As a collector (and out of necessity a repairman) of Mechanical Musical
Instruments I always felt that the music was the most important thing.
After all, when we can get the things to work they play music.

After seeing Warren Trachtman's post on MMD a few days ago, I was
reminded that there is a very rich resource of ragtime (mostly piano)
music out there on the web.  Warren and several others have collected
and sequenced rags in MIDI format for everyone to enjoy.

The attached URL's below will blow you away (not literally I hope).  You can
listen and download to your heart's (and ear's) content.  If someone's
waiting for you to fix the fence or faucet I apologize in advance for
the large amount of time that you are likely to spend at these sites.
You'll be happy and informed, and it's too cold (or wet, or hot, or
windy) to fix the fence right now anyway.

    http://www.trachtman.org/ragtime/
    http://members.aol.com/ragtimers/
    http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/Stage/7699/index.html
    http://primeshop.com/midlist2.htm#new

Bill Finch