I was reading Douglas Henderson's paper, "The 'Piano Roll Style'
-- Does it really exist?" from "THE PIANOLA NEWS"
(http://www.wiscasset.net/artcraft/oldnews6.htm).

I was crushed to read that Pauline Alpert was actually a man:

> Frank Milne (a.k.a. "George Gershwin", "Pauline Alpert" and
> "Eddie Duchin")

I had a picture in my mind of what she should have looked like, and
now I feel disillusioned and cheated. ;)

Why did player piano roll publishers make pseudonyms for their artists?
Some artists, from what I understand, don't even exist!  Was this to
make companies appear to have a battery of artists associated with
them?  Was it a matter of "playing style" segregation?  Just how many
impostors are out there, and, to what real people to they
cross-reference to?

Karl Ellison
(Almost Apoplectic in Ashland, MA.)

 [ Many big-name performers developed a rapport with their editors, and
 [ would authorize the editor to create a pop music roll from the sheet
 [ music manuscript and issue it as "played by".  Frank Milne, Victor
 [ Arden, Robert Armbruster and the prolific J. Lawrence Cook were
 [ among this elite group of trusted arrangers.  As George Bogatko
 [ and others observed recently, what counts is the music arranging
 [ abilities.  Nonetheless, Gershwin and Alpert and Duchin were very
 [ capable pianists, and it's likely that they sat at the recording
 [ piano for _some_ songs, while the editor listened intently and
 [ studied the performers dynamics.  -- Robbie