In 980916 MMDigest Craig Brougher says,

> "Rags are relatively easy to code.  You take 'em straight off the
> sheet music and you cut 'em straight and cool with as little pedal as
> possible."

In 980918 MMDigest Peter Neilson says,

> If that is true ... why do I find, when playing ... with my own
> fingers, that there are a dozen different ways to perform each of
> the phrases of the music?

I've got to agree with Peter here.  I play ragtime, and I learned it from
two sources:  The music itself from sheet music; the 'feel' of it from my
grandfather, who played EVERYTHING (including hymns in church) ragtime.
Playing a beautiful Joplin, Scott, Lamb or any other rag with 'feeling'
gives the music much more depth than just punching the correct
(usually...;-) keys.  I think that proper coding on any reproducer would
give much more real quality to the music than simply "tak[ing]  'em
straight off the sheet music and you cut 'em straight and cool with as
little pedal as possible."

Regards,

Bob

 [ I've been entering tunes into the computer since the early 70's. I
 [ have found it to be a good practice in reading sheet music, but
 [ after the initial excitement of getting the computer to play a
 [ tune (especially fun in the early 70's) it quickly became unrewarding
 [ as in most cases the music sounded oh-so-mechanical.  One of the
 [ problems with the 10's of thousands of MIDI files out there on the
 [ 'Net is that so many of them are the first experiments of people
 [ learning to use their MIDI editors.  In general I find the
 [ hand-played tunes much more enjoyable, even when they have
 [ a few mistakes in them.
 [
 [ I do believe that an experienced arranger can cut a music roll
 [ directly, though.  I got to know David Wasson as a direct result
 [ of liking his hand-cut band organ arrangements.      -- Jody