Hi everybody; here is a completely non-technical contribution.  It's
the end of the academic year here in Australia and all our physics
students at the University of Tasmania have just finished their exams.
So Beryl and I invited any 2nd and 3rd year and any higher degree
physics students that were interested to come round to our place last
Thursday evening for a pianola party.  This wasn't quite as foolhardy a
gesture as it would have been had I worked at U.C. or M.I.T.; ours is a
small university!  In fact twenty or so students turned up and so did a
few of the staff.

I knew there were some talented musicians among the students so I'd
passed the word round that we like to hear some real playing as well as
piano rolls.  One of our students is a very dedicated pianist as well
as being a brilliant student.  Last year he won a $20,000 Uni of Tas
scholarship and as he lives at home and didn't desperately need the
money to see him through his undergraduate career, he spent the lot on
a grand piano!  There were a couple of other students nearly as capable
as he as well as a guitarist and in fact I would say that two-thirds of
the evening was spent NOT listening to pianola rolls.

For me the highlight of the evening was a violin solo by a first year
student (what was he doing there?).  He played the Meditation from
"Thais" by Massenet and about halfway through I realised that out of my
400 or so Recordo rolls I had just one violin accompaniment roll and
sure enough it was Meditation from "Thais".  It turned out to be the
same arrangement as he was playing, so we had it all over again, this
time with piano accompaniment.  I had to admire how he managed, with no
rehearsal at all, to keep up with the Gulbransen.  Of course it was Mme
Sturkow-Ryder who recorded the roll and she was a very experienced
accompanist.

So we had a lot of fun and I'm sure a few of our guests had never seen
a player before.  One young lady told me that after she has finished
her science degree she has a burning ambition to do a piano tuner's
course.

The only problem is what am I to do with all the beer that these
incredibly sensible young people didn't drink?  Don't bother to send in
suggestions.

John Phillips