Hello MMD readers,  While editing two more sets of Ballet Mecanique for
customers, I took off a little time and launched a web page which shows
the 5 illustrations that Pleyel drew in 1922, submitted to the British
Patent Office in 1923 and which were approved at the end of 1924.  My
text in yesterday's issue (000409 MMDigest) should explain something
about this proposed device for synchronizing several player pianos,
motion picture projectors and/or phonographs, controlled by a 'master'
music roll arrangement.

There are 4-1/4 more pages of text which accompany these five drawings,
but I've included a thumbnail description of the concept for those
interested in seeing what it was supposed to accomplish.  The
facsimiles from England are very fuzzy, so I thought that it would be
best to typeset the material from scratch, rather than using a scanner
with OCR in order to get images into the Artcraft web site.  Meanwhile,
if you want to see the original Pleyel drawings, they are here at this
address: http://www.wiscasset.net/artcraft/pleyel6.htm (It's a 474
kilobyte download, so allow a little time with a slow modem!)

In a few more days, I'll have the original Pleyel text on the Web also,
linked to this illustrative page and part of our growing Ballet
Mecanique site where a 13-page photographic Guided Tour of the rolls
(old and new) is located as well: http://www.wiscasset.net/artcraft/antheil.htm

When I wrote the preface to this page, above, I believed that eight
acoustic pianos would be the second part of the Disklavier-Antheil
tour.  After reading the MMD review of recent date, by Gabe Della Fave,
I realize that these were eight electronic devices with loudspeakers,
also possessing the Disklavier name, which had previously meant "piano"
only, to me.

Anyway, the Pleyel patent drawings are on the Web for anybody
interested in seeing them.  Use a bookmark as it's not currently linked
to the rest of the Artcraft Internet pages.

Regards,
Douglas Henderson - Artcraft Music Rolls
Wiscasset, ME 04578 USA
http://www.wiscasset.net/artcraft/