01 06 1995

Dear Automusicians,

Although I have already changed messages with some of you, I haven't
introduced myself properly yet. My name is Janos MACSAI, I am a musicologist,
and a professional piano restaurateur. I work for the Institute of Musical
Sciences, (Hungarian Academy of Science [MTA ZTI], Budapest, Hungary). In
this Institute we have a Museum for musical instruments (Museum of Musical
History) with more than 2000 piano rolls, most of which are the Welte red
type. In Hungary there are only a few collectors of mechanical pianos and
rolls, but the largest collection is in our museum.

I am working together with my friend, electrical engineer Zoltan
JANOSY (you see, Hungarian is a funny language: Janos MACSAI and
Zoltan JANOSY are similar names, but are two different people).
Zoltan has already introduced himself to you. (e-mail: janosy@tsys.hit.bme.hu)

Our Project 'PIANO ROLLS' is a methodology, which is suitable for
studying, sounding and, if it is needed, restoring the rolls. We
hope that by the careful, computer-aided analysis of the rolls we
will be able to learn the recorded material more deeply.
The information processing practice is the following: the codes
(i.e. the holes) of the piano rolls are optically scanned. This
information is transformed into MIDI. The optical pictures of the
rolls are saved and at any time can be used for further processing
or later playing.

My main interest lies in the history of mechanical musical
instruments, and in historical performances. Presently I focus on
Hungarian pianists, like Bela Bartok, and Ernest von Dohnanyi.
We have written an article on our project  "Computer Analysis and
Restoration of Reproducing Piano Rolls", which has been published
in: AES Preprint (96th Convention, Amsterdam, February 1994 - 3841
[P11.1]) or in German: in "Das Mechanische Musikinstrument" Nr. 60.
Mai 1994 p. 18.

Hope to keep in touch with you cheers:¶
Janos

e-mail: h7539mac@huella.bitnet

 [
 [ editor's note:  Users not on bitnet may find the following address
 [ better to use:
 [                 H7539Mac@ella.hu
 [ Jody