Terry Smythe sent this newspaper article about the "Automusicograph"
published in "Presto", 2 February 1911:

  "Italian Inventor Provides Odd Attachment for the Piano.

  Soon the composers will be demanding a new attachment to their
pianos.  It is already invented and when installed in American pianos,
will provide another good talking point for the bright young men of
the sales force.
  The modern composer, it seems, does most of his work at the piano.
He works out a composition at the keyboard and then writes it out as
he remembers it afterward.  This is annoying, for a man in the midst
of an inspiration must stop and write down what he already has worked
out lest he forget.
  For many years various inventors have been endeavoring to perfect
an automusicograph, or an instrument which would register the music as
the composer plays it at his instrument.  At last Don Angelo Barbieri,
an Italian inventor, has perfected such a machine, so that the musician
now will have the advantage of his typewriter just as the author has
had for many years.
  The playing of the composer is recorded on rolls of paper which
revolve by clockwork in dashes of varying length and position as the
value of the note or its position on the scale demands.  When the
composition has been played to the finish the dash system can be
transcribed by means of a graduated scale and recorded exactly as it
was played."


A short article in Music Trade Review of Feb. 24, 1912, hints that a
new "Music Typewriter" firm was established by the powerful Perforated
Music Co. of London especially to purchase Barbieri's invention,
probably in order to preclude a patent challenge to their own similar
machine for recording a keyboard performance:

  "The Music Typewriter Co., Ltd., is the title of the company recently
registered in London, England, with a capital of £25,000 in £1 shares.
The company will acquire the rights of Barbieri & Co., of Marudo, near
Milan, for a machine called the "Automusicograph," and will adopt an
agreement with the Perforated Music Co.  The directors are J. T. Sibley
and F. P. Mannock."

The music roll marking machine used at Perforated Music Company is
pictured at http://www.pianola.org/history/history_rolls.cfm 

A related article on the "Automusicograph" in Music Trade Review is at
http://mtr.arcade-museum.com/MTR-1910-51-13/MTR-1910-51-13-43.pdf 

Robbie Rhodes, MMDigest