I was playing some recently acquired rolls this evening when I ran
across one on which the suggested playback tempo was 45.  My first
thought was that the roll would probably have a rather boring,
straight-forward sort of performance on it.  To my surprise, the
performance was one of the most _musical_ performances I've ever
encountered on a roll!

My assumption has always been that rolls would have to be cut to play
"faster" if the performance included a lot of subtle things, such as
chords not being struck all at exactly the same time.  The performance
on this roll, even at the suggested speed, was quite like _I_ would
play the piano (which is not necessarily all that good) in that when
playing a chord, I am not likely to have hit all the notes at _exactly_
the same time.

At first, I thought maybe it was an indication that my piano was not
working very well, but when I took a straight-edge to the roll, it
was obvious that the differences were intentionally cut into the roll.
I should also mention that this was not a slow, lethargic piece, but
rather a waltz (done at the correct tempo for dancing).

So, this brings me to my question:  What, if anything, was taken into
consideration by manufacturers when deciding on what speed to 'cut' the
roll?  Perhaps I am once again reading too much into things or looking
for things that are not there, so forgive me if this is another of my
'stupid' questions.

John W. Miller

 [ These factors are considered in the choice of the music roll
 [ speed ("Tempo") across the tracker bar:
 [
 [ 1. Repetition rate (operations per second of the same channel)
 [ 2. Cost and weight of the paper roll
 [ 3. Musical quantization (perf steps per beat)
 [ 4. Speed of adjacent tunes in a medley roll
 [ 5. Limitations of the player mechanism and roll transport
 [
 [ After a short period of experimenting, the music roll industry
 [ settled on 12 perf steps per beat and speed approximately 8 feet
 [ per minute ("Tempo 80") for 9/inch piano rolls as the best
 [ compromise for typical pop tunes.  But a skilled noteur can create
 [ fine music using as few as 4 or 5 perforator steps per beat,
 [ as in the low paper velocity roll that you describe.
 [
 [ By their nature, instruments operated by a pinned barrel --
 [ including flute clocks and street pianos -- must compromise between
 [ playing time (one revolution of the barrel) and repetition speed.
 [ The noteurs who arranged music for barrel instruments discovered
 [ lots of musical 'tricks' to cram music into a slowly moving data
 [ storage medium.
 [
 [ -- Robbie