Peter Neilson mentions the fast repetition required in a solo segment of
Rhapsody in Blue.

I hand-cut this portion with Ampico coding -- finishing the cadenza with
the glorious whole-tone scale "rip" -- and it played just fine on the
Ampico B grand, with accents.  Only one problem -- the paper had to move at
a terribly fast speed (Tempo 150?).

I concluded that the pneumatic mechanism, and the piano action, are both
quite capable of meeting the challenge, but that it was impractical to
produce a music roll running so fast!

Incidentally, I've not heard that vertical actions suffer in repetition
capabilities.  If the springs are proper and it is well-regulated, why
can't the vertical piano action repeat as well as a grand action?

Robbie Rhodes
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|         Robbie Rhodes           |
|      rrhodes@foxtail.com        |
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