In the interest of the future of our special common interest, I also
have plans for a museum if I can find some good grant writers.  It will
take 10-20 million dollars to pull this off.  It is a museum that while
it will include the antique instruments, it will also be a hands-on
place to learn to use cutting edge MIDI technology and the latest
computer systems.

It will be a place for music students to perform for patrons, attend
master classes, listen to Rachmaninoff perform his Ampico Rolls on
really well restored Ampicos and study Debussy's Duo Art rolls and
Grieg's Welte Rolls.

From a carousel ride to composing your own music on a computer screen
and have the huge theater organ perform it in the Concert hall.  From
going into the museum's studio, recording and producing your own
group's CD for sale on the net, you could also compile your own
selections of performances on a special CD you can take home and listen
to time and again.

I plan to put a working restoration shop right in the big middle of the
museum where all that we do can be seen by patrons behind glass.  I
would also like to combine all the high tech roll preservation systems
into one huge project to scan, store, and recut in all formats, _all_
rolls that are in existence today.  Not just the rootin' tootin'
razza-ma-tazz that one or more persons like, but everything.  Lets face
it no matter how boring I may think a roll is, someone else thinks it
is wonderful.

I think such a museum located in the central part of the country, St.
Louis (or Branson), will draw folks from both coasts.  I also think it
would be a great place for our elder members to bequeath their beloved
treasures to a place that will take the same loving care of them that
they lavished on them.

I would set the whole thing up as a public trust so that one or more
sudden funerals in the administration would not cause the museum assets
to be sold off to the highest bidder like what has happened to several
museums in recent years.  I want something that will continue in
perpetuity as a museum keeping its mission of preservation, education,
and excitation of the next generations of musicians and music lovers.

If you think this museum idea is a good one, if you have some ideas,
some money, or are good at writing grants, let me know.  Let's work
together to make it a reality.  I have given this several years of
thought and I think it could possibly be the ultimate music museum of
all time.

Wherever it ends up it will bring a rebirth of the area from all the
people who will journey to visit it.  I think this is possible but what
will you contribute?  Time, money, instruments, rolls, scanners?
Think about it.

D.L. Bullock - Piano World
2732 Cherokee, Saint Louis, MO 63118
http://www.thepianoworld.com/