•-- non-subscriber, please reply to sender and MMD -- Hello! I came across you site quite by accident when researching water organs. I am an artist looking for inspiration re unusual ways to make music. Where do I go to see or read about examples of self-playing musical instruments? Thank you for a ...

•Hello MMD readers, All Artcraft Rolls currently available are now listed and described in our web site pages. (Text tweaking and typo replacing will continue for some time, however.) We expect to add photographic images on additional pages soon; these will feature pictures of our Studio, the player...

•Dear MMD, I'm interested too in recipes about how to build mechanical or related musical instruments for children. I'm searching for material for a children's program that will accompany the Welte-Mignon exhibition in the Augustinermuseum from Sept. 16th, 2004 to January 6th, 2006. So far I tried t...

Yesterday, Jan Kijlstra wrote : > This week-end in Paris, France, a new museum of music is opening, > showing about 4000 instruments. The location (Cite de la musique de La Villette, in Paris) is new, so is too the presentation of the instruments, but the collection is an old one (beginning about th...

•I was exceptionally impressed by the last issue of the MMD with its theses from our members on the Violano Virtuoso (the Single and the Double Mills). The issue was one of the best I've seen, and topped with the auction prices, it was like frosting on the cake. Keep up the good work. I am very surp...

•Greetings Gang, I, too, am vacationing a bit before the AMICA Convention. Today I am in Rochester, rolling into Niagara Falls on Wednesday afternoon. On Sunday, before leaving Stratford, Ontario, Canada, I captured a 2.5 MB wav file to my laptop of 'Shadow Waltz', played on Ken Vinen's Victor Ortho...

•Thanks, Ingmar Krause, for your description of Les Gets Festival in the 980721 Digest. It is true there were so many people participating (more than 300, with probably a hundred instruments in the streets, from the smallest to the biggest ones), or attending (many thousands of visitors), that it wa...

•Re: 981009 MMDigest Ed Gaida forwarded this message from Robert Heyes : > My name is Robert Heyes and I am studying sound technology at the > Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts in England. I would like to > know about people who used the player piano as a compositional tool. > I already know a...

•G'day all, I heard an interesting story about Jussi Bjorling, the great Swedish tenor, on a local radio program this morning. During a recording session, he was not happy about his top C and insisted on singing the song a semitone lower. The final recording, released in the lower key, received grea...

•You may consult on the Net some good information about Les Ondes Marten- ot and its composers, and even hear Ondes-Martenot sound files with two Excerpts from Olivier Messaien's "Turungalila Symphonie" (1946-48), "jardin du sang des etoiles" combined with strings and solo piano, and a solo Ondes Ma...

•I just heard of Mike Kitner's passing. A brave fighter he was. I've never met a more resourceful, generous technician. There was virtually nothing this guy couldn't restore to better-than-new. He helped me more than once despite a jammed schedule of work for top collectors. Mike always welcomed vis...

•[ Ref. Universities With Mechanical Music Collections, 190319 MMD ] Hello everyone, I haven't posted on MMD for some years so I thought I would use this topic to re-introduce myself. I live in Adelaide, South Australia (very pleasant autumn weather but too dry so far this year). I have a couple of ...

•Well, it looks like no other AMICA Convention attendee is going to give a synopsis of this event, so I'll do one. Might I premise this by saying that the weather was perfect -- hot and sunny, the whole time. The AMICA committee members met all day Wednesday amongst themselves. For the rest of us, t...

•"Ballet Mecanique" Disklavier Concert Review, 11-19-99 (Part 3 of 3) [ This 3-part article reviews the concert which featured 16 [ Yamaha Disklavier pianos, performed at the University of [ Massachusetts, Lowell MA, on Thursday, November 18, 1999. [ Previous MMD articles about this topic may be fou...

•Hello MMD readers, Due to the workload, upon returning home (filling backorders, processing rolls, and so forth), I didn't get an earlier opportunity to share a few thoughts about this last performance in our Second Season at Searsport Shores in Maine. See: http://www.wiscasset.net/artcraft/pianola...

•[ Tom Noble wrote in 120904 MMDigest: > I am looking for basic MIDI information so I can learn about it. The best place to find basic information on MIDI is here in the MMD Archives. MIDI is a broad field, with much history. It is also fast changing and constant at the same time. There was a really...

•Caution! Barrels tend to split as they age and many are ruined along with the music therein. If the instrument ends up in the desert (similar to where I live) it is a guarantee that the barrels will split because of the lack of moisture in the air. The relative humidity in the Arizona, Nevada, and ...

After visiting George Bogatko's home page (www.intac.com/~gbogatko/) I was struck with an idea. George uses streaming MPEG to allow visitors to hear, full-length, pieces played on actual instruments. Therein was my idea born! I would like to propose --    The Virtual Academy of Mechanical Musical In...

•Years ago I saw an article about how many box cars were filled up bringing a Wurlitzer theatre organ out to San Francisco, probably for either the Fox or the Paramount installation. So how about fixing your Lionel boxcars up with little advertising banners that puff the huge Wurlitzer therein? Alla...

•I recently acquired a copy of this new book and I highly recommend it. It is an outstanding achievement. After some 35+ years in this delightful avocation, I was astounded at the amount of new information contained therein. It is a truly wonderful coffee table book, to be read throughout as a fine ...