I just read your article about "played by or as played by" piano
rolls and who allegedly played them.  I worked with J. Lawrence Cook
for about ten years until he passed away, I believe in 1976, and he
never spoke about making those Waller rolls.  He made piano rolls on
his first master piano, and I also used his master making piano to
make my rolls.

I never made any piano rolls using the marking machine.  If I had
used the marking machine to make a roll, then I would have had to spend
a lot of time to cut each hole and line, which would take weeks or
months, depending on what kind of arrangement of music I made.  I made
piano rolls like I would have written for an orchestra.  I laughingly
say that I made rolls that a human being could not play, for the simple
reason that most of my rolls were either three- or four-handed
arrangements.

The QRS Celebrity rolls were made on the marking machines and it took
the workers weeks to cut and edit those rolls.  When I met Liberace in
Las Vegas he asked me why it took months to get his rolls sent to him.
I explained that I used the punch press perforating machine that was
connected to the piano to make my rolls and I had instant access to get
the results quickly to be able to hear what I had done, while what he
played to a marking machine had to be given to the workers to first
make a first master.

I really don't know what they did in the early 1920s or 1930s to
make the piano rolls.  I read so many different stories of who did
what or when, or the names that they used.  I know that some of Dick
Watson's rolls were marked "Played by Ted Baxter".  I knew that Cook
used the name "Sid Laney".  I only used my name for my rolls.  I used
the name Hi Babit for the popular rolls, and I used my real name for
the classical rolls: Herman Babich.

Cook was very good at copying anybody's style.  I didn't try to copy
any styles -- I only wanted to make piano rolls to sound as if a real
live person was playing the piano.  That's why I tried to get retards
and accelerandos in my arrangements, even though the paper was running
at one speed.  I tried to get pedal affects by adding and overlapping
notes because, as a piano tuner, I found that a lot of player pianos
didn't have good working pedals.  When I play live I rarely use the
sustaining pedal because I hold notes to give the effect of a pedal.
For fast selections, a pedal would only make a mish-mash of the sounds.

I'm thankful that I have big hands, and I play mostly stretched tenths
in both hands to get sounds that the average pianist can't get.  I use
a lot of scale and arpeggio runs in my playing to enhance a selection,
and this type of playing seems to please my listeners.  I have had
requests from pianists to teach them my way of playing, but I can't,
because they don't have big hands.  But I advise them to know their
scales and chords, and run around like I do to fill in when the melody
of a song ends in a phrase before that next phrase starts.

I sometimes compare myself to a magician, who seems to work effortlessly
to accomplish his tricks.  I say that I'm a magician with the keyboard,
in that I can play for quite a while, doing nothing except to play in
rhythm (that's important) going from one chord progression to another.
I got this habit when I played the restaurants and talked to people
while I was playing.  I knew that if I stopped playing to talk to
someone, my boss would say to stop talking and play.  So I developed
that crazy way of playing.  Because of my improvising, which is what it
all amounted to, I was able to compose some selections.

If I were to go back to making piano rolls again, I'd probably make
arrangements using my style of stretched tenths.  It's quite a different
sound!  If there are anymore questions you would like to ask me, then,
just ask.

Hi Babit
hibabit@juno.com.geentroep [delete ".geentroep" to reply]