you might read about some totally different job, like astronaut, and you could decide to get into that?

MS: I don't think so.

DR: Do you have any other interests?

MS: I really like math, so I might be an accountant or something. I will probably stay a lot with music.

DR: It's always good to have a second plan, in case the first plan throws you a loop, to use a basketball term. What position do you play in basketball?

MS: I'm usually a forward, since I'm smaller than everybody else. I am four feet six inches.

DR: Do you have problems reaching intervals?

MS: This year I just started reaching octaves. I am more consistent in reaching octaves in my left hand than my right hand. There are a lot more octaves that I practice in the left hand. Nothing in the rags is too big of a stretch. The most I do is an octave, and if I have trouble, I keep practicing it.

DR: Are you playing duets and trios?

MS: Well, in the concerto contest I audition with my teacher or somebody else accompanying me playing the orchestra part. I have done a Haydn concerto, and this year Beethoven. In the spring I do more ragtime because that's when the St. Louis contest and the Peoria contest happen. After that, I start a concerto for November.

DR: Do you ever get confused and start ragging the concertos?

MS: No.

DR: Would you give recitals of rags and classical pieces?

MS: Probably not, I would just do a lot of ragtime pieces.

DR: Have you been in a radio interview before?

MS: No, I haven't. I never had the chance to. We have a local radio station, but I don't really listen to it. I think there are better stations with good music. I like any kind of music where I can feel the beat.

DR: Do you collect recordings of ragtime?

MS: I have a couple of CDs of the Friends of Scott Joplin and Dave Majchrzak, but I don't collect them.

DR: Are you going to be making a CD?

MS: Hopefully, sometime, yes.

DR: Natale, how do you keep up with all this?

Natale Siever: It's a very busy schedule with all that Morgan does. We have to make sure schoolwork is done, and practicing for piano and sports and everything else. Sometimes the sports overlap, and there are two going on at the same time. But inevitably there will always be some time to get her practicing in. It's kind of a rule in the house.

DR: And if a championship game coincides with a recital?

NS: We haven't gotten to that point yet, luckily. If she knows there wasn't time to get practicing in, she'll double up the next day. She doesn't have a problem with that. She knows it's something that she has to do, in order to stay in and compete.

DR: Preparation takes a lot of time, of course, more than the performance.

NS: It does. I can listen from the next room, and hear where there is a hole or a mistake, and I'll say let's go back and do this, put the metronome on. There is a lot that we do together that I feel does help.

DR: Did you study piano?

NS: I did organ as a child. I have a brother and a sister and we all did organ, and my husband did piano. My family was involved in a competitive CYO marching band. My parents were in a guitar group. My mother had gotten Morgan started with an electric keyboard right before she entered first grade. My mom basically taught her to read music within a week and a half. We realized this was something she wanted to do that she is capable of doing. So. we started her with a high school student, and within six months she was taking lessons from the high school student's teacher.

DR: Will she have the same teacher indefinitely?

NS: Her teacher is very good. She pushes her, and Morgan also pushes her teacher. I think her teacher realizes what she is capable of doing. We have a lot of conversations with Dave Majchrzak about these rags. He hears her a lot, so he can say we might possibly need to do this piece or that piece, and he can modify what she's doing.

DR: Do you have any concerns at all about the amount of time that has to be put in?

NS: We always find the time. Quite honestly, she's been a straight-A student for the past three years. She gets her schoolwork done very quickly on the way back and forth to piano lessons, or she'll do it on the way to a basketball game. She reads a ton. so she's very well versed. She is very well rounded. We try her in a lot of different things, and obviously piano is one thing she succeeds at. And there are certain things that just didn't click with her.

DR: Does Morgan get increasingly more of the decision-making power?

NS: Yes. She decided in regards to ragtime that she does like a lot of the stride pieces.

DR: Does she do any reading in the history of the music?

NS: We don't necessarily. We find out things when we go to the festivals. We download songs, so she gets the flavor of what a song is supposed to sound like, or what that person added to it, and that helps her decide if it's a piece that she wants to do. She's definitely getting a feel for the differences between the composers. Her teacher is good at guiding her to pieces. One time her teacher showed me a piece she wanted Morgan to learn, and I said no way would she be able to do it. Within six weeks she could do it. It's humbling, sometimes.

October 2008 issue | © 2008 The Mississippi Rag

P.O. Box 19068, Minneapolis, MN 55419.