Troy Taylor's comments concerning player pianos and the younger generation struck a chord with me. I am 30 years old and am often amazed at how many people of my generation not only have never heard a player piano, but never even knew they existed. I do volunteer work at our local historical museum...

In the MMD from yesterday Hauke Marxsen wrote about a leaflet he is producing in cooperation with Philippe Rouille: "How to take care of your music box." A lovely initiative. He gave three German words found in the WWW. I know at least one extra: a clock that plays a tune is called "Spieluhr", but y...

•Ah HA! Now I know there will be a source for "M" rolls in the future! I was debating whether or not to include the ability to play "M" rolls in the monster machine I am presently designing (it will play A, G, 4X, O OS/NOS, 88-note, 65-note, and Kimball [electronic] player organ). This, however, rai...

•About electric piano player solenoids. It is very difficult to softly play a piano by solenoid action. Solenoids require a minimum amount of power to start their acceleration, but then the velocity and power increases as the plunger enters the solenoid coil. A system must be devised to apply suffic...

•Buying rolls without hearing them needn't be a troublesome endeavor. I see it as more of an adventure. To quote Forrest Gump, "Life is like..." ah, never mind. A number of other factors besides the arrangement influence whether or not you enjoy a roll. Rather than seeking out rolls by certain arran...

•Damon Atchison wrote: > I help people to find a player piano and then I just fix the supply > bellows and wind motor to get it running again. This hasn't failed > me yet. I hate to rain on your parade, Damon. But it _will_ fail you, and very soon, at that. You can fix the supply bellows and wind mo...

•Mike Knudsen wrote in Digest 971216 > I think one could start a little smaller and simpler .... So it can > be done. Outboard MIDI "tone module" synths have the advantage over > Sound Blaster cards in that they can be used with any computer ... This is true, however the computer based wave-table ca...

•Herky-Jerky Music Rolls Here's something I've wondered about for a long time, but thought it to be perhaps too trivial to bring up. It seems that whenever I listen to piano rolls, be it live, recorded, or MIDI-ized, there is one thing I find to be common. It is something that is generally only noti...

•Gerry Bay commented that there is a tracking problem with a Duo-Art. While it does sound like there isn't too much he can do for just a few rolls that don't track, I have found that one can add a little more tracking power to accommodate wide and narrow rolls by replacing the tracking finger pads w...

•Jody is right. The Piano Lodeon motor is a simple induction "phono" shaded-pole type and will indeed run hot and slow. You can probably play a whole roll without overheating, and the reduced tempo (by factor of 5/6) won't spoil the musical rendition by much. However, the same motor also spins the c...

•The MIDI wireline, which connects a computer to an external synthesizer (or orchestrion), supports 1000 sequential note events per second, so a chord of 30 notes takes 33 milliseconds (ms) to send. To put this in context, the pneumatic or solenoid player action in the instrument adds anywhere from ...

•Greetings all, I have acquired a Kevin Prowse coin operated barrel piano, circa 1900 or so, for eventual inclusion in a museum of music I'm planning. The mechanism is in working order; dropping a pence starts the gears and barrel turning, but the resulting music(!) can clear my antique mall of peop...

•Julian Dyer referred us to a photo of Fate Marable, playing a steam calliope. Great shot. Thanks, Julian! The caption reminds us that steam calliopists (those steamers who, in their word, played the "CAL-ee-ope") took to wearing thick gloves, because the keys on the calliope were metal, and became ...

•Dear friends of good pianola music, for a big music festival in Dresden in 2003 (Dresdner Musikfestspiele) I need rolls with music by Richard Wagner for 88-note pianola (I play a Hupfeld-Phonola-Vorsetzer with Solodant). I would pay for shipping and would send back the rolls after the concerts. Who...

•[ Ref. 030618 MMDigest, "Play Your Player Piano [ Using a Paper Music Roll" Defeating the object. Greetings, I never understand why some people think that their particular way of going about something is the superior or only way of doing it. I have Duo-Art (a few actually, but only one really good ...

•Dear MMDr's -- Just a friendly disagreement concerning L. Douglas Henderson's last entry about the Welte recording process. Mr. Henderson states that the travel of a piano key is (in his word) "_fixed_". That is incorrect in the literal sense. (However, good piano technicians do their best to arriv...

•I read it somewhere, a few years back, that Fats Waller played the organ in the Notre Dame in Paris and actually made some recordings, and I believe them to be the jazz type and RCA are still reluctant to issue them, I think due to the location and type of music in which some people might take offe...

•Further to Beatrice Robinson's posting about a small electronic locomotive, a similar device can be seen in The Organette Book, Fig. 575. This is called 'Go-Go Tunes' and plays an eight-note diatonic scale with the aid of press-in pegs placed into the holes in the track. Any simple melody can be pr...

•Joel Shprentz wrote in 040911 MMDigest: >> Also, the studio originally planned to play a Hammond tape but >> the Pepiots convinced them to use a pipe organ recording by >> E. Power Biggs instead. I don't remember the name of the movie, but there was Andy Griffith sitting on the bench "playing" this...

•Hi guys, I have a replacement movement for the child's rocking chair, courtesy of Dennis Margot in Switzerland. It is not exactly the same, but can be fairly easily adapted to replace the original. Please contact me directly. On another note, second page, same musical movement: I have a pretty doll...