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Many thanks to Michael Waters and others for providing me with
information about the Hupfeld Phonola roll I am currently scanning for
Larry Karp.  I have learned enough to be able to proceed with the task
at hand, which is to convert the disk image of Larry's roll, the
"Academic Festival Overture" of Brahms (Roll No. 12481), to a form that
can be perforated by Janet and Richard Tonneson of Custom Music Rolls.
The final roll made by them will conform to the American standard
(11-1/4 inches wide, 9 ports/inch) and will play on American-made
instruments, allowing Larry finally to hear his roll after a 15-year
wait.

The roll I have at hand measures 296 mm in width; its intended width is
not known.  There are 77 port positions across the roll.  Of these, 5
are set aside for operating expression devices.  (These 5 ports
alternate with speaking notes near the center of the roll, so the
speaking notes do not appear chromatically in the roll.)  The remaining
72 ports operate the speaking notes.  The compass is low F to high F,
for a total of 73 notes within the compass.  Probably for this reason,
many people have referred to the rolls as "73 note" rolls.  However,
since only 72 ports are available to operate these 73 notes, only 72 of
them can be played from the roll; low F# is omitted.  Of the 5
expression ports, 4 are not used at all in Larry's roll; the remaining
one is used rarely.  In the translation to an 88-note roll, it will
simply be ignored.

Larry's roll is very long (in excess of 30 meters) and the tempo on the
roll is called out as 50-60.  At Tempo 60 the playing time is in excess
of 15 minutes, after adjusting for the buildup of the paper stack on
the takeup spool.

The performance on this roll is particularly important for its musical
and historical value.  It is a four-hand transcription, played by Weiss
and Stefaniai.  Josef Weiss was a pupil of Feruccio Busoni, and this
roll therefore connects us directly with the Busoni tradition of
transcribing and performing large works on the piano.

I could not have completed this effort without the help of the MMD
respondents.  Thank you for your help, gentlemen, and let me also thank
you on behalf of Larry Karp.

Wayne Stahnke