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~~~ase
Established 1875
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"America's Finest Piano"
The
C~lg~
He-presents the Artist's Playing
A. 8. CHASE PIANO CO.
Dit1ilion
UNITED PIANO CORPORATION
~
Executive Office,: Norwalk, Ohio
CELCO REPRODUCING MEDIUM, THE.-The Celco Reproducing Medium is the latest achievement in the art of re-presenting the whole
range of music plus the interpretation of great pianists. It embodies some of the most recent inventions in this field of endeavor, and is made in one
of the largest plants in the world devoted to the manufacture of player actions. It embodies improvements based on many years of experience and
which are to be found in no other mechanism. Notable among these features is the floating crescendo and diminuendo, which allows a gradual
increase or decrease of tone volume without resorting to a series of up and down steps. It is claimed that at any moment during the time the diminuendo or crescendo valves are in operation, the intensity may be increased from any given point, which offers a limitless range in the degree of force
with which any note may be struck. This feature completely eliminates any suggestion of mechanical limitations. A large and well-balanced library
of music rolls is available for use for the Celco Reproducing Medium. This collection of recordings contains much of the best in classical music as
well as the popular dance music of the day. The Celco equipped piano may be used also as a regular player piano, it being possible to disengage the
automatic mechanism and make use of sensitive control buttons for personal interpretation. The Celco Reproducing Medium is available in the A. B.
Chase, Emerson and Lindeman & Sons pianos, all of which are manufactured under the control of the United Piano Corporation, to which refer.
CHASE, A. B., PIANO CO.-Established in 1875. The A. B. Chase Piano Co., factories and executive offices are located at Norwalk, Ohio. The
officers are: J. H. Williams, president; J. H. Shale, treasurer, and S. B. Keilholtz, secretary. These men are highly qualified for the important offices
they hold in this prominent concern. The company has built up a nation-wide reputation for producing instruments of the highest quality. Only the
very best materials are used in the construction of A. B. Chase pianos, and the most skilled workmen, with years of training and experience, are
employed at the factories. Early in 1922 this company became a division of the United Piano Corporation. The manufacturing end of the business is
now under the personal supervision of James H. Williams, well known in the piano trade, who has established a reputation through his successful
connections of previous years with other great piano houses. The affairs of the company are in the hands of men who are well known throughout the
trade, and whose ideals and ambitions are the production of musical instruments of the highest artistic quality. Many of the men in the personnel of
the A. B. Chase factory have devoted their lives to the production of A. B. Chase pianos. The average length of service in the interests of the A. B.
Chase Co. is thirty-one years. The manufacturing capacity of the A. B. Chase factory is 3600 pianos per year. The line includes uprights, grands,
concert grands and player pianos. A. B. Chase grands are also equipped with the Celco Reproducing Medium. The Celco Reproducing Medium is
the latest achievement in the art of re-presenting the whole range of music plus the interpretations of great pianists. Embodying the newest inventions of this field of artistic endeavor is it is capable of striking any note at any time with any degree of force, thus making possible perfect reproduc-_
tion of the artist's individual interpretations. A large and well balanced library of music rolls satisfies every demand, from the classics to the popular /dance music of the day. The A. B. Chase line is represented by some the largest and most successful dealers throughout the country, who find it a
ready seller where quality is of first consideration. The A. B. Chase is the official piano for the Scotti Grand Opera Company, The San Carlos Grand
Opera Company and the Society of American Singers. It is also the first choice of some of the most famous orchestra leaders, including Paul
Whiteman, of New York and E. A. Benson, of Chicago. The A. B. Chase piano is to be found in some of the finest residences in America, including
the White House in Washington. The financial standing of the company is unquestionable.
See also page 115
THE AMICA BULLETIN
~\
AUTOMATIC MUSICAL INSTRUMENT COLLECTORS' ASSOCIATION
Published by the Automatic Musical Instrument Collectors' Association, a non-profit, tax exempt group devoted to the restoration, distribution
and enjoyment of musical instruments using perforated paper music rolls. AMICA was founded In San Francisco, California in 1963.
ROBIN PRATT, PUBLISHER, 515 SCOTT STREET, SANDUSKY, OH 44870-3736 - Phone 419-626-1903
Associate Editors: Emmett M. Ford and Richard J. Howe
VOLUME 30, Number 3
MAY/JUNE, 1993
Display and Classified Ads
Articles for Publication
Letters to the Publisher
Chapter News
Single copies of back issues
($5.00 per issue - based
upon availability)
FEATURES
A Rhenish Rhomance
85
Artistic Restraint: The Sustaining Pedal
Fidelity and the Ampico
Artist's Corner
94
105
Robin Pratt
515 Scott Street
Sandusky, OH 44870-3736
419 - 626-1903
116
120
Conlon Nancarrow in Concert 122
The Man Behind the Dour Mask
UPCOMING PUBLICATION
DEADLINES
126
Piano Company Lightens Tune in Timber Town 132
Player-Piano Concert at the Ludwig Hupfeld Factory!
'""~
DEPARTMENTS
AMICA Officers, Chapter Officers, Affiliates
PresidentlPublisher's Notes
Duo-Art Accordion Pneumatics
Chapter News
133
139
Classified Ads
82
83
Tech Tips -
AMICA BuLLETIN
The ads and articles must be received
by the Publisher on the I st of the
Odd number months:
January
March
May
July
September
November
Bulletins will be mailed on the 1st
week of the even months.
127
COVER ART:
Front Cover: Read Publisher's Notes
Inside Cover: 1925 edition of ... 'The Purchasers Guide to the Music Industries"
Back Cover: Aeolian Roll Catalogue from the late 60's - early 70's
MEMBERSHIP SERVICES
New Memberships
Renewals
Address changes and corrections
Directory information updates
Additional copies of
Member Directory
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To ensure timely delivery of your
BULLETIN, please allow 6-weeks
advance notice of address changes.
Entire contents © 1993 AMICA International
8\
AMICA INTERNATIONAL
INTERNATIONAL OFFICERS
PRESIDENT
Mel Septon
9045 North Karlov
Skokie, Illinois 60076
708-679-3455
PAST PRESIDENT
Ron Connor
Route 4, Rogers, Arkansas W56
501-636-1749
VICE PRESIDENT
Maurice Willyard
1988 NW Palmer Lane
Bremerton, WA 98310
SECRETARY
Sally Lawrence
837 Coventry Road
Kensington, California 947fJ7
415-526-8438
TREASURER
Janet Tonnesen
903 Sandalwood
Richardson, Texas 75080
214-235-4497
PUBLISHER
Robin Pratt
515 Scott Street
Sandusky, Ohio 44870-3736
419-626-1903
MEMBERSmp SECRETARY
Mike Barnhart
919 Lantern Glow Trail
Dayton, Ohio 45431
513-254-5580
COMMITTEES
Harold Malakinian
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TECHNICAL
ARCHIVES
Bob Rosencrans
109 Cumberland Place, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010
PUBLICATIONS
AUDIO-VISUAL
Robin Pratt
515 Scott St., Sandusky, OH 44870
Harold Malakinian
2345 Forest Trail Drive, Troy, MI 48098
CONVENTION COORDINATOR
Liz Barnhart
919 Lantern Glow Trail, Dayton, OH 45431
HONORARY MEMBERS
Dorothy Bromage
157 School Street, Gorham, ME 04038
CHAPfER OFFICERS
BOSTON AREA
Pres. Bill Koenigsberg
Vice Pres: Tony Misianos
Sec: Charlie Randazzo &
Barbara McFall
Treas: Alan Jayne
Reporter: Don Brown
Bd. Rep: Sandy Libman
CffiCAGOAREA
Pres: Marty Persky
Vice Pres: Dee Kabouras
Sec: James Doheny
Treas: Elsa Pekarek
Reporter: Margaret Bizberg
Bd. Rep: Mike Schwimmer
FOUNDING CHAPI'ER
Pres: Don Ellison
Vice Pres: Pat Clemens
Sec: Bing Gibbs
Treas: Sandy Swirsky
Reporter: Rob Thomas
Bd. Rep: Bob Wilcox
GATEWAY CHAPI'ER
Pres: Cynthia Craig
Vice Pres: Joe Lorberg
Sec:
Treas: Dorothy Ruprecht
Historian: Larry Hollenberg
Board Rep: Cynthia Craig
HEART OF AMERICA
Pres: Linda Bird
Vice Pres: Bill Pohl
Sec/Treas: Betty Ann Olmsted
Reporter: Willa Daniels
Board Rep: Ron Bopp
LADY LIBERTY
Pres: Bill Albrecht
Vice Pres: Joe Conklin
Sec: Richard Carlson
Treas: John Ellems
Reporter: Randy Herr
Board Rep: Diane Polan
MIDWEST
Pres: Bob Porter
Vice Pres: Harold Malaldnian
Sec: Judy Barnick
Treas: Alvin Wulfekuhl
Reporter: Henry Trittipo
Board Rep: Liz Barnhart
NOlUHERN LIGHTS
Pres: Craig Remmon
Vice Pres: Donald Jones
Sec: Jason Beyer
Treas: Robert & Katheryn Dumas
Reporter: Kay Dumas
Ruth Anderson
Board Rep: Craig Remmon
7
"
PffiLADELPmA AREA
Pres: Paul Dietz
Vice Pres: Brian Helfrich
Sec: Diane Wagner
Treas: Bob Taylor
Reporter: Lynn Wigglesworth
Board Rep: Bob Rosencrans
SIERRA-NEVADA
Pres: Bob Patton
Vice Pres: Kathy Cochran
Sec: Tom Hawthorn
Treas: Virginia Clark
Reporter: Ed Baehr
Board Rep: Ray Bauer
SOWNY (Southern Ontario,
Western NY)
Pres: John Cairns
Vice Pres: Rick Drewniak
Sec: Anne Lemon
Treas: Holly Walter
Membership Sec: Mike Walter (Amer.)
Laurie Taylor (Can.)
Photographer: Bill McCleary
Reporter: Ada Cairns
Board Rep: Nancy & Ed Group
SOUTHEAST AREA
~..-
Pres: David Oppenheim
Vice Pres: John Daly
Sec: Wayne Fisher
Treas: Don Winter
Reporter: Wayne Fisher
Board Rep: John O'Laughlin
SOUTHERN CHAPI'ER
Pres: Shirley Nix
Vice Pres: Herb Mercer
Sec: Frank Nix
Treas: Ken Hodge
Reporter: Ken Hodge
Board Rep: Mary Lilien
TEXAS
Pres: Sal Mele
Vice Pres: Wade Newton
Sec/Treas: Janet Tonnesen
Reporter: Bob Butters
Board Rep: Richard Tonnesen
AFFILIATED SOCIETIES AND ORGANIZATIONS
AUSTRALIAN COLLEcroRS
OF MECHANICAL MUSICAL
INSTRUMENTS
clo 4 Lobellia Street
Chatswood, N.S.W. 2067,
Australia
DUTCH PIANOLA ASSOC.
Nederlandse Pianola Vereniging
Kortedijk 10
2871 CB Schoonhouen,
Netherlands
INTERNATIONAL PIANO
ARCHIVES AT MARYLAND
Neil Ratliff, Music Library
Hornbake 3210
College Park, Maryland 20742
MUSIC BOX SOCIETY
INTERNATIONAL
Corresp. Sec'y.: Marguerite Fabel
Rt. 3, Box 205
Morgantown, IN 46160
NETHERLANDS MECHANICAL
ORGAN SOCIETY - KDV
1. L. M. Van Dinteren
Postbus 147
6160 A C Geleen, Netherlands
NORTHWEST PLAYER PIANO
ASSOCIATION
Raymond and Dorothy Ince
4 Barrowby Lane
Leeds LS15 8PT, England
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
Division of Musical History
Washingtom, D.C. 20560
PLAYER PIANO GROUP
(England)
Frances Broadway
39 Sydner Road
Stoke Newington
London N16 7UF, England
SOCIETY OF FRIENDS OF
MECHANICAL MUSICAL
INSTRUMENTS
r
Jurgen Hocker
Eichenweg 6, D-5060 Gergisch, G1adbach;
Germany
By now all of you have hopefully received your 1993 Convention
registration package in the mail. For those of you who have attended an
AMICA or Musical Box Society convention in the past, you know how
much fun these meetings always are. For those who have never attended such an event, a few words of encouragement to attend this years'
"sure to be fantastic" joint convention in Los Angeles.
President's Message
I have yet to belong to any organization where so many individuals from different walks of life become friends as quickly as they do in
our hobby. We have executives of major corporations, homemakers,
doctors, farmers, shipping room clerks, assembly line workers, teachers, piano technicians etc., etc., etc., who become friends the first few
minutes of each convention. I have never met a collector with a huge
collection that wasn't eager to socialize with a fellow collector even if
that collector had only one piano or music box in hislher collection.
If you have never been to a convention and are worried about not
knowing anyone there, put your worries aside and register for the 1993
joint AMICAIMBSI Convention.
Several hundred soon to be close friends will be waiting for you.
Friendly Mel Septon
AMICA President
A Rhenish Romance
by: Robin Pratt
Why is THIS on the cover??? you may ask. Well, did you
ever wonder what piano roll artists did before they were established artists? I came across several of these libretto/scores at
a sale 'and was surprised to see that Luis Fuiks was the main
composer for the University of Chicago's Blackfriars production of "A Rhenish Romance". Following are some photos,
the story line and a selection from the show. In the complete
book are all of the musical numbers with also the entr' acts,
overture and finale. Not great music, but it's nice to see some--=- body's roots, as it were.
The Elaine Obenchain AMPICO book says:
VICTOR ARDEN (born Lewis J. Fuiks)b. ca. 1893Wenona, IL., d. July 31, 1962, at age 69, New York, New
York.
A graduate of the University of Chicago, Arden continued
his studies at the American Conservatory of Music. He was
one of the most prolific of Ampico's popular song recorders.
Although nearly two dozen rolls were issued under his real
name, most were released under his professional name. He
also did many four-hand rolls with Adam Carroll as well as
other artists. His Ampico career was interrupted by an eight
year absence when he recorded for QRS. He returned as an
exclusi ve Ampico artist in March 1928. Later he recorded for
Victor, Brunswick, Vocalion and Okeh. Arden was pianist for
the All Star Trio and played in duo with Phil Ohman on radio
and in musical shows. He conducted a number of radio shows
including Manhattan Merry Go Round and helped orchestrate
such stage shows as Lady Be Good, Funny Face and Oh, Kay
(all by Gershwin). He also made some movie shorts. Two of
his original compositions are available on Ampico rolls.
Honeymoon Waltz A flat, Arden and Williams 20046E
Round the Town, Arden and Lambert 56303D
I don't have either of these rolls, but since I do have the
score from the college show, it certainly would be interesting
to compare and see if either of these numbers were developed
from his early days. Rehashed as it were, since that was an
EXTREMELY COMMON process used by all composers.
Gershwin's, "The Man I Love" is made up from at least
two former songs. The verse and the chorus both being from
separate, failed compositions. Keep searching, there is still a
treasure-trove of items waiting to be saved out there!
Happy Hunting!
Robin Pratt
83
Letter to the Editor . ..
MICHAEL BROADWAY
39, Sydner Road
Stoke Newington
London
N16 7UF
PIANOLIST
/r
'\
ENGLAND
Tel: 071 254 6145
Fax: 071 249 0130
5330;'
Robin Pratt,
515 Scott Street,
Sandusky
OH 44870-3736
U.S.A.
THE CUCKOO QUt\kfL T
14th April, 1993
Allegro con brio.
Op.27
Firat Movement
SCHAAF
Dear Robin Pratt,
;")',:-::j,:
!·:d .':;1:,11 O.
Many thanks indeed for Bulletin 30/5 which arrived today; it is
magnificent - two pages of photos of tea parties seems the right
balance!
I was particularly interested in the article concerning Edward Schaaf;
although I cannot agree with the writer when he says that the playerpiano has "evenness of tonal intensity, and lack of expressive powers",
and I hope that I have proved this wrong in my concerts and radio
broadcasts on the Pianola.
in my own collection of rolls J have six of Schaaf's compositions:
the first two listed are issued rolls, and the remaining four are
I think made on a Leabarjan perforator.
~~f'7'~~1j,"~
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.
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.,,!'l
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Ballade No.3
0" .. '"
(T!·,e DeVil in the !-;" .')'.
',.".)
,F
5,,1:;'0 ;
~
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I hope this is of some help.
Publisher's Note:
~~~}
"Wig-Wag" Richard Dearborn, Lawrenceville,
NJ also has a copy of roll by
Edward Schaaf
~~-0-~
'1:
l~)i;.
~." !1;~:d.
I
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The Cuckoo Quartet Op.27
First movt.
Royal Music Roll Co. 5330
Ballade No.3 Op.39 (The Devil in the Belfry - Poe) International 5025
London Bridge is Falling Down Op.37 NO.4
Leabarjan
Symphony No.2 1st movt.
Leabarjan
Untitled
Sweet Lavender Composer's player piano transcription, from a song
setting; by Edward Schaaf
(written in ink. Autograph?)
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85
BROTHERS OF THE ORDER
])onald D. Delan,'
Henry C. Shull
Lewis J. Fuiks
James Dyrenforth
Craig Redmond
Rov"lancl Geoq;-e
Harold Moore
Dan Brown
nifforrl Plume
C. Philip Mill"r
Rnlph Davis
Fred Burc)<v
Frank Whiting-
Harold D. Moore
Ralph Cornwell
Stell an \Vindrow
Vernon Brown
Max Cornwell
Alvin Hanson
Paul Russell
])u n lap Cia rl<
James Webb
William 'Wiley
Hownr'l Cop Ie,'
nel'nal'd NeWlll:',n
.J·:>hn Slif"r
Arthur Teninga
Chauncey Scott
Lucius Hilton
Bruce King
Vaughn Gunnell
Harold Huls
Donald Hops
Francis Broomell
Sig-mond Cohen
Raymond B. \Vhitehead
Hnymond A. An'lerson
Viclor E. Halperin
George ,V. Caldwell
Arthur W. Rogers
Lyndon Lesch
Alexander Vaughn
Robel't Willett
Emerson Axe
\Vade Bender
Arthur Hayford
H. C. Vogtel
Judson S. Tyley
Roy Doolan
Carleton B. A(litm~
Stanley M. Banks
J. Phelps ,Vood
C. A. Siedschlag
C: Percy Dake
Sherman O. Cooper
John Nuveen. Jr.
Hamilton Walter
Charles G. Parker
H. P. Henry
Lindsey J. Wait
Orrin Zoline
R. .J. Hendrick
A
Rhenish
Rhomance
RICHARD E. MEYERS
ROBERT E. TUTTLE
Bretzendorf is a small town in the valley of the Rhine. It is a quaint old village, delightfully picturesque in its fragrant provincial
life. Its people still preserve the customs and believe the legends of their Teutonic forefathers, and display in their buildings and dress
a pleasing ignorance of Progress.
Into this village strayed two erstwhile American actors out of a job, both wearied with fatigue and hunger. One, Sam Shine, had
not allowed the pangs of hunger to prevent him from admiring the beautiful scenery, but his compatriot, Tony Pratt, was too disconsolate to allow his stomach to be satisfied by the aesthetic and could think of food alone. Thus it was with keen satisfaction that they
welcomed Katinka, a nimble-witted and coquettish peasant girl, whose basket of fruits and vegetables the tactful Sam bought with his
fraternity pin. After having eaten voraciously our wanderers decided that the time had come when their appetites would no longer
allow them to be men of leisure and parted for an hour's hunt for jobs.
It so happened that on this very same day the peasants and townspeople came dressed in festive attire to celebrate the birthday of
the Princess Irmengard. Her father, Rudolph of Bretzendorf, wished the Princess to marry Otto von Altenburg, a rich and powerful
neighbor, but it was rumored among the village folk that she loved another - a foreigner - an American. It was just a week's time
until the day of her betrothal to Otto. And then the plot boiled harder, for into quaint old Bretzendorf came Martin Cole, Irmengard's
true lover, a young, wealthy Chicagoan fresh from college, but appointed Consul to Bretzendorf, with our old friend Sam Shine as his
valet. While Sam and Charlotte, Irmengard's companion, were entering into acquaintance, Martin and Irmengard planned to elope
aided by Sam Shine. However, their plans were interfered with by Otto and his newly hired accomplice - no other than Tony Pratt.
The elopement was thwarted by a shot fired by Tony, which brought a squad of guards and gendarmes upon the scene. Martin ordered
the guards to release Sam as an American citizen, but woefully was unable to enforce his authority for he found that his credentials
were missing and was himself subject to arrest unless he could produce the papers within a week.
A week soon passed and the town was decorated with flowers in celebration of the betrothal of the Princess to Otto. In the meantime, Tony Pratt had been hiding in an enchanted well cared for from above by the coquettish Katinka, who finally learned that it was
Otto who had stolen the papers from the American's wallet. Sam had been released during the week and had rapidly become a victim
to the charm of Charlotte, who was eager to learn the Star Spangled Banner and sail to America with her lover.
Marty had failed to locate his papers but nevertheless had persuaded Irmengard that he truly was the American Consul. One ray
of light drew forth another, for Katinka cleverly secured the papers from Otto and tossed them to Tony, eve-napping in the bottom of
the well. The bright girl soon won the love of Tony, who agreed that she should cook for him always. The hour came for the
betrothal and Irmengard was heavy of heart, as she thought of marrying the man she did not love. In the midst of the ceremony a
noise and a commotion was heard outside and Marty, breaking through the guards, came before the throng and exposed Otto's treacherous acts. To complete our story we must secure the hand of Irmengard for Marty - and that is just what happened. The degraded
Otto was banished from Bretzendorf and Marty was betrothed to the Princess Irmengard. Joy then did e'er prevail.
87
ffA 1Rl1ruinl1 1Rl1owaurr
H
THE CHARACTERS
In order of appearance
STELLAN S.
Sam Shine
'WINDROW, '17
JAMER DYRENFORTH, '16
JOHN W. BANISTER, '] 8
CHAR. BREASTED, '19
MILTON FRANK, '19
:YIORTON How ARD, '] 9
NORMAN K DUEHHI'\TG, '] 9
Tony Pratt
Katinka
HlIdolph
Otto
J I'lllcllgal'd
Charlotte
,
Marty
"
.
'-(
....... CHARLES SOUTTER, '16
THE CnOTU;SES
IHI'I'('"
'VI NI'~ (; IIlLS
'(~(~Ol'g'e
V'll.
Tr(\v~I·.
'17.
Arno U. Ilhlhorl1, '1~1
,Joseph Hibbard, 'J:).
Albert H. Gairt. ·UI.
I':arl E. Sproul, 'J8.
(;oorlell Craw ford, '19.
Frank 1'. BreC'kenrirlg-f',
'19.
(; II ,\ II ns
(:eorg'e F'. Mal'U II. 'I!l
(:has.- C. () reene. '19
J'aul S. MC'Mahon. 'Jf,
Wm. 1-:aul-;('h. 'I S
F. Clnirf' (;ur,1<'.\·, '19
Wallace Miller. 'H.
Stanley M. Dlacl<. '1~.
Clarence C. Neff, J 8.
(;orrlon Van-Kir'k, 'J 9.
Harry H. McCosh. '19.
,John D. Moorman, '19.
,James C. Hemphill, 'J 9
Lawrf>nee Jacquef', 'J n
(;(I(1SI'~
S'1'Jo:PI'.':IIS
l...yrnan l"ol'bes, 'J!l
Merlin M. Paine, ·1f.
J~dwaJ'(l Hicks, 'J9
J:ernard Nath. '19
James M. Sellers:'1;
Paul Y. 'WilIett, '1 n
Yrank P.
noys
nl'ec){enri(l~·e.
'19
Goodell Crawfo"d, '19
James C. Hemphill, 19.
Harry H. McCosh, 'J 9
Wallace Miller. '18
Earl E. Sproul. '18
John D. Moorman, '19
IHI'I'f'" (aRI.S
Stanley M. Black, '1~
Albe,·t H. Gairt, 'J9
.Joseph Hibbard, '19
Lawrence Jacques: J9
George W. Traver, 'J7.
Gordon Van Kirk, 'J 9
Arno G. l1hlhorn, 'J 9
PEASANTS
Otto F. Weiner, '18
Lyman PO"bes, '19
,James M. Sellers,' 17
Wm. H. MacMillan, '17
Edward Hicks, '19
Paul Y. 'Willett, '19
Hernarrl Nath, '19
Brwin H. Cope, '16
Merlin M. Paine, 'lr.
Anrlrew J. Sullivan, '19
C"'lric n. St"ohm, '17
('
\
88
MUSIC COMPOSERS
Myers
Fuiks
Gualano
I<usel
Herzu~
Whitehead
Smith
INDEX OF MUSIC
Name
Charaders
ACT
I
1
Overture
2
Prelude
3
College Fraternities (Katinka, Sam anu Tony)
4
Entrance of Irmengard (Chorus)
5
The Danger That Lurks in Your Smile (Sam, Tony, lrmengard amI ('luLl·lotte)
.
Love is Like a Fairy Tale (Marty)
.
7
Crumpets and Tarts (Katinka, Sam and Torry)
.
8
Campus Strut (Sam, Tony and Chorus)
.
9
Villager's Serenade (Chorus)
.
10
.
,
.
Hi
.
17
.
Finale (Ensemble)
'.'
ACT
.
II
.
,n
.
50
Rhenish Drinking Song (Ottb and Guards)
.
fj5
14
Sentimental Serenade (Marty)
.
.57
15
Advice (Otto and Katinka) . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .
.
59
16
Wine-A Toast
.
('0
)-
17
Teach l\1e How To Say (Tony)
.
(H
18
The :Melting Pot (lVlarty)
.
G7
19
Finale (Ensemble)
.
70
11
Opening Chorus
12
Legend of the 'Well (Katinka and Chorus)
13
"
,
89
The Campus Strut
(Tony and_Chorus)
Lyric by
Music by
JAS.DRYENFORTH
l\loderato
LEWIS J. FUlKS
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93
ARTISTIC RESTRAINT: The SUSTAINING PEDAL
or
SOSTENUTO KNOW-HOW (NO-How!)
by L. Douglas Henderson
PREFACE
The publication of this article represents Number Three in
the Six-part Series being written for The AMICA Bulletin in
1993. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with the first
two installments (PIANOLA 'PIZAZZ' in the JanuaryFebruary issue and JUST IN TIME - THE TEMPO LEVER in
the March-April magazine) .. or at least has access to these
two texts. By going through the Pianola controls from a performance perspective in a step-by-step fashion as The Aeolian
Company rightfully suggested for two decades,. you must
bear in mind that many functions OVERLAP in their operations and/or influence other elements in the entire pneumatic
mechanism. For example, JUST IN TIME - THE TEMPO
LEVER presented the fact that the roll-speed control, usually
a lever, was part of the ACCENTING SYSTEM on foot-pedal
players and that it was also mandatory in the human "monitoring" of ALL expression rolls for the so-called "reproducing"
pianos. By a similar token, portions of the future articles
(Numbers Four and Five) regarding the Soft Pedal(s) and Solo
Effects will dovetail, since the skilled Pianolist always uses
the hammer rail or "soft" graduations to isolate chords and
notes, thus creating a "solo effect", on instruments lacking the
pneumatic devices such as The Themodist or Melodant. If this
series interests you, we urge that you collect all six magazines
and have them arranged in succession, keeping in mind that
references will be made to prior issues from time to time.
Music, player rolls, Pianola designs and human attributes are
diverse and do not lend themselves to over-the-counter generalizations. Since you know your player action and piano's
tone better than the roll arranger (or this author) always use
your own judgment and imagination as you discover new
facets of Pianola music interpretation. Ideally, once you have
mastered the lever controls, their use should become something that "flows" from your fingers as the music soars,
manipulated in an instinctive manner. (Never operate your
Pianola levers as if they were light switches!) The focus must
at all times be the human element superimposed upon the programmed arrangement, viz. the music roll. Finally: PRACTICE! Your Pianola skills will develop over a period of time,
augmented by the ~ of music and the rolls that bring it to
your instrument. Unlike the original promotions showing a
baby pushing down pedals on the Gulbransen Registering
Piano .. or Anna Held seated at a Simplex piano-player and
mugging for the camera, you already know that this is an
instrument with limitless artistic potential, a combination of
piano-AND-player design, music roll arrangement and personal interpretive skills. Put them all together and you'll have
an audience every time!
94
No.3
of Six
Articles
..;
The Pedal for Pianists and Pianolists
At first glance, the concept of lifting up felt dampers for a
"sustaining" effect seems relatively simple. Just attach a hand
lever or a finger button (with a complementary pneumatic
assembly) or let the music roll interpreter share the same foot
pedal (on an electric player) that the keyboard artist uses.
Beyond that, the pneumatic pedal could be automatically activated by the paper roll, using a tracker bar hole - similar in
context to the operation of the piano keys. When the handplayed roll "myth" - or premise - was in full swing, the sustaining pedal could be "recorded" along with the notes. Do the
artist's effects with the pedal coincide with the Pianola functions? Absolutely NOT! For one thing, the sustaining pedal Z
is part of the striking operation - the keyboard attack - for the
live artist; while its use is partially for tone blending and coloration purposes, the lifting of dampers is primarily used for
technique. Ten fingers cannot be everywhere on the keyboard
at all times (as opposed to the Pianola with its pneumatic "fingers" resting on each note) 3 so the momentary use of the foot
pedal allows the hands to reach another location in the scale
while the elevated dampers give the illusion of connected
notes. Technique along with legato playing 4 are the major ...
functions for this most-important portion of the keyboard J
pianoforte action. By contrast, an insecure pianist or one who
is surpassing his or her technical limits invariably "sits on the
pedal", playing louder and louder in a vain attempt to mask
over the "clinker" notes, often grazed. 5 This is one of the reasons that OUTSIDE LISTENING is recommended for all
Pianolists, for by studying recorded performances of the
BEST keyboard virtuosi you can employ the "concept" of
damper lifting even though this is done without mimicking or
duplicating the human keyboard endeavor. You retain the
IDEA of what the artist does "in performance" and apply this
to your compromise between Pianola and music roll arrangement. There is an indefinable "something" to what makes a
great pianist....perfect note-playing, alone, is dry and boring - - blurred and sloppy performances masked over with excessive sustaining pedal are downright offensive to the cultured
listener. Someplace in-between these extremes is the artist
who has minimal (and rapid) use of the pedal and who relies
on interpretive keyboard technique to carry the music along.
The Pianola is plagued with NO STANDARDS for the
sustaining pedal design, and even more infuriating (for the
arranger) is the cavalier approach the manufacturers had with
the PLACEMENT of the tracker bar holes and the SIZE of the
openings on individual instruments - even with a specific
brand of player action.' The electric player with its automatic "
pedal, such as "The Duo-Art as a Pianola" (to quote Aeolian (
terminology), is many shades ahead of the pedal-operated
instrument in this regard. For example, not only does the
Pianolist operating a Duo-Art manual1y have 2 independent
vacuum systems for the expression (which allow for the insertion of accent notes and chords) ... but ... since the instrument
is always at FULL DYNAMIC POWER the pedal does not
..... change its response with pianissimo (P.P.) playing, a common
oJ'" form of interpretive frustration for the foot-pedal Pianolist
when interpreting Debussy rolls with the automatic pedal feature. One of the main drawbacks of the Player-Piano's sustaining pedal - be it manual or automatic, lever/foot-operated
or button-controlled - is that the interpreter is always detached
from the striking essence - unlike the keyboard artists. (The
affect is similar to operating the gear shift lever and accelerator pedal on an automobile, but having another party run the
clutch pedal for you!) In spite of this important difference
between the pianist and Pianolist (who has lessened intimacy
with the damper control), a rol1 with a good pedal score (and
tasteful sostenuto effects added by the arranger) can more than
compensate for the inherent detachments. 7 Naturally,
Pianolists who operate an instrument without any automatic
pedal device should, when playing an Interpretive
Arrangement, endeavor to duplicate the pedal effects by following the perforations visually. Afterwards, you can decide
if the pedal score is to be used or rejected: in part or in total.
Interpretive Arrangements by ARTCRAFT often have special
uses for the sustaining pedal which are out-of-rhythm with the
Pianola foot-pedaling or the "beat" of the music; this will be
explained later in the article. Interpretive Arrangements also
have minimal use of the automatic pedal so that one possessing an instrument which does not allow the pneumatic control
-. to be turned off can override the automatic arrangement with
...
."I additi?nal manual pedal effects. The ~utomatic sustaining
. pedal IS (on standard 88-Note 11 1/4" WIde rolls) near the left
margin of the music sheet; absence of the perforation indicates
the pedal is OFF and the length of the perforated slot indicates
the TIME in the musical performance the Player-Piano's pedal
is to be ON, always (for the Pianola) a full travel operation.
The keyboard pianist often "nudges"the dampers up a bit or
compensates for an out-of-regulation piano action with
uneven damper-lifting. Again, regarding the automatic pedal
score as part of the music arrangement, the short use of the
automatic pedal is preferable to the elongated pedal perforations, since a sluggish pneumatic pedal has time to "recycle"
more easily and also since the tracker bar hole dimensions
cause the timing to vary widely. The use of sostenuto in the
arrangement, i.e. the lengthening of particular notes (no matter
how a live artist might strike the keys), in tandem with the
judicious use of the pneumatically-operated sustaining pedal
in the score is what defines the clarity available to the serious
Pianolist. Pianolists are advised to chart their own waters
since excessive and inartistic sustaining pedal effects have
always been the realm of commercial rolls.
The Welte-Mienon Sustaining Pedal System
"'"
While it might seem strange to the reader that the Welte
.,,/ "reproducing" roll system would be reviewed, since the
instrument was sold as a self-performing entity (by the
Germans, initial1y), there is much that can be learned from
this early design, using 2 holes on the right side of the tracker
bar: one for locked-ON and one for OFF. The Red Welte (TWO) and the 11 1/4" American Welte instruments all featured
the 2-hole, lock-and-cancel system ... at best a slo-wo-o-ow
and insensitive method of using an already slower-thanhuman device. Moreover, the Welte-Mignon Licensee grand
(built by The Standard Pneumatic Action Co. under a variety
of names, such as Art Deluxe, etc.) had one of the worst manifestations of pneumatic installations: mounted on the pedal
lyre - - - and requiring great force to push the dampers
upward, opening up the Licensee to a myriad of "lost-motion"
and linkage problems. Yet, the Red Welte and Welte-Mignon
Licensee (plus the more elusive Welte-Mignon 'Original')
players (grand and upright) have - in spite of the erratic and
"twitchy" striking for the patched up hand-played roll arrangements on many titles - ARTISTIC and SATISFYING pedal
scores! How can this be? The answer is simple: knowing that
the pedal cannot cope with what the artist does (and being dramatically slower for rapid pedal effects than the single-hole
systems of later design), the Welte arrangers stepped-in
(behind closed doors!!) and juggled the "ON" function of the
pneumatics with note-elongation (sostenuto) on the music
score. It was this PedallSostenutolPedallSostenuto effect of
the superb Welte-Licensee ARRANGED rolls, primarily,
which inspired the writer to rethink the entire automatic pedal
score operation and develop what - for better words - is called
"live" pedal in ARTCRAFT terminology. Welte-Mignon
Licensee rol1s, by and large, outperform not only the jerky
hand-played German titles (or rolls made in the States by the
same mercury trough and marking methods) but also - especially in the field of Ballads - leave the Ampico and Duo-Art
in the dust, both players equipped with potentially superior
pedal designs! The influence of Howard Lutter, whose name
will not appear on many Welte-Licensee rolls bearing labels
of "other" artists, cannot be overstated. Not only was he straddled with a retrogressive 2-hole sustaining pedal, adapted
from the Red Welte arrangements, but - in later years - he got
stuck with a single-punch requirement: 1 punch, 2 punches, 3
punches, etc. (approximately a legato 32nd note, a legato 16th
note, a legato dotted-16th, and so on). Mr. Lutter circumvented these tremendous arranging limitations by a) using a lot of
single-punch (legato 32nd notes) to add "excitement" to the
performance .. , b) overlapping perforations (for glissando
effects not possible on this type of stepping) ... and finally c)
selecting FASTER ROLL SPEEDS, as ARTCRAFT
Interpretive Arrangements do today when simulating specific
artists. s Gone with the Welte-Mignon Licensee are the ridiculous Tempo 80 (NORMAL) restrictions that made a mockery
out of European virtuosi (like Josef Lhevinne and Ignace
Paderewski) and their respective keyboard attack. While the
author has had no experience with the Tempo 70-75 Green
Welte rolls of later European use, it's obvious that 'Twenties
Welte (in Germany) opted for background music, longer-playing rolls at the expense of performance flexibility. Tempo 7075 (7 to 7 1/2 feet/minute) introduces a very muddled striking
nature and pedal timing when compared to Tempo 80, the former Welte "norm" - - - and on any rolls, including the standard 88-Note variety. Here, as in Germany, the players from
"The Radio Era" appear to have chosen the "elevator music"
route as a defense. Bland, predictable (a nice term for boring)
and "safe" medleys would be created by Messrs. Milne,
Susskind (Fairchild), Armbruster and Delcamp ... for "furniture-that-played".' The Welte-Mignon Licensee, by contrast,
95
was a COMPLETE PIANOLA which had the ability to perform 88-Note rolls with lever control (and artistic distinction);
the beautifully-engineered Licensee player also broke away
from the Tempo 80 (NORMAL) paper travel limitations for
the sake of music. This is why, for the most part, those
Arranged or Highly-Edited ('Hand-Played') rolls in the
brown-box (Welte-Mignon/Deluxe) era play so well ... even
for modern ears! (If you are unfortunate enough to hear
TEMPTATION RAG or BALLIN' THE JACK on Red Welte
or the II 1/4" equivalent, you already know what the term
"unlistenable" means. The Germans needed Howard Lutter!)
From approximately 1922 to the end of the era in 1931, Mr.
Lutter took a clever German expression mechanism (the
Welte-Mignon system) and through creative arranging made a
divided-stack Player-Piano into a magnificent SOLO instrument which allowed for partial or total manual interpretation,
plus the use of all 88-Note rolls, reading the I-hole standard
(left margin) pedal through an ingenious switching device. No
wonder the Welte-Mignon Licensee was installed in over 110
makes' of pianos! It made the most of its potential through
ARRANGING and the only fraud was in the unrestricted marketing ofthe time: "The Master's Fingers on Your Piano". The
two Welte-Mignon Licensee rolls used to illustrate this article
have been marked by the writer to show the ON/OFF operation of the right margin pedal, since the average Pianolist is
used to seeing (and evaluating) the traditional left-side single
perforation pedal score.
Sustaining Pedal on Music Rolls. Old and New
LUSTSPIEL OVERTURE. Part II
Pianostyle #35267B "Hand-Played" - Tempo 75
-I
Naturally, upon examining Figure 1 you can see that this
arrangement of LUSTSPIEL OVERTURE is a by-the-book sheet music transfer roll,1O probably originating from a "graph
paper" stencil or an Acme-style hand-crank arranging machine
which - like the Imperial Industrial "recording" piano in the J.
L. Cook days - accomplished essentially the same thing: notes
based on sheet music time values. This portion of r.USTSPIEL OVERTURE is a bouncy, vibrant and exciting piece of
music, not unlike the sprightly passages in a Rossini or Von
Suppe composition of the overture genre. Regarding the notescore on the illustrated roll, it's the musical equivalent of a
fallen souffle: muddled, plodding and organ-like in the striking. The lack of an exhilarating treble solo line combined with
a ponderous bass accompaniment (i.e. octaves and chords held
down for the notation score time value) make the roll a total
"dog" from any audience performance standpoint, and this is
before the automatic pedal score is to be considered! The
writer is not condemrning Pianostyle salon and classical rolls
per se, since Aeolian led the field in clumpy Mozart, overlapping Rossini and club-footed Beethoven if their massive sheet
music transfer lines of rolls are considered: Universal and
Themodist-Metrostyle. No wonder Aeolian could advertise 58
and 65-Note arrangements (from which many 88-Note rolls
were perforated) by the TENS-of-THOUSAND! Very little
musical thought went into the Aeolian transfer process in .;:
those days, which spanned 1895 to approximately 1920 when'"
reform began to take place in a measured fashion. The pedal
on LUSTSPIEL is nothing more than the perforation of the
sheet music notation, adding more sustained effects to an
already hopeless arrangement. Neither automatic or manual
pedal can save this type of roll, so search for another arrangement if you wish to perform this sparkling, effervescent composition!
LILY OF THE VALLEY -GilbertDeluxe #15658 "played by Clarence Gaskill"
FIGURE 1
96
Here's another example of a mathematical arrangement
pretending to be a "hand-played" roll, this time an instrumental One-Step. Without the words, which are the essence of
inane, the roll has little going for it: "Lily of The Valley ...
Dearie, le(s be pal-y ... and I'll be your Forget-Me-Not"etc.
Skipping over the (absent) mundane lyrics and the trite
melody, the arrangement is another boring clutter of connected
notes. Even without the sustaining pedal being used, what
ought to be a snappy One-Step turns out to be a confused,
droning performance. Note the glissando at the top of the illustration, adding even MORE blurriness to a "nothing" arrangement. About all the Pianolist can do is suppress the bass
accompaniment and hope to elevate one's interest in the routine treble melody line. This is the typical style of music roll .!'1
which gives the Player-Piano a bad name - and image - with
the general public. Don't waste your piano hammers on this
style of roll, let alone try to introduce the sustaining pedal. It's
a pre-sustained arrangement!
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FIGURE 2
FIGURE 3
Let's examine one more bad example of a music roll
before progressing onward (and upward) to the better models
of sustaining pedal arranging:
organ" treble line, a cocktail-lounge "tied-triplet" rhythm in
the accompaniment and the usual sostenuto I Oths in the bass
that practically every roll made on the QRS "recording" piano
by Cook seems to possess. The pedal, minimally scored on the
roll, is of little or no value since sostenuto in the treble and
bass has already been decided for the Pianolist. LILY OF THE
VALLEY, critiqued above, comes across as a superlative roll
when compared to this arrangement, which did have musical
opportunities in the original song! Use a roll like this for ballast at a flea market sale. Don't waste your time with the roll.
Pass it on or salvage the spool and box for other purposes!
MY HEART CRIES FOR YOU (1951)
QRS #8695 "played by Bob Williams, Jr."
The roll looks - and sounds - like Milne or Cook, if
indeed the artist actually existed. Refer to the prior article,
JUST IN TIME - THE TEMPO LEVER (Page 46 and also
Footnote #10) for a brief discussion of taping-over "tiedtriplet" accompaniment IE you wish to use The Tempo Lever
on this, a SIMULATED Hand-Played arrangement.
MY HEART CRIES FOR YOU is a saccharine Waltz
(with a verse based on a Swiss folk song), one of those weepy
dreary 'Fifties numbers of the 45 r.p.m. record era; "My Heart
CRIES for you .. SIGHS for you ... DIES for you ... and -"
(the illustration takes the lyrics from there). Lyrics aside, the
SwisslTin Pan Alley combination piece lends itself to variations and arpeggios; in fact, several Thorens, Cuendet and
'Reuge musical box arrangements of the last 5 decades are
I fountains of trills and imaginative ornamentations - under the
original title (which at this moment escapes the author). The
QRS roll of 1951, however, gives the listener a "funeral
SEXTETTE from LUCIA PI LAMMERMOOR -Donizetti Deluxe Welte-Mignon #A3819 "played by Heinrich Burkard"
- Tempo 90
We offer you a roll which illustrates 2 ~ood aspects of the
automatic pedal score (keeping in mind that the author has
marked the ON/OFF Welte-Mignon pedal - on the right margin - with a line to make the process easier-to-see). First, by
using this example you can observe the pedal being used to
combine chords and inversions of same; in other words, identical notes can be sustained without risking dissonance.
Second, this hand-played roll shows extensive editing (superimposed arranging), a trade-mark of the excellent Welte-
97
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Mignon Licensee line in the Howard Lutter years. The erratic
nature of the perforations has been smoothed out and the notes
given the post-production work done by the arranger - are
lengthened here and there to give the slow Welte 2-hole pedal
plenty of time to "recycle". It's a classic case of the Sostenuto
and Sustainin!: Pedal alternating technique mentioned above
in the section describing the Welte-Mignon pedal system.
Discarding the old German Tempo 80 (NORMAL) for Tempo
90, the Lutter-era arrangers gave themselves all-around flexibility to improve the note striking, distribute the Welte expression information more intelligently and arrange-in a musically-satisfying sustaining pedal score. Throwin!: keyboard
"authenticity" to the winds in order to create a pleasant-soundin!: roll appears to be the unwritten rule-of-thumb durin!: the
brown box DeluxelLicensee era. What great commercial rolls
were created by American Welte during that brief 8-year period!
COSSACK LOVE SONG from SONG of THE FLAME Sothart & Gershwin-Deluxe Welte-Mignon #Y73 18 "played
by Harry Perrella" - Tempo 100
Howard Lutter triumphs again! The second WelteMignon example features a roll with 100% arranging (in the
name of a real pianist who often appeared with Paul
98
Whiteman's orchestra) ... and an even faster paper-travel norm
of Tempo 100: 24 inches MORE musical information per
minute beyond the trudging Tempo 80 (NORMAL) of the earlier German standard. Unlike the competing commercial rolls
of the day, this Gershwin composition has a "Gershwin
sparkle" - albeit thematically different from what the legendary Composer would have played, as evidenced from his
many 78 r.p.m. audio recordings. Note the minimal pedal,
mostly used to "enhance" key chords with the fuller sounds
that lifted dampers add to the music; octaves and their harmonies - for only a beat - will vibrate in unison with the struck
chords, giying the listener a sense of "musical importance" to
snatches of the arrangement. The single-note staccato coupled
up with agogic accents (double-punches in the Lutter formula)
for the melody line further direct the ear to specific points in
the music. This Lutter technique of mathematical elongation is
what led the writer to develop the Interpretive Arranging
method, only his striking has been further refined down to a
1/4 perforation overlap (approximately a 128th note) in order
to control the staccato. Still, with the Welte "floating crescendo" added to the mix, this Gershwin holds up very well to
contemporary ears. (If you don't believe this author, play one
of the Duo-Art Gershwin rolls - such an #713122 KICKIN'
THE CLOUDS AWAY arranged by Frank Milne and sold as
"played by Gershwin" - or the atrocious CLAP YO' HANDS,
"?
·01
Ampico #208211 "played by Frank Black", the latter as far
away from a Gershwin production number as one could ever
imagine!) Good Gershwin ... excellent arranging ... creative
manipulation of an OLD German expression system ... and
effective automatic sustaining pedal. As the Composer's
""-. brother wrote in a slightly later song lyric: "Who could ask for
rI anything more?"
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tern running. There is an "air-space" between all the notes in
this arrangement, designed to simulate the touch of the
Composer: Wally Rose - a living legend in the Ragtime field."
There is none of the slushy, liquid playing in VIGNETTE that
one experiences with, say, an old Ampico roll #55273
SPARKLETS or Duo-Art #69256 THE ROBIN'S RETURN.
With VIGNETTE the piano vacillates from variable staccato
(with pedal suggestions in the cutting) to more languid chords
(which in turn do not overlap, but have calculated slight
"breaks" between them to imitate the movement of the fingers
from one key to another). These and other improvements to
the arranging process are why the Interpretive rolls of today
dominate so many stage performances, Pianola concerts, films
and broadcasting - especially in Europe. IZ The Pianolist using
an Interpretive Arrangement can ignore the pedal score ... add
more manual sustaining pedal (with the automatic feature in
operation) ... or use the arranged pedal as provided, and the
roll cooperates with each individual musical demand. (Once
more: additional thanks to Mr. Lutter!) VIGNETTE is shown
as an annotated 88-Note roll, but the dynamic markings echo
the tandem Duo-Art release, featuring the same note-score and
pedal.
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VIGNETTE
A Piano Novelty -Wally
ARTCRAFT Interpretive Arrangement: Introduction
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The Introduction of VIGNETTE shows how the "sostenuto" serves the Pianolist in a modern Interpretive Arrangement.
Look at the opening notes, prior to the 3 printed accent marks;
examine the varying length of the staccato notes, for there are
approximately 5 types - all striking in mathematically-phrased
rhythm. (On the earlier LUSTSPIEL OVERTURE or LILY
OF THE VALLEY rolls, these would be connected 3 or 4
punch chains ... and very, very tiring to hear after a few seconds' time!) The arrangement lli. the sustaining score, for this
is a Pianola simulation of the "tap" a virtuoso pianist uses on
. the pedal as he or she strikes the keys rapidly. Pedal for tonality is in the arrangement, so the music roll could actually be
played with no real pedal at all, and for many people it would
be an acceptable performance. Moreover, the pedal is infrequent (when compared to most old music rolls) and one can
add more pedal - if desired - while leaving the automatic sys-
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M.F.
Emphasize the TREBLE Melody.
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FIGURE 7
99
VIGNETTE by" ARTCRAFT: A-Theme, following the
Introduction
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the way!) At 6 punches per beat, the 'Jazz' rhythm is (in true
time, though not perforated by ARTCRAFT in the notationscore lengths) 4 1/2 punches + I 1/2 punches = 6, viz. one
beat. The FAKE- 'jazz' rhythm ("tied-triplet") gets boring if
used too frequently - which is why it's ideal for background ~
music - and it corresponds to 4 + 2 punches = 6, viz. one beat. "r
At the slow paper travel speeds of player design 13 the arranger
has to deal with I 1/2 punches vs. 2 punches and similar fractional ratios. You can see WHY the commercial factories of
the past avoided snappy arrangements and gave James P.
Johnson (and others) "tied-triplet" rhythm - - which probably
helped the sales of Orthophonic Victrolas and Atwater-Kent
radios in the process! The pedal, to recapitulate, is minimal on
all 3 VIGNETTE examples and much of the sustaining effect
is in the striking.
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FIGURE 8
Can you spot the "differences" (beyond the pedal scores
and the bass notes for the accompaniment) in the treble
melody for the A-Theme, the first portion of this scintillating
Wally Rose composition? (If you cannot "read" the arrangement and do not know the piece, think of DOLL DANCE,
FLAPPERETTE or NOLA to get an idea of the musical aura
... which, unlike the old novelty solos of this kind, do not feature a Roy Bargy or Zez Confrey "bombastic" Trio for a contrast. as does the Pianola arrangement with variations of
VIGNETTE. Wally Rose wrote VIGNETTE in 1989 in the
style of a 'Twenties Novelette; it's a new composition!) Look
closely and you'll see a minute difference between the
rhythms in the treble lines. The first is the true dotted-8th and
16th (the 'jazz' beat), much like the ARTCRAFT versions of
PIANOLA RAG or MOXIE ONE-STEP. The second, represented by figure 8, is the typical "tied-triplet" rhythm (with
Interpretive Arranging "air space") a FAKE- 'jazz' beat on
many old commercial rolls. Today, most of the live "tiedtriplet" playing is used by Hotel Lobby pianists and those who
furnish dinner music piano solos. in restaurants. (VIGNETTE
returns to the true dotted-8th and 16th beat for the finals, by
100
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VIGNETTE by ARTCRAFT: A-Theme reprise, following the
B-Theme
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CHESTER THE CAT One-Step (1991) -Ian WhitcombARTCRAFT Interpretive Arrangement: B-Theme, Cat-andDog confrontation
Before we discuss the musical structure, the answer is ~
"Yes!" -.all Duo-Art and 88-Note versions of this imaginativer
Composition feature running commentary plus printed
"Woof-Woof' and "Meow" sounds. {You can see these integrated into the perforated roll, modulating along with the
chromatics, the 'cat' having the treble and the 'dog' located in
the bass register of the piano score.) Ian Whitcomb sent the
author not only his score, plus a polished one by Robin Frost,
but also a synthesizer recording featuring his vocal commentary and sound effects.The combination of these sources led to
I CHESTER THE CAT as a music roll, a captivating piece that
draws from history with numbers such as TEDDY BEARS'
PICNIC and WHISTLER AND HIS DOG ... but CHESTER
includes (in the writer's opinion) a superior melody line plus
effects possibly only with a Pianola action. Note the short use
of the sustaining pedal, largely AFTER the chords have been
struck in the chromatic series ... and this is something that
would be difficult to accomplish with the manual use of the
pedal lever. A similar - but not illustrated - specialty of the
Pianola using Interpretive Arrangements is the lifting of the
dampers prior to a LARGE chord, and then releasing them
immediately after the chord is struck; this technique was used
with the "train crash" for CRUSH COLLISION MARCH,
described in the previous article. Lifting the damper felts,
especially on a grand piano, gives more power for a major
crash accent. A third use of the pedal - also not illustrated in
this article - is for "ambience", notably in pipe organ transcriptions for piano; FANFARE FOR ORGAN by Lemmens
for Duo-Art, by ARTCRAFf, is a good example of this perforating style. All these out-of-synch short pedal-insertions are
best executed by the music roll or by visually following the
score as perforated. Again, note the variety of short staccato
notes in the arrangement. Howard Lutter, the unsung genius of
American Welte (Licensee, that is!) set the standards for the
Interpretive Arrangements of the present. He alone - within
the player industry - seemed to see the "reproducing" Pianola
as AN ARRANGED MUSIC MEDIUM and succeeded in
controlling the pedal, striking and expression (within the limits of his time) with the initial perforations. The others in his
era merely thought in sheet music terms, and so do the failed
attempts of using a computer to "record" artists today since
they "sequence" the performance (already laden with irregularities) in sheet music increments. CHESTER THE CAT as a
music roll performance could only have been created through
an overllJp arranged-perforating process. We hope you will
take the time to compare the visual differences (which translate into performance latitudes for the Pianolist) between the
Interpretive Arrangements and Mr. Lutter's Gershwin roll ...
and again between these and the earlier examples, mostly
masquerading as "hand-played" but really being arrangements
in their own right, and hopelesssly locked into notation standards in the perforating. Until a gear-shifting system (or the
like) is developed as a retrofit for old Pianolas, VIGNETIE
and CHESTER THE CAT represent the apex of the arranger's
striking control. Lacking the Tempo 150-200 speeds,
Interpretive Arrangements like CHESTER THE CAT illus, trate the need for 1/4 Perforation overlap standards in the perI forating process. Musicians can hear the difference!
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FIGURE 10
British PIANOLA PRACTICE ROLL by Reginald Reynolds
The final (2-part) illustration is for the WORST sustain
pedal score known to Man. Runners up in the "stinky-pedal"
award have to be Lee S. Roberts and Felix Arndt, representing
QRS Music Rolls and The Aeolian Company respectively, for
their BLUE DANUBE WALTZ for DANCING rolls.
However, it's The Orchestralle Co., Ltd. (viz. British Aeolian)
which gets the imaginary - and deserved - "THUMBS
DOWN" Statue, modeled to represent a giant pair of EarPlugs. "May we have the envelope please?" ... fanfare ....
drum roll ... The Winner: Cadenza from WALTZ OF THE
FLOWERS by Tchaikowsky, the Grainger sheet music presented by Mr. Reynolds. This PRACTICE ROLL is amazing,
since it was supplied to almost every Pianola and Duo-Art
owner in the British EmpireP4 (At least, here in the States,
some companies buried their ghastly pedal-jobs in the
Catalogue, attracting only a few unlucky customers from
time-to-time.) When radio and Vitaphone talking pictures
were thriving, British Aeolian made it a company policy to
distribute this roll along with a related pamphlet by Percy
Scholes to budding Pianolists. Beyond this example, Reynolds
& Co. inflict the music roll interpreter with his patented horizontal lines for musical measures in the attempt to get the
Pianolist to think in sheet music notation ~ instead of
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called at the time. Who knows?) There is much to be enjoyed
from the musical arrangements of the Past, as evidenced in the
Lutter "played by Perralla" roll of a Gershwin selection.
Similarly, there is much. to be avoided, especially in the
Sustaining Pedal department. This PRACTICE ROLL is a .f
prime example of that!
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In closing, let me suggest that you engage in as much
OUTSIDE LISTENING as possible, since this activity will
assist you with all aspects of your personal development in
Pianola playing (or "reproducing" piano monitoring). The
Footnote that closes this, Part Three of the series, should be
looked upon as a "cultural source" and not a mere commercial. u During your study of The SUSTAINING Pedal give
extra attention to the pianists you most enjoy hearing on
recordings. The chances are high that if you repeat the same
Cassette over and over, you not only enjoy the technique and
dynamics of a particular pianist, but that the pedal shading is
also a major portion of their endearing qualities as a keyboard
artist. The more you know about music, the greater the freedom (and wisdom) in your creating music roll interpretations
that are recognizably your own!
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FIGURE II
Pianola perforated PERFORMANCE! One 'scans the roll' as
mentioned earlier in this series, separating the Theme and
Accompaniment as the perforations approach the tracker bar.
There is nothing to be gained from segmenting the arrangement into moving horizontal lines! The idea of equating the
music roll to sheet music is carried to its fullest in the
Cadenza shown in Figures to and 11. These are connected
notes, such as an organist would play. (Even the jerky "played
by Grainger" Duo-Art roll #6085 has staccato for this passage!) As the 2 illustrations show, the pedal is held down
NONSTOP for a World's Record ... and the Reynolds text
even tells the Pianolist to "note the effect!" The Cadenza is
sustained in the cutting and addition of a pneumatic sustaining
pedal makes for a musical experience reminiscent (in the
writer's opinion) of Schoenberg, Cage or Ravel on a bad day.
No wonder British Aeolian ran into financial difficulties long
before its domestic counterpart. Adherence to strict sheet
music transfer (dumped in the States about 1920 when
Universal became Mel-O-Dee rolls) and the erratic 1923-1934
"hand-played" rolls (most cut in a 5-year period, ending in
1928) could have been two major contributing factors to economic troubles with the overseas operation. (Perhaps the Felix
Arndt era "dial-twisting" machinery for off-rhythm handrecorded rolls was crated up and shipped to Great Britain, following Aeolian's return to arranging procedures during the
Creary Woods' conversion to "The New System" as it was
102
FOOTNOTES
I. See How To Play The Electric Duo-Art, a pamphlet
published originally by The Aeolian Company of New York reprinted by AMR Publishing Co., PO Box 3007, Arlington
WA 98223.
i
2. Never use the offensive term "LOUD PEDAL"! Many
player action manufacturers, of course, even printed this
incorrect term on components of their instruments. Example:
A Hardman AUTOTONE upright often has "SOFT" over the
2 buttons for the hammer-rail lift and "LOUD" over the sustaining pedal button. Lifting the dampers does not increase the
dynamics of the piano; it sustains the struck keys plus introduces additional, often generalized, harmonies of sympathetic
strings to the mixture.
3. Never mind the fact that pneumatics have different
dynamic striking "curves" from the human finger ... or that
solenoids (as in the Disklavier electronic player) usually have
problems with crisp staccato and rapid accent shifts. The striking "fingers" of both pneumatic stacks and solenoid banks rest
on the keys, as it were. This makes many effects of human
playing impossible, unless one arranges-in additional notes or
utilizes repetition effects characteristic of the player medium.
A virtuoso pianist who "crashes" in the midst of softer passages cannot be duplicated by AN.Y player action, simply
because the dropping hand-and-fingers give an extra "punch"
to the striking operation. There goes the (claimed) "authenticity" of exciting pianists during the so-called Golden Age, at
least in the music roll field: Horowitz, Rubinstein, Lhevinne,
Levitski, Bauer and the rest. If one cuts for the "concept" of
the artist -much as an organist does when playing vocal or 1piano solos - the music will be transmitted. As said many '"
times in this series of articles, the terms "legacy" and "reproducing" were piano-sales marketing ploys!
4. Two good examples, wherein a gentle melody line is
played as a continuously-linked (legato) melody - much like a
voice or violin - are: the Second Movement of Beethoven's
PATHETIQUE SONATA, Adagio Cantabile or Chopin's
ETUDE in E-MAJOR, Op. 10, No.3 "No Other Love".
Considering that the piano is a percussion instrument, the idea
of playing in a connected, lyric fashion is a challenge for
ANY keyboard pianist ... and one of equally-great difficulty
for the manually-controlled Pianola. During the last 40 years
the author has heard only .!IliID.YID. interpretations of "reproducing" rolls which can elicit TRUE legato playing, since - again
- the music roll arranger never knows the size, make, condition and tonal qualities of a specific piano ... and one roll cannot be arranged for all. The writer, in his youth, used to handplay the Adagio Cantabile of the PATHETIQUE SONATA
and let his Stroud Duo-Art upright take over the First and
Third Movements for this reason!
5. Part 2 of the ARTCRAFT roll of GOING TO PIECES
One-Step (1915) is a simulation of an imaginary rotten
pianist, a contrast to Part I which is a complete Pianola
arrangement with virtuoso piano effects and variations galore.
Almost every bad characteristic of sloppy piano playing is
demonstrated on Part 2 of GOING TO PIECES, available in
88-Note and Duo-Art editions. If you study the repulsive sustaining pedal passages on this roll, especially the portions
which involve the pedal being used on chromatic progression
it will give you an audio-visual experience of what-to-avoid in
music roll interpretation. Part 2 is a collage of several examples of terrible piano playing (of other selections) in the
author's recorded music collection, tapes sent to him by roll
customers who took candid Cassette recorders to live concerts.
6. Aeolian had at least 2 shapes and placements of the
Sustaining Pedal holes on the tracker bar and 2 positions for
the pedal perforations on music rolls as well! Beyond dimensions changing on the bar, the valve systems and linkages
vary, so even a "single perforation" on the roll can have quite
different effects on, say, the ARTCRAFT Studio's electric AR
and pedal 0 Steinway grands. At a recent concert, the writer
was playing his travelling Pianola, the Story & Clark REPROTONE described in the first article, and all-of-a-sudden a
Duo-Art roll seemed to have a blurred pedal score. Believing
it to be a problem with the pneumatic system, he switched
over to the manual lever control and the audience was none
the wiser. Later, upon close examination of the 2 or 3 rolls
which featured the problem, he discovered that Story & Clark
had cut the Sustaining Pedal hole a few microns too large, so
that a' virtuoso arrangement with continuous stretches of
Themodist "solo system" holes in the bass would trigger the
pedal pneumatic. Considering that the REPROTONE was
supposed to handle Duo-Art, Artrio-Angelus and Themodiststyle 88-Note rolls (still widely being made in Great Britain
and Continental Europe at the time, where Story & Clark had
salesrooms), this can be chalked up to faulty design. However,
"
if one examines the typical Duo-Art roll of the 1927-1929 era
..,/ (popular or classical) how many rolls have 1 to I 1/2 inches of
16th-note (equivalent) bass solos in them? The perfect
Pianola has yet to be invented, in the writer's opinion ... but
except for the tracker bar hole for the pedal (and tempo/trans-
mission lever control rods) the REPROTONE comes close to
the goal! Solution: turn off the automatic pedal on the
REPROTONE with certain virtuoso Duo-Art rolls and operate
the manual lever instead.
7. See page 4 of the 1990 (current) ARTCRAFf Music
Roll Catalogue for additional information about the pneumatic
pedal operation as a music roll feature.
8. See Footnote #5 in the second article: JUST IN TIME THE TEMPO LEVER for a discussion of paper-travel speed
options. Generally speaking, the slower the roll travels, the
less expression on a "reproducing" roll, the less delicate the
pedal shadings and the more unlike the supposed pianist the
roll will sound. Why didn't the industry have an "overdrive
gear" for virtuoso roll performances? A short, exciting roll
should have been preferable to a lengthy, belabored arrangement.
9. See the advertisement that adorned the cover of The
AMICA News Bulletin, Vol. 27, No.2 (March-April 1990).
This issue featured an attractive and "arty" promotion for the
Sohmer Reproducing Grand. The text didn't specify if the
customer were to have a Welte-Mignon Licensee "floating
crescendo" expression player installed ... or the 'Recordo' 5step intensity system using (primarily) QRS-made expression
rolls. By the late 'Twenties, one advertisement fit all! The two
paragraphs of text do not discuss the tone qualities or design
attributes of the Sohmer piano. Rather, a list of the musical
styles is given and the rest of the promotion is devoted to the
furniture value and the period cases availabe.
Taking the "background music" route was a foolish
industry decision, in the opinion of the writer. The late
'Twenties' and early 'Thirties' would have been the ideal time
to move into Tempo 150-200 spoolboxes and hire Howard
Lutter (type) arrangers who knew how to make the MOST of
the player roll medium. Considering what Kern, Berlin,
Gershwin and Porter were writing in those years (plus Bloom
and Grofe) there was no reason for the player action manufacturers to evaporate without making major changes in elevating
the "performance latitudes" of their instruments. Seeing some
of the Blue Chip giants of today withering with similar attitudes only proves to this person that history does indeed
repeat itself!
10. We trust you can now identify the 4 styles of music
rolls (boring) sheet music transfers, (jerky) genuine "handplayed" rolls, (pleasant) simulated (i.e. arranged) "handplayed" rolls and Interpretive Arrangements. See the first article, PIANOLA PIZAZZ, for more information about these 4
methods of perforating a roll. You should be able to 'identify'
the system used to cut each roll in order to formulate an
approach to use in interpreting the arrangement. ARTCRAFT
also offers a Cassette which demonstrates the 4 styles for
those who wish to hear the differences as well.
II. Anybody who discovered the music of Scott Joplin
and Classical Ragtime in the 'Forties and 'Fifties knows the
name of Wally Rose. Long associated with Lu Watters' Yerba
Buena Jazz Band, he has made many recordings and has performed world-wide. At the 1990 Sedalia, Missouri "Joplin
103
Festiva I" during which he premiered VIGNETTE on the
stage while the rolls were simultaneously marketed in the
Theatre Lobby, he chatted about his long career - still in
progress today.
''I'm very big in Footnotes," Wally remarked, and so he
is! - including this article.
12. Recent films that featured ARTCRAFT Interpretive
Arrangements on the soundtracks include a documentary on
Swedish Television by Anders Wahlgren, about the life of
Fernand Leger who collaborated with George Antheil and
Dudley Murphy on BALLET MECANIOUE: the reconstructed ARTCRAFT rolls were used as a musical score for part of
the film about the cubistic artist. A Franco-Russian motion
picture entitled KLABOUAK, about cinematographer Robart
Flaherty filming NANOOK OF THE NORTH (with Russia
faking the Yukon of the 'Twenties!), featured PREACHER
AND THE BEAR by ARTCRAFT along with sundry
Ragtime rolls, all Interpretive Arrangements. For the movie, a
French production company bought a player in Paris and
shipped it to Russia to use in a trading-post scene. Recently,
the Democratic Party of Maine used the Duo-Art roll of FANFARE FOR ORGAN on a 1931 Stroud grand belonging to
Roger Baffer, who edited the videotape for the cable systems
in the State. After listening to Mr. Baffer's large library of
commercial rolls and Interpretive Arrangements (88-Note and
"reproducing"), the audio crew selected 2 titles and finally
chose the Lemmens' FANFARE. Perhaps the most unusual
presentation of ARTCRAFT arrangements of recent times was
Douglas Heffer's "CINE MEMOIRE" series at The Louvre
which involved both old and contemporary Duo-Art rolls
alternating with Vitaphone shorts of symphonic and operatic
music, rolls and films linked by title and/or composer.
Impossible as it might seem in "our" Space Age, the music
roll is alive and well, especially on motion picture soundtracks!
13. See the second article for a thumbnail sketch of spoolbox transport variables.
14. See the second article, Footnote #5. Training anyone
to master a Player-Piano by presenting Chopin's PRELUDE
Op. 28, No. 20 at Tempo 30 seems to be the zenith of absurdity. (The entire roll #T82592 with Two Preludes is offered by
the PRACTICE ROLL, for those who want "more"!)
Question: How many rolls in your collection are supposed to
be played at Tempo 3D? Second question: Does your wind
motor pull evenlv at that speed? Class dismissed!
15. OUTSIDE LISTENING suggestions, beyond the
French, Ikemiya and Jenks recommendations in the Footnotes
of the first and second articles, are the following:
David T. Roberts (Composer of ROBERTO
CLEMENTE, see ARTCRAFT Catalogue) NEW ORLEANS
STREETS, Suite for Piano, played by the Composer
Write: Pinelands Press
104
PO Box 5243
Kreole Station, Moss Point, MS 39562
A staggerinq performance from start-to-finish, possibly
the most important piano composition of this decade.
Morten G. Larsen (Oslo, Norway) on Stomp-Off Records .
Write: Bob Erdos
549 Fairview Terrace
York, PA 17403
r
Arthur Lima, piano
Pro-Arte #CDD312 "Brazilian Dances"
Scott Kirbv, piano
The 3-Volume Scott Joplin Set by Greener Pastures
Records. Here's an all-Joplin recording that should
replace any and all of the 3 earlier Sets previously
published. One was homogenized and boring ... one
was crass and insensitive ... and the other was blurry
and full-of-echo. (You know which one of these former Sets you have!) Kirby's music merits repeat
playing.
Ian Whitcomb
This talented and creative individual probably needs no
introduction or definition (which is just about impossible
anyway)! Max Morath put it best, in a recent letter written
to the author: "Ian has a good ear for history and trends and his recent compositions show a lot of maturity in
them." At this writing, many ARTCRAFT rolls have been .."
assembled while listening to his latest Cassette: SPREAD -I
A LITTLE HAPPINESS - esp. the cut with EVERY
NOW AND THEN that surpasses the original 1929 performance in Von Stroheim's film "The Great Gabbo",
Interested?
Write: ITW Industries, Inc.
PO Box 451
Altadena, CA 91003
A list of additional Cassettes recommended for OUTSIDE LISTENING can be found on page 6 of the 1991
Supplement to the ARTCRAFT Catalogue.
~~
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NOTE: Before reading the following article, readers are directed to note four important date corrections in a previous article
entitled "Reproducing Piano Systems: Their Evolution and Compatibility" which appeared in the September/October 1992
issue of the BULLETIN. Because of confusion created by the recent change of publishers, the corrected dates did not appear in
the article as originally published. The corrections are underlined for clarity.
The corrections all occur on page 38 and are as follows:
I. Left-hand column, paragraph 3, first line should read:
From 1914 through 1919 Ampicos read the same
2. Left-hand column, paragraph 4, first line should read:
Early Ampicos from the period 1914- 1919
3. Left-hand column, paragraph 4, line five should read:
coded accordinaly, Extremely early (1912-1913) - the true Stoddard
4. Right-hand column, second complete paragraph, first line should read:
Phase #1 - Early Ampico, circa 1914 through 1919.
FIDELITY AND THE AMPICO*
by
Nelson Barden
Jeffrey Morgan
Richard Howe
The musical validity of the reproducing piano has been a
subject of controversy since the preliminary efforts of Welte
at the turn of the century. It has always been difficult for
pianists, critics or the public to accept the idea that a machine
could "make music." Despite extensive advertising campaigns
and rapid improvements in the fidelity of performance, these
pianos have been considered sophisticated toys, divorced from
Art by virtue of their mechanical nature.
Inasmuch as Art is a function of human elements and
direction, a machine of itself cannot create Art. Mechanical
means are nonetheless involved in the realization of most art
forms, and in piano playing the performer's body is literally a
machine operating another machine. It is at least theoretically
possible to substitute a completely mechanical device for the
performer machine so that his key and pedal movements are
precisely duplicated. Although the artist will not be present at
the keyboard, the sounds of his performance will be re-created.
In the case of the reproducing piano, such as the Ampico,
Duo-Art and Welte-Mignon, we must establish not only the
machine's potential for fidelity, but also the extent to which
that potential was realized. It is toward both these ends that
the writers, dissatisfied with a patchwork of rumor, started
gathering firsthand information (in 1969). Much of the preliminary information was gleaned from personal interviews by
Nelson Barden with Adam Carroll, Dr. Clarence Hickman,
Julius Chaloff, Emse Dawson and Angelo Valerie. (Note: All
but the Chaloff interviews are contained in "The Ampico
Reproducing Piano", edited by Richard Howe.)
*Publisher's Note: This excellent article on the Ampico
was originally written by Nelson Barden approximately 24
years ago. It has appeared twice in the AMICA Bulletin, once
in the November, 1969, issue and again in the March, 1976
issue. This version has been extensively edited and updated
by Jeffrey Morgan and Richard Howe, with permission from
Barden, to reflect new information which has become available during the past 20 years. Barden is currently president of
Nelson Barden Associates, restorers in residence at Boston
University.
Theory of operation
Reproducing pianos are operated by means of a partial
vacuum, usually created by an electrical pump. The roll passes over a tracker bar having a hole for each note and expression track on the roll. Suction is sustained in the holes until a
perforation in the paper roll admits atmospheric pressure
which causes valves to admit suction to a pneumatic. The
pneumatic is shaped like a partially open book with the space
between the covers wrapped in a flexible, airtight cloth. When
suction is applied the covers snap together and the movement
is transmitted to the key of the piano. The set of pneumatics,
one for each key to be played (83 in the case of Ampico),
make up the stack, which in a reproducing piano is divided in
two (bass and treble) near the center so that varying suction
may be fed to each side without affecting the other. A higher
degree of suction will close the pneumatics with greater
power, and result in louder playing.
Expression tracks (coding) on the margins of the roll control not only the suction level on either side of the stack, but
also operate the dampers, the hammer-rail and/or the key-shift
105
of the piano action and the various expression mechanisms. A
recorder was necessary to create the rolls, as mechanically
arranged rolls are generally unrealistic. A note recorder made
pencil marks on a moving roll while the pianist played, and
expression tracks were usually added later to create the
dynamics (loudness of each note) until the playing seemed
realistic. On Ampico rolls the dynamics were referred to as
intensities.
The method of dynamic control employed by Ampico
throughout its history entailed a unique combination of fixed
steps (intensity stages) and smooth progression (crescendos)
of volume; a sort of combined digital and analog system, to
state it in contemporary technical terms. The stages could be
locked on or canceled at will, and the crescendos could be
raised or lowered at either of two available speeds. Generally,
the intensity stages were used for accents and rapid changes in
volume; the crescendos employed for overall and gradual
adjustments of volume. This unique combination of dynamic
control was deemed so important by American Piano
Company that a U.S. patent application was filed on April 27,
1920. Indeed, U.S. Patent No. 1,409,481 was finally issued to
Charles F. Stoddard on March 14, 1922 and specifically covers the concept of such a combined system of dynamic control.
Initial development of the Ampico was done by Stoddard
during the latter part of the first and very early part of the second decades of the twentieth century. The early pianos and
rolls were known as Stoddard-Ampicos. This term has become
generic and, hence, ambiguous! It has been used by contemporary collectors and historians to incorrectly denote any premodel A Ampico. Actually, a true Stoddard Ampico is a pretype 2A Ampico! (See "The Evolution of the Ampico" by
Howe and Morgan, The AMICA News Bulletin,
NovemberlDecember 1991.) This would include Ampicos produced from 1912 through 1913. The transition, which
occurred sometime during 2A production, entailed the addition of an amplification system. Ampicos produced circa 1914
through 1919 would more accurately be labeled early
Ampicos. By 1920 Stoddard's work led to the development of
the mechanism now referred to by collectors as the Model A
Ampico. Dr. Clarence N. Hickman, a physicist, who joined the
AMerican Plano COmpany in 1924, redesigned the Model A
with Stoddard. The result was the Model B, introduced in
early 1929. (Note: The 1929 Ampico Service Manual is dated
May 1, 1929). Dr. Hickman also constructed the first and only
recorder for the dynamics. This recorder came into use in
1926.
Ampico Popular Rolls
Ampico popular and classical rolls were not made by the
same process. For the popular rolls, the dynamics were not
recorded, even after the advent of the Hickman dynamic
recorder in 1926. A basic music arrangement was hand-played
into the note recorder which generated a very accurate pencil
line recording. On this roll, wrong notes were erased and additional notes and figurations penciled in as necessary, a process
106
known as "correcting." Further corrections and additions
might be later hand-cut into trial copies of the perforated rolls.
Until at least 1932 all rolls were hand-played, though frequently under pseudonyms, or "noms de piano." This practice,
universal among piano roll companies, was designed to fatten '"
the artist roster. Particular pseudonyms were assigned a definite style of playing in order to preserve their tenuous identity
and to save the real artist's reputation for a higher class of
music.
Selections of Ampico titles and artists (or pseudonyms)
was a function of J. Milton Delcamp. Delcamp joined
American late in Inl as General Manager of the Recording
Department at Ampico, a position he held until 1928. Delcamp
previously had a similar position with Republic Player Roll
Corporation, a subsidiary of the Auto Pneumatic Action
Company which was part of Kohler Industries. Republic
stopped producing rolls at about the same time as Delcamp
moved to American.
Adam Carroll, who was responsible for a large percentage
of the popular Ampico rolls, also worked at Republic. He followed Delcamp to American in 1922, about nine months later.
At Ampico, Carroll also recorded under the pseudonyms
Victor Lane, Harry Shipman and Corrine Debert, though the
latter was usually Edgar Fairchild. Mr. Fairchild, Editor-inChief of the Recording Department until 1925, also used his
original name, Milton Suskind, and others.
Recordings by the real artist and one of his pseudonyms
(such as Carroll & Lane) were in this case played by Adam
Carroll and Edgar Fairchild, though occasionally Delcamp or
Victor Arden took the second part. Recordings by two pseudonyms (such as Shipman & Lane) were accomplished in the
same fashion. Four-hand arrangements requiring only occasional figuration in one part might be recorded by only one
artist and the rest penciled onto the note roll or cut into the
trial roll.
f
<'!
Edgar Fairchild did much of the dynamic coding ("editing") for Adam Carroll's recordings, and all of it for Fairchild
& Carroll rolls. He was also responsible for the editing of
much of the better classical work of the period, including all
the Chaloff and pre-1925 Rachmaninoff recordings.
According to Adam Carroll, other editors were: Emse
Dawson, Marguerite Volavy, Mortimer Browning, Arnold
Lackman, Egon Putz and Angelo Valerio.
After the pencil roll had been corrected it was hand-perforated at the start and end of every note and dynamic marking.
This roll was then read by vacuum in the ordinary manner on
the automatic stencil machine, which was designed by Charles
F. Stoddard. It was an enormously complicated device, with
about 700 valves for the tracker bar reading alone. (Note:
Clarence Hickman later redesigned the device, using only
about 500 valves.) This machine generated the typical slotand-dot note perforation from the hand punched roll. It not
only created several trial rolls for playing and editing, but the;
master stencils and duplicate master stencils as well. These -'
were cut at triple spacing so that while the trial roll showed a
slot, the Master had spaced, single perforations. These master
stencils were also read by vacuum on the production perfora-
tors first located at Rythmodik Music Corporation in Bellville,
New Jersey; later (circa 1922-1930) at Amphion Piano Player
Company (Ampico's pneumatic component manufacturing
division) in Syracuse, New York; and, final1y, at the main
~ American Piano Company plant in East Rochester, New York,
l) where they remained until the early 1950's. These high speed
production perforators produced the familiar Ampico rolls
sold to the public.
i
li
-I
Within limits, the playing rhythm was relatively unimportant on the original note roll. By an extremely ingenious combination of a floating tracker bar and an infinite gradation
drive, the Stencil Machine automatically corrected faulty
rhythm so the rolls could be used for dancing. The floating
tracker bar was not used for ballad rolls, which had to be perforated as played in order to have "soul." It was also not used
for the classical rolls.
Starting in 1931 many Ampico popular rolls were produced by the Duo-Art artist Frank Milne (mispronounced
Mill-Knee by so many that he finally gave up and accepted
this pronunciation himself) who was a highly skilled pianist
and arranger. He was the sole editor after 1932, and after 1935
or 1936, recorded and/or edited the entire Ampico output until
production ceased in June of 1941. He used his own name as
well as a wide variety of pseudonyms singly and in combination: Robert Farquhar (Farquhar was the first name of Mrs.
Milne's father), Bob Edgeworth (Edgeworth was Mrs. Milne's
uncle) Noel Sherry, the Sherry Brothers, Jeremy Lawrence,
Ralph Addison (the name of a friend from Newark, NJ), and
Ernest Leith (the name of another friend). Milne's rolls constitute some of the most sophisticated arrangements and nimble
dynamic coding of the Ampico popular library.
Profits for both the American Piano Company and the
Aeolian Company, (producer of the Duo-Art and longtime
competitor), were falling long before the Stock Market Crash
of 1929. To avoid a disastrous bankruptcy, Ampico was reorganized in May of 1930 to become the American Piano
Corporation, and merger negotiations were instituted with
Aeolian, eventually resulting in the Aeolian American
Corporation in 1932.
The Ampico Classical Rolls
Before 1926 the classical rolls were also recorded only on
the note recorder without dynamics. The process of editing
was not only to improve the playing as much as possible, but
to slowly build up realistic intensities from notations made on
the music during the recording session. Aside from removing
wrong notes and making minor corrections on the pencil roll,
all editing was done on a trial roll cut by the stencil machine,
and played on an Ampico.
Dynamic coding was hand punched onto the blank trial
roll, first the intensity stages then the crescendo coding, until
the playing became musical and realistic. Note perforations
were lengthened by hand punching or shortened by taping
over as necessary, and from this roll the stencil machine made
corrected trial rolls for further editing. Eventually a completed
roll was played for the artist who, though encouraged leave
rough sections as examples of his individuality, might make
further corrections. Eventually, a master stencil was corrected
to match the artist-approved trial roll and used operate the production perforators.
The Note Extensions
A unique and controversial feature of Ampico rolls was
added during the editing. These were the note extensions,
which were covered by patents granted to Stoddard in 191112. The technique was originally designed to improve the
playing of mechanically arranged rolls, and consisted of over
cutting (lengthening) the melodic notes, causing them to sustain through succeeding harmonies. A "singing" melodic line
was created, and the technique was so successful that it was
immediately extended to chords as well. On the Ampico rolls
this meant that perforations were arbitrarily lengthened past
the end of the note(s) as played by the artist. Chords and
arpeggios were usually extended coincidental with damper
pedaling.
For a company to purport they reproduced the artist's
playing and yet to deliberately change the recording, was
indeed peculiar. As late as his 1927 Tuners' Convention talk,
Stoddard argued the practice at some length. He used the standard Ampico thesis that the extensions only duplicate the
artist's half-pedaling-the quick and usually incomplete damping of the piano strings to control the amount of blurring
between chords.
This effect is not easily obtainable by the damping of the
Ampico mechanism, which is either on oroff. Another way to
approximate this effect is through the use of selected note
extensions. These are also referred to in the article title
"Recording the Soul of Piano Playing", which appeared in the
November, 1927 issue of Scientific American, as "tone coloring extensions."
Though an important pianistic technique, half-pedaled
effects are not easy for the performer to control. It seems
unlikely that even a very accomplished pianist would halfpedal as much of a melodic line as indicated by note extensions on the rolls. Considering the constant extensions of single notes as well as chords, Stoddard's argument may have
constituted an inadequate and unsophisticated justification.
Nevertheless, based upon interviews with and recol1ections of
great keyboard artists of the period, it would appear that the
use of half-pedaling as a means of sustaining harmonic continuity without blurring melodic structure ·was much more
accepted during the early part of this century than it is today.
We must be careful not to fall into the trap of basing aesthetic
judgments of historic practices solely upon the fashionable
opinions of contemporary musicologists and performers.
Since a preponderance of the chord extensions duplicate
the damper pedal action, an 88-note piano would be certain to
sustain these notes whether the damper pneumatic worked
from the roll or not. Ampico rolls cut without expression do
occur as 88-note rolls, and on these pianos the extensions do
107
produce a smoother sound. Dr. Hickman, Mr. Stoddard's
assistant, was anxious at the time to get rid of the technique,
but was overruled by Stoddard for this reason only.
From a mechanical point of view the extensions were
undesirable. The note sheet was weakened, and it was a waste
of suction to bleed so many pouches at the same time. Worse
yet, a reproducing piano holding down 10 or 15 notes at the
same time obviously exceeded the capabilities of a single
pianist, and made questionable the fidelity of the performance.
Actually there were two reasons for the Ampico roll
extensions. The first was that the artists themselves felt the
sound was somehow preferable if the sustaining was done by
holding the keys down instead of only using the damper pedal.
According to Julius Chaloff, Dr. Hickman thought differently,
and won numerous bets using a roll he had perforated with
selections played both ways.
More important was that at least the melodic extensions
do make the playing smoother and allow more latitude in editing. Almost all Ampicos were installed in pianos, 6' II" or
less in length which, because of the size, could be rather shorttoned. By means of arbitrary melodic extensions a small piano
could be made to "sing" with some of the elegance of the 9'
concert grand normally used by the artist. Considering the disadvantages of the chord extensions, it is not surprising they
were largely discontinued in the late 1920's and that A to B
roll conversions show a great reduction. But melodic extensions were always used, even in the Jumbo rolls and by Frank
Milne until he left the company in June of 1941.
The musical justification (if any) was that the editors
could capture on a small piano the half-pedaling as well as the
superb legato effects of such artists as Josef Lhevinne.
Comparison of Lhevinne's seemingly choppy early Welte
Vorsetzer rolls to his graceful 78 rpm disc records and
Ampico recordings would seem to bear this out. For the playing of a "dry" pianist such as Rachmaninoff, this kind of editing was perhaps not as necessary. His accuracy of attack and
control of the piano was phenomenal. Julius Chaloff told
Nelson Barden that Rachmaninoff was the only Ampico artist
consistently able to trigger large chords so that each note
would record with the same dynamic level and at precisely the
same time. When Rachmaninoffs pencil-line record came off
the recorder, the notes of large chords lined up so perfectly
that "you could lay a ruler across them." Chaloff went onto
say that on "rainy Thursday afternoons" the editors themselves often attempted this feat, but "not one of us was ever
able to do it."
The moot point of the extensions was that of fidelity. The
editors could and did use the extensions to "warm up" the
playing of lesser artists. However, a comparison of such rolls
as the Julia Glass and Josef Lhevinne versions of "On Wings
of Song" indicates that the practice was perhaps not as prevalent or even as effective as might be thought.
Chaloff explained another editing process that was called
"setting back." One of the editing operations was to locate soft
notes surrounding loud notes, and to move the loud notes back
on the roll by one, two, or three squares. When the Hickman
dynamic recorder came into use, the setting back scale was
108
expanded to seven squares. Chaloff did not know why this
was done, except that it made the playing sound more natural.
(In his interview, which has now been published in "The
Ampico Reproducing Piano", Angelo Valerio explained this
process.) The actual reason involved the speed of closing of
the Ampico pneumatics on varying suction. Playing a loud
note on high suction caused the pneumatic to close quickly.
When playing soft notes on low suction, the pneumatic closed
more slowly, and the notes played later. The difference was
slight but perceptible: loud notes seemed to "jump the gun" on
the soft chords. In the art of musical accenting, it is well
known that "early is weak, late is strong," and the settirtg back
process compensated for the incorrect accenting. Setting back
altered the impact of the hammer on the string only by a fraction of a second, but it made the playing smoother and considerably more realistic.
.r
Dr. Hickman's dynamic recorder was first used in 1926.
All rolls made on it were intended for eventual use on the
Model B piano, and most were coded accordingly. However
the 1926-27 rolls hardly utilize the full capabilities of the
Model B. Possibly the coding was still thought of in terms of
the Model A, and for awhile Model A pianos were still used
by the editors. The only Model B initially available to them
was the Research Laboratory prototype, which was used predominately for the classical editing by Emse Dawson and
Marguerite Volavy.
Many rolls later issued as Jumbos or with Model B labels
were recorded between 1926 and 1928. Old Model A rolls
could also be re-coded for the new machine with comparative
ease by utilizing the old coding and the inherent musicianship /
of the editor. Since the recording piano did not have an
Ampico mechanism, it was not possible to re-record or over
dub, nor was it necessary to do so.
The recording piano itself was a medium sized grand, and
certainly an American Piano Company product. But the actual
make had been open to question, as every identifying mark
was removed. Major artists usually contracted to endorse and
play only one brand of instrument, thus potential legal difficulties were avoided. The fall board carried only the word
"Ampico." However, recent research by Jeffrey Morgan has
revealed that it was a Model 59 (5'9") Chickering.
Rolls made for the Model B piano were coded in such a
way as to also operate the Model A piano; in fact, both kinds
of rolls do reproduce on the other model, though somewhat
unrealistically. Both utilize similar intensity coding configurations, yet there are major differences in their expression systems.
Model A Expression System
On the Model A, for instance, slow crescendo is eleven
seconds and fast crescendo is two seconds. (Model A crescendo timing indicates how long the dual crescendo mechanisms
require to increase the suction available to their respective
bass and treble sides of the stack from minimum to two-thirds ..../
maximum suction or vice versa.) The Model A crescendo timing specification is determined with the "amplifier", which is
described next, inactive (disabled).
I
Additionally, the Model A is equipped with a variable
pump spill controlled by suction levels in either side of the
stack. This "amplifier' is engaged automatically as stack suction levels exceed a predetermined threshold. As stack suction
increases beyond this threshold, the pump spill is increasingly
closed resulting in a "bootstrap effect" on pump suction available to the expression systems. This Model A amplifier affects
pump suction from two-thirds maximum to full suction.
Crescendo timing becomes compressed to a certain extent as
this amplifier is engaged (resulting in a net crescendo timing
of approximately I second fast, 7 seconds slow). With the
amplifier active, the Model A crescendos have the ability to
affect their respective stack suction levels from minimum to
full suction. Under the same condition, the intensity stages of
the Model A (two-four-six bass and treble tracker bar holes)
can also affect their respective bass and treble stack suction
levels from minimum to maximum.
Stated another way, the crescendos and intensity stages
on the Model A are controlled by roll perforations; in terms of
supplying stack suction, each has the capability to totally
override the other. The Model A amplifier, moreover, is automatically engaged by suction levels in either side of the stack.
Model B Expression System
l
On the Model B, slow crescendo is much faster, being
four seconds, and fast crescendo is reduced to 1/2 second.
(Model B crescendo timing indicates how long the single
crescendo mechanism requires to increase pump suction available to both bass and treble intensity stages from one-half
maximum to full suction or vice versa.) The Model B crescendo timing specification is also determined with no amplifier
activity but should, in theory, be best compared with the net
crescendo timing of the Model A as opposed to the actual
Model A crescendo timing,specification (see previous section). This still results in a crescendo speed increase of almost
two-to-one in the Model B versus the Model A.
Full suction to both intensity stages can also be supplied
by a three stage lock on the pump spill (amplifier) which is
operated by an additional perforation on the bass margin of
the roll. The bass and treble intensity stages of the Model B
(operated by the 2-4-6 bass and treble tracker bar holes in a
manner identical to that utilized by the Model A) can affect
their respective stack suctions from minimum to one-half
maximum unless expanded by a crescendo or the amplifier.
Therefore, the intensity stages are, to a certain degree, dependent upon the crescendo and amplifier. However, by merely
acting upon the suction supply to the intensity stages, the
crescendo and amplifier completely depend on the intensity
. stages for transference of their effects. Hence, intensity coding
must be utilized to convey, to appropriate sides of the stack,
effects generated by the crescendo and/or amplifier.
I
Moreover, the Model B crescendo and amplifier are
mechanically combined, but independently operated by separate roll perforations. These separate perforations must be
multiplexed in order to increase a locked amplification stage.
Yet, no perforation multiplexing is required to decrease an
amplification stage previously locked upward. Because of this
mechanical integration, a Model B amplifier locked at midstage will raise the bottom end of the crescendo travel, hence,
cutting its effective range in half. A Model B amplifier locked
at its highest stage (full pump suction) will render the crescendo totally inoperative!
Additionally, the Model B stack is equipped with two
spill valves (bass and treble) automatically operated in conjunction with their respective number six intensity stages.
Unless their respective bass and treble number six intensity
stages are engaged, these spills remain open and induce a predetermined amount of atmospheric leakage into their respective sides of the stack. The main (but not exclusive) purpose
of such a spill valve is to allow almost instantaneous return to
minimum stack suction levels upon cancellation of any previously locked intensity stages. It also has the ability to facilitate
rapid changes between transient stack suction levels!
Stated another way, the crescendo, intensity stages, and
amplifier in the Model B are all controlled by roll perforations; in terms of supplying stack suction, the intensity stages
can partially function without any crescendo or amplifier
activity, but the crescendo and amplifier cannot function
effectively without some intensity stage activity. Additionally,
a "sub" stage can lower suction in either side of the stack
below minimum for very soft passages.
Incompatibility
To compare the two, Model A crescendo activity immediately and directly affects stack suction. Model B crescendo
activity, however, must have some intensity stage coding in
order to effectively transfer its effects to stack suction.
Moreover, the Model A stages are relatively large steps and
the crescendo will have less effect for a given length of perforation. The Model B stages are smaller and the crescendo will
have much greater effect. Though the stages and crescendo
tend to balance out, it is immediately apparent that A and B
rolls are not compatible on the other system if the full potential of the roll is to be realized.
EarlyAmpico Pianos
A theoretical possibility also exists for incompatibility
between later rolls (Models A and B) and early Ampico
pianos and vice versa. Early Ampicos have the same crescendo and intensity coding configurations as the Model A.
Crescendo timing is also identical in both (contrary to popular
notions derived from observations of net Model A crescendo
speeds) systems. However, while sharing a similar, automatically operated "bootstrap effect" amplifier affecting pump
suction at nearly identical levels to the Model A, the early
Ampico amplifier is engaged exclusively by suction levels in
the treble side of the stack. Suction levels in the bass side are
109
totaIIy ignored by early Ampico amplifiers. Early Ampico
rolls are, of course, coded with this idiosyncrasy in mind.
Furthermore, because all early Ampico and Model A
crescendos directly affect their respective stack suction levels
without benefit of any step intensity coding, the theory of
"platforming" (currently championed as a viable coding technique) would be difficult if not impossible to implement on
such instruments.
Finally, while the effect of early, Model A and Model B
amplifiers is similar, the method of their activation is radically
different when one compares the three systems. And, when
one considers crescendos, early and Model A systems contain
true crescendos acting directly upon stack suction. The Model
B crescendo, on the other hand, is merely a pump amplifier
capable of being operated by roll perforations in two separate
ways (i.e., steps and smooth progression). In this manner the
Model B departs conceptually from its predecessors!
A Rolls on a B Piano
A rolls on a B piano will almost always exhibit certain
detrimental characteristics. Staccato notes played at very low
intensities or fast tempos occasionally skip because at very
low suction the single valve system of the Model B is somewhat less responsive to the single perforations so common to
A rolls. It will be noted that many A to B roII conversions
often have single perforations lengthened to oblong slots.
A rolls have independent coding for the Model A dual
(bass and treble) crescendo systems. The single crescendo system of the Model B will only respond to the treble crescendo
and diminuendo perforations on A rolls. Hence, all A roll noncoinciding (independent) bass crescendo and diminuendo perforations will not be recognized by the Model B and, therefore, their effects will be lost. This is a serious flaw as any A
roll note activity relying upon the bass crescendo for sustenance or effect will fall flat (unless, by mere chance, adequate
coinidental crescendo activity occurs in the treble margin of
the roll.)
In addition, the A roll treble crescendo and diminuendo
perforations will overstimulate the B mechanism, resulting in
a constant and annoying seesawing between soft and loud
playing (this phenomenon is often mistaken for intentional
dramatic effect by the inexperienced listener). Moreover, this
phenomenon will be further aggravated by the effect of A roll
intensity stage coding (intended for use with stacks having no
spill valves) upon the Model B stack spill valves.
Because the three stage lock on the pump spill (amplifier)
will not be signaled and, hence, not latch up to its higher settings, intensity stages 2-4-6 together (bass and/or treble),
which on an A piano would yield the loudest playing, will
produce only mezzo-forte. In part this will be compensated for
by the overacting crescendo, but passages which depend on
the stages to sustain high suction, such as the conclusion of
many rolls, will be too soft. Furthermore, because they will
110
not be signaled, the "sub" stage capabilities of the Model B
will not be utilized. The overall impression is what might be
called lumpy expression.
i
B Rolls on an A Piano
B rolls on an A piano will tend to sound better than vice
versa. All the notes will play. Because, for the sake of compatibility, editors duplicated the B roll crescendo and di'minuendo perforations (read only from the treble margin of the roll
by the single crescendo system of the Model B) in the bass
margin as well, the Model A dual crescendo systems will both
respond simultaneously to B roll crescendo and diminuendo
perforations. However, these crescendo and diminuendo perforations will be of insufficient length for proper expression
but the effect is not objectionable.
Because the Model A is equipped with an amplifier automatically engaged by stack suction, the B roll 2-4-6 intensity
coding will often result in over-expression and, particularly
the melody lines will be too sharply defined and, usually, too
loud. (This phenomenon is often cited as proof of compatibility when, in fact, it is an indicator of incompatibility.) For the
same reason, the Model A will tend to handle B roll fortissimo
passages (coded for amplification steps) unrealistically. And,
without the "sub" stage, some of the softest effects will be
lost.
-,/
~
Early Rolls on A and B Pianos
Early rolls will tend to perform more realistically on the
Model A than on the Model B. When played on Model A
pianos, some early Ampico rolls could contain levels of bass
expression coding (intensity and/or crescendo) high enough to
engage amplification (if coinciding with insufficient levels of
treble coding, such bass coding would not have engaged
amplification in early Ampico pianos). In Model A pianos this
situation of incompatibility would result in significantly higher levels of suction in the bass and slightly elevated levels in
the treble than called for by the early Ampico roll. The effect
on treble suction levels would be limited by the lower levels
of treble expression coding necessary for this phenomenon to
occur. However, this phenomenon is rare because the above
mentioned high bass coding situations are, usually, accompanied by sufficient treble coding to h~ve engaged amplification
on early Ampico pianos anyway. Naturally, any coding used
on early rolls to achieve amplification in early Ampicos will
similarly achieve amplification in the Model A. When played
upon a Model B piano, early rolls will exhibit the same problems as previously described under the heading "A Rolls on B
Piano".
,/
A Rolls on Early Ampicos
)
/
It is probable that some A rolls exist coded so as to
engage the Model A amplifier solely by means of suction levels in the bass portion of the stack. Such rolls will not engage
the amplifier when played upon early Ampico pianos (unless
by mere coincidence, sufficient suction was also present in the
treble portion at the time of needed amplification). The above
stated situation would severely limit the dynamic potential of
A rolls played on early Ampicos!
B Rolls on Early Ampicos
The most extreme problems of compatibility will be
encountered when playing B rolls on early Ampicos. In addition to the crescendo and diminuendo perforations being of
insufficient length, the situation could occur where some level
of amplification is required for bass expression needs and subsequently not delivered by an early Ampico piano. The B roll
might signal some level of amplifier stage lock to accompany
whatever bass intensity coding is employed. For example,
let's say the amplifier is coded to lock in second amplification
(full); and the bass intensity coded with tracker bar holes two,
four and six, resulting in a number seven bass intensity. The
early Ampico piano will not respond to amplifier lock coding
on the B roll. And, if treble intensity coding is insufficient to
raise treble stack suction levels above the predetermined
threshold on the early Ampico piano, no amplification will
result. Pump suction will, therefore, remain at normal; bass
stack levels will merely be a result of the intensity coding.
This situation will result in the early Ampico having a bass
stack suction level nearly half of that indicated by the coding
on the Broil.
Additionally, even when no amplification is signaled by
the B roll, its treble expression coding will often engage the
early Ampico amplifier and result in over-expression somewhat similar to that described previously under the heading "B
Rolls on an A Piano".
Roll Characteristics
Another point of consideration is the difference in coding
styles between the early and late rolls. The change is gradual
but sure: early editing emphasized crescendos; late editing
emphasized stages. Extremes of crescendo usage are seen in
some pre-1920 early Ampico rolls which exhibit only rudimentary use of the stages, with a heavy reliance on
crescendos.
It has been observed on several early Ampico rolls that
were subsequently re-coded to B configuration that some
effort was made to retain coding utilized exclusively by earlier
systems but not necessary for B operation. However, it
. appears this re-coding practice was limited to selections
deemed volume sellers. More importantly, rolls issued exclu)" sively as B, as well as some late A to B conversions, have
been observed that contain passages of sustained high suction
utilizing B pump amplification coding; yet these rolls lack the
necessary treble coding required to fully engage the amplifier
on early Ampico pianos! From this observation we can conclude that while some effort was exerted on these late Broils
to make them compatible with the Model A, no such effort
was made regarding compatibility with early Ampicos. In
more than a few cases such efforts as were made for roll compatibility merely amounted to expedient compromises.
Since the familiar Art-Deco Model B label was not introduced until late 1929, rolls made before this time bear the typical Model A labels but are actually Model B rolls if cut after
1926. Fortunately, both popular and classical rolls of this period can be identified by the use of the word "London" on the
lower right hand corner of the box label. Additionally, many
have red or black stars in the lower corners of the box label
and sometimes on the roll leaders). Since some of the labels
do not contain stars, rolls having stars on their leaders may
more reliably be distinguished from earlier "A" rolls. Yet, the
absence of stars on the leader does not necessarily preclude a
B coded roll. However, the earliest Model B rolls contain
intensity coding very similar to that previously used for the
Model A, and some collectors consider the later efforts (in the
high 68000 classical series upward for instance) as the only
rolls issued under "A" labels that are true Model BroIls.
Model B expression coding may be easily recognized by
either the pump amplifier coding in the extreme left margin,
"sub" pressure coding in the extreme right margin, and
(though riot infallibly) by duplication of the fast and slow
crescendo perforations on both treble and bass sides. Another
typical pattern is a slow treble crescendo with occasional single perforations in the fast crescendo position. While many
early Ampico rolls used this coding technique, its use was
greatly reduced during production of rolls during the Model A
era (1920-1928). After 1928, it was again used extensively.
Though a few "A" rolls did use this pattern, it is seen largely
prior to 1920 and after 1928.
Though Model B development was well under way by
1927, the changes in the coding were gradual. Initially the
editors were working with Model A pianos, though these were
soon replaced. More important, the editors at first thought
only in terms of the Model A, and were slow to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the Model B system.
Many collectors feel the Model B intensity coding culminated
only in Frank Milne's latest rolls, cut between 1935 and 1941.
Milne "Kitchen Table" Arrangements
One intriguing puzzle concerns the total absence of surviving 3-to-l Ampico paper master stencils from the so-called
Milne "graph-paper era". It is obvious to the interested coding watcher that Frank Milne's rolls are more heavily coded
than almost any others. His daughter says she watched him
draw out masters on their kitchen table, the notes in red pencil
and the expression in blue. With a chart of the Ampico intensities probably the same thing could be done today. The first
Milne Ampico roll known to the authors is number 213141;
What's the Use? released in January, 1931. How the produc~
111
tion rolls were made from the "graph paper" masters is not
known but they seem to date from 1932 on.
A plausible explanation for this is that Milne did all of his
"kitchen table" arranging on 3-to-1 cardboard masters which
were read mechanically by a key frame on the Duo-Art perforators. These masters could have been easily duplicated and
re-coded, expressionwise, to produce Ampico rolls using a
second key frame perforator re-fitted with dies containing no
themodist punches (snakebites). Such a melding of technology would have been possible after the 1932 merger between
The Ampico Corporation and Aeolian (producer of the
DuoArt).
It is known that in the 1970's Mrs. Frank Milne gave a
collector who has since disappeared at least one of these
DuoArt 3-to-1 cardboard masters which had been marked in
red and blue pencil by her husband. She also gave the collector some of the pencils!
The fact that many, but not all, Ampico popular rolls produced in the 213000 series and beyond appear to bear the signature of the Duo-Art perforators supports the above hypothesis. (They are also 0.069 inches in diameter, the same as
DuoArt.) The appearance of the Ampico, Duo-Art, and WelteMignon "twins" and "triplets" during this same time period
also supports this hypothesis. This would have also been a
good way to drastically reduce the costs of producing three
types of rolls.
It is important to note, however, that quite a few Ampico
popular recordings issued from 1931 to 1935 (213000, 214000
and 215000 series), continued to be cut on the Ampico perforators in the normal way, using Ampico 3-to-1 paper master
stencils. The few Ampico paper masters which do survive
from this period do not contain selections which appear as
"twins" or "triplets". This, of course, also supports the above
hypothesis.
Surviving Ampico Masters
It is a curious fact that while many of the Ampico classical master stencils still exist (almost all of the surviving
masters and the original production perforators are now
owned by the Keystone Music Roll Company of Allentown,
Pennsylvania), there are much fewer surviving popular master
stencils. One explanation for this is all roll companies had
known for years that, for the most part, popular music was a
highly perishable commodity. Very few of the popular issues
became "standards". Although 3-to-1 Ampico master stencils
made from roll paper were used to produce all Ampico rolls
into the 1930's, it appears that almost all the popular masters
were burned for boiler fuel, sent to the dump or dumped into
the legendary "Ampico Lake" or "Ampico Swamp".
American, and perhaps Aeolian American after them,
seemed to have the attitude that "some day we might find a
use for the classical masters as they have historical value, but
these popular masters have got to go; we need the space!"
Interestingly enough, most ballad-series masters did survive,
112
probably because they were considered the "standards" of that
day. The few popular Ampico masters that do survive at
Keystone are in chronologically random clumps. This leads
one to surmise that the popular survivors were somehow
buried amongst the classical masters when they were cleaning
~
house, and hence, eluded detection.
If Harold Powell had not negotiated a deal for the surviving Ampico masters with Aeolian American in the early
1970's, they would probably have either been discarded or
made the long trip across the Pacific by now.
The Soul of the Artist
Those of us who have at one time or another tried to add
expression coding to an 88-note roll know how tedious and
unrewarding the effort can be. One of the authors (Barden)
can only admit to results which, despite high hopes and great
care, sound more like a typist than a pianist, whether the
expression mechanism of the piano is on or off.
Yet if we turn off the expression on a reproducing piano
and playa reproducing roll, there still seems to be some
dynamic variation remaining. While the propaganda of the
reproducing piano companies would have us believe the artist
somehow has fingers, or soul, enmeshed in our pianos, the
actual situation is somewhat more involved and much more
fascinating.
In music, a series of beats advance at a relatively even
rate. We feel each beat not as an isolated pulse, but related to
the one which preceded it. We also predict, if only unconsciously, the timing of the pulse to follow on the basis of the
pattern we already perceived. In mechanically arranged 88note rolls or dance music rolls, our unconscious predictions
will be perfectly correct-the beats are absolutely even.
;:;
However in hand-played music the beat patterns are not
even; there are tiny variations in the placement of the pulses.
Though we do not necessarily perceive the unevenness of the
rhythm on a conscious level, we do find it more interesting
than a mechanical beat. And in some cases of artifice or accident, uneven rhythm produces a very interesting auditory illusion. Our perception is not necessarily that the pulses of the
music fall ahead or behind the true beat, but that they are
louder or softer, that is more or less intense. Ampico Model B
owners may encounter an annoying example of this phenomenon in the process of Note Compensation-setting the minimum playing intensity of each note using a test roll made for
the purpose. The success of the adjustment depends on making all the notes sound with precisely the same intensity at the
lowest suction. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to use
either an original Note Compensation test roll or one made
from a 3-to-1 master stencil. Conventional recuts are not
accurate enough to use for this purpose. Fortunately,
Keystone has such an original 3-to-1 master.
Devices of rhythmic variation have always been used as a
means of musical expression, the ritard being a conspicuous
example. Agogic accents and rubato are terms for two of the
more subtle devices. An agogic accent consists of playing a
note or chord a little off the beat to achieve a heightened
musical effect. Rubato is the same technique applied to a
.
\
series of beats in a melodic line or phrase, to give them shape
or definition. Agogic accents and rubato are of enormous
importance in expressive pianism. The sweep and elegance of
a great keyboard technique is as dependent on these subtle
rhythmic alterations as it is on dynamic variation.
/_
Pianists use both agogics and rubato almost constantly. It
is stylistically correct for all music of the Romantic Period to
be expressive in this way, and to a lesser extent, all music.
For example, A Viennese Waltz would sound like any other
waltz unless played with an early second beat in each measure
(an agogic accent) to give lilt and drive to the music.
Chopin's melodic lines "sing" because of the acceleration or
relaxing of the rhythmic pulse (rubato). Patterns of subtle
beat misplacement make music personal and interesting. To
delay or hurry the pace by a minute amount, to shape a phrase
with tiny rhythmic variation, to pause only just perceptibly
before a decisive note or modulation, and to do all these
things boldly and definitively, is a necessity of any artistic
keyboard technique.
Thus, if a reproducing piano handles note placement with
accuracy, it goes far toward reproducing the artist's playing.
The "soul" of piano music so highly touted in the advertising
of the period was almost as dependent on rhythmic effects as
on dynamic variation. In a quiet selection not requiring wide
dynamic range, most of the "expression" was captured on the
note roll alone because the artist used a wide variety of nondynamic techniques to enhance his playing.
r
The Note Recorder
The note recorder must be quite accurate to record these
subtleties, and the Ampico recorder designed by Charles
Stoddard was just that. Key contacts in the recording piano
were connected to the solenoids of the recording machine.
These operated a series of styli resting on the note sheet,
which ran over a drum coated with carbon paper. To indicate
a note, the stylus had only to move a few thousandths of an
inch for a mark to appear on the under side of the sheet. This
process was covered by patents granted to Stoddard from
1914 to 1921. Great accuracy was possible not only through
the speed of the tiny movement, but also because the key contacts were set high. It was hardly necessary to more than
brush a key for the note to record.
Madeline Gaylor, the girl shown in the November, 1927
Scientific American article over the captions "Transferring
Measurements" and "Wrong Notes are Eliminated" states that
at the time she could not understand why such great pianists
made so many mistakes. She was a budding pianist herself,
but did not realize the recorder was somewhat overly sensi; tive. Wrong note "blips" were of course erased.
Editina: and Expression Codina:
In addition to accuracy of note placement, reproducing
piano fidelity depends on the efficacy of the editing and coding techniques, which can result in either fantastically lifelike
perfoflllances or meaningless sequences of notes completely
devoid of feeling. When we look at the finished product, the
coding and editing of a classical roll may seem nearly impossible to duplicate. Certainly it is a time-consuming operation,
and one must have unbounded admiration for those who have
recently produced new reproducing rolls with credible expression.
Much of the better editing before 1926 was the work of
Edgar Fairchild. Compared to later efforts, when the
Hickman Recorder gave an incredibly accurate dynamic
record of virtually every note, Mr. Fairchild's rolls sometimes
lack vitality. But considering the method of expressing them,
largely from memory and his notations on the music as the
artist played, many rolls are great monuments to his good taste
and musical ability. Given a talented editor like Fairchild,
who was aware of the potential of the machine, there is little
reason to doubt the rolls were as faithful as it was practical to
make them. The same can be said of the excellent editing
work done by Theodore Henrion on some of the early Ampico
rolls. Tragically, Henrion's career was cut short by his death
in the flu epidemic of 1918. As we shall see later, the overwhelming number of coding perforations necessary to achieve
"perfect" reproduction would have slowed the roll making to a
standstill.
It is known that the artists were not always pleased with
the rolls, and despite an immense amount of painstaking editing, could refuse to approve them. Though the faults were not
infrequently those of the artist, whose s.ubjective response
while playing was inferior to the objectivity of the recorder, it
nonetheless became the editor's job to please the artist at
almost any musical cost so the selection could be released.
The editor might employ a gentle program of persuasion and
capitulation.
Julius Chaloff has stated: "Some of these things (editing
effects) were done artificially. They had to be. George
Proctor would say the playing sounded dry, so I would tell the
girl to extend the notes here and here. 'That's better' he
would say. But I would reply, 'You didn't play it that way!
Electricity travels 186,000 miles per second. You put the
pedal there, or it wouldn't be there, because electricity is
faster than you are.' That was my argument all the time."
(Note: Actually, light travels at 186,000 miles per second,
electricity considerably slower, but still much faster than the
artist.)
The editing and re-editing as seen on trial rolls is extensive and fascinating. Much of it is concerned with correction
of the crescendos and with separating the melody note and its
coding from the rest of a chord in the same register. Because
the Ampico stack was divided in two, varying suction could
be supplied to notes playing at the same time if they occurred
on either side of middle E on the keyboard. But notes on the
same side requiring separate intensities had to be separated on
the roll enough to give the expression mechanism time to
change the suction level.
113
Although the -recording pianist might have made some
separation unconsciously in the playing of the melody note
against the chord, it was a special headache for the editor to
manage the effect without creating the impression of sloppy
playing or a broken chord. In most cases the melody note is
left in position and the remainder of the chord is taped one
increment (termed a "square") back on the roll. This spacing
is quite obvious to the attentive listener, and occasionally
quite objectionable, though at tempo 85 there is only 1/13 second between the playing of the two notes, if the difference in
playing the note is 1/8" of paper. Frequently the spacing is
much smaller and therefore much less conspicuous.
A constantly recurring problem in fast playing was to be
able to leave enough space between repeated notes for the
valves to reseat and the pneumatics to work. Usually the first
note was shortened to give the action time to get back into
position, but if the spacing was still too close the music was
rearranged. Julius Chaloff says that passages in his Chopin F
minor Ballade recording are rearranged for this reason. It is
interesting to note the great subtlety with which this was
accomplished, particularly in this instance.
If the intensity coding was going to be crowded, it was
necessary to use a very fast roll speed to give better resolution. This was impossible on very long rolls which
approached the limit of the take-up spool flanges, which in
turn caused various types of roll transport problems
But it was not so! Dr. Hickman himself encountered the
first problem on an early Model B roll recorded by E. Robert
Schmitz:
"It would drive you out of the room, it was so loud! We
went back and checked the dynamics over, but they were.
right. We finally came to the conclusion that when Schmitz
was there in person, the force of his personality permitted him
to use a very loud fortissimo. But if you took Schmitz away
from the piano, it was too much. We had to tame the
record down because you simply couldn't have sold it the
way he actually played it."
Also, Julius Chaloff has stated that the playing of the
Ampico was not always successful because the artist was not
present-that without a human pianist making appropriate gestures at the keyboard, the playing seemed flat and uninteresting, or even completely unrealistic. This phenomenon can be
observed in today's feeble attempts to record contemporary
music for roll or disc-actuated pianos without the necessary
editing to make it listenable. For this reason, Mr. Chaloff says
that he always tried (as did the other great artists) to slightly
overemphasize the agogics, crescendos, and rhythmic expressive devices during the recording session, if it could be done
without distorting the music.
The result was that, although the dynamic recorder gave
the intensities and made the editing quicker and more accurate, the subjective human element was still necessary to produce a musical performance. Musicality proved once more to
be too complex and elusive to reduce to cut-and-dried rules,
and the Model B system only demonstrated again the old principle: The mechanism of artistry does not readily lend itself to
analysis by machine.
The Hickman Dynamic Recorder
The dynamic recorder was put into operation in 1926, and
gave such an accurate rendering of the intensity of nearly all
the notes that the editing was not only simpler but much
quicker. The dynamic sheet did not give the intensity of every
note played, as three adjacent notes and several octaves were
tied together and recorded on the same segment of the
machine. But interpolation was easy in the case of overlapping, and for the first time it was possible to record in
permanent form enough information to make a substantial
improvement in the quality of the Ampico playing.
The operation of the recorder is fully covered by an
article written by Dr. Hickman entitled, "Spark Chronograph
Developed for Measuring Intensity of Percussion Instrument
Tones" and published in the October 1929, issue of The
Acoustical Society Journal and in a Barden interview with
him which appears in "The Ampico Reproducing Piano".
Additional contacts to operate the dynamic recorder were
added to the recording piano. The dynamic roll, nearly a yard
wide, showed remarkably accurate measurements of the speed
of the piano hammer travel for each note as it was played.
Since the loudness of the piano string vibration depends
almost solely on the speed of the hammer as it hits the string,
precise indication of the loudness of each note was recorded.
It is easy to imagine that with an accurate note recorder
and a super-accurate dynamic recorder, all the problems of
fidelity would be solved. If the notes and dynamics were
recreated just as the artist had recorded them, the Ampico
dream of perfect fidelity would finally be achieved.
114
Ji
~1
Conclusions
Probably the playing of the Ampico was never significantly better than that of the artist. The editing process was
too time consuming and never easy. The difficulty of working
with a punched roll precluded any except the most mechanical
of corrections. Consider only one roll of the thousands issued
the Schulz-Evler arrangement of the Blue Danube Waltz
played by Lhevinne. Mr. Stoddard, in his Tuner's Convention
talk of 1927, which was published in the August 1927, issue
of The Tuners Journal, stated that this single selection contained 7,915 notes. (There is no reason to doubt this figure;
but by actual count this arrangement has 1,217 notes in the
treble figurations preceding the first entrance of the waltz
melody.) Stoddard went on to say that 71,235 operations were
necessary before the roll was first heard, and over 100,000
operations were required to bring it to completion. Editing of
this roll and many of the other late classical records was the
work of Emse Dawson, a fine pianist ahd musician.
Naturally the editor would correct slight rhythmic faults,
blurred pedaling and wrong notes before the artist ever heard
the roll. But these changes were insignificant ones and would
add little to the actual effect of the music. Changes and corrections on a larger scale could lead to worse, not better
results.
Julius Chaloff said, "If the artist wanted to try to change
the interpretation, I would help, and skillfully you could
1
f
sometimes make rough places a little better. But more often
than not, you couldn't do it. Listen to the Godowsky records the top notes of those cadenzas and passages aren't even; the
note placement is very bad. But if you changed one (chord)
you threw the next one off, and if you changed that you were
in trouble with the next. You got in more and more of a pickIe. It was like a photographer retouching a picture of a man
with a big nose and a wart on the end. Naturally he could
make the wart disappear. But what could you do with the
nose? It was better to leave it alone. We used to say to the
artists 'a little imperfection makes it sound more human.'
Listen to the records - you'll hear the imperfections, there's no
question of that!"
Early, Model A and Model B Ampicos are capable of
reproducing the nuances of a human pianist. The mechanisms
are accurate, well designed, and the intensity systems operate
with incredible rapidity. Only a few pianistic effects cannot
be literally reproduced, and these too may be simulated.
Modem critics do not object to machine reproduction per
se; they are now accustomed to hearing reproduced music of
excellent fidelity via LP's, cassettes and CD's. Unfortunately,
many adverse conclusions about the quality of reproducing
piano rolls have been based on erratic performances by reproducing pianos which were poorly restored, voiced and tuned.
Too often such instruments are paraded in front of modemday
musicologists who then become justifiably skeptical! There is
certainly no shortage of poorly played and coded rolls, but
neither is there a shortage of poorly restored and regulated
reproducing pianos.
r
Another point of recent curiosity, (or animosity in the
case of a few) has been the editing, because it has been incorrectly assumed that editing could easily produce a great piano
technique. This was not true. Neither dubious editing nor any
other spurious means could have produced such stunning
pianism as can be heard from The Ampico. The Lhevinne
Blue Danube Waltz, the Rochmaninoff performance of the
Chopin B Minor Scherzo, Chaloffs reading of Islamey, or
Levitski's Symphonic Etudes are only four of the enormous
number of artistic performances available to us on piano rolls.
The~e performances were created by the artist on the original
recording just as easily as he created them in his day-to-day
concert career. It is also important to remember, however,
that poor editing, particularly as related to the dynamics, could
convert a great performance into a mediocre one.
The piano roll editing techniques correspond to little
more than modern day editing of magnetic tape masters.
Artur Rubinstein admitted in an interview in the September,
1969 issue of Clavier Magazine, that he is generous with
wrong notes, but that they were removed on his RCA releases
by his recording supervisor, Max Wilcox. We have only to
listen to "undoctored" discs such as the Horowitz Carnegie
Hall series to realize how prevalent modern editing has
become.
It was as true of RCA and Columbia in the 1960's as it
was of the Ampico in 1925, as it is of the CD's today. A
recording company must do the best it can with the available
resources. Thus for the reproducing piano, musical veracity
can be convincingly demonstrated by playing the bad rolls!
There are many unrhythmical, unmusical and completely
uninteresting rolls played by a host of fortunately forgotten
pianists. If it had been either a general practice or even a
remote possibility to create great artists out of every pianist by
"silk purse" editing, these "sow's ear" rolls would not exist.
Instead, all would play with the fire and style of the headliners.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Continuedfrom Inside Front Cover:
UNITED PIANO CORPORATION. - The United Piano Corporation was organized in April, 1922, representing the consolidation of three of the
leading pianoforte concerns in this country. Its products are the A. B. Chase, Emerson and Lindeman & Sons pianos, all three of which are names of
very high standing in the trade. Under the direction of the United Piano Corporation the individuality of these three reputable trade names are being
retained and perpetuated, it being the idea of the company to produce pianos of the highest types. Executive offices are located in Norwalk, Ohio.
The officers are James H. Williams, president; J. Harry Shale, treasurer, and S. B. Keilholtz, secretary. The subsidiary companies of this corporation
are: A. B. Chase Piano Co., established in 1875; Emerson Piano Company, established in 1849, and Lindeman & Sons, established in 1836. The
manufacturing end of this business is under the supervision of men whose practical experience in some of the greatest piano factories in America has
equipped them to supervise the production of fine instruments, products that represent the best in a careful blending of skill and highest qual ity materials. The policy of the United Piano Corporation is to build pianos which will be a credit to the industry, and quality production rather than quantity
output is its principal aim and ideal. J. H. Williams, the president of this corporation, is one of the best known authorities in the country on retailing
of musical instruments. Prior to the formation of this corporation Mr. Williams had successfully conducted one of the biggest retail piano houses in
the co~ntry, and it was due to his thorough knowledge of the retailing of musical instruments, as well as his general executive ability, resulting from
a wide experience in business, that he rose to the pinnacle of success in the retail piano field. J. Harry Shale, another officer of this corporation, has
devoted the major portion of his life to the piano business, and is thoroughly familiar with piano manufacturing in all its branches by virtue of his
long association with the industry. He is in addition an expert on financial matters, and therefore peculiarly well fitted for the important post he holds
with this concern. The affairs of the concern are, therefore, in the hands of men who are highly experienced in all branches of piano manufacturing
and marketing. Knowing the problems of the business as well as they do, this corporation has made rapid strides in the short time of its existence.
The A. B. Chase piano stands today in the front rank of pianos. It has been endorsed by some of the most discriminating musicians and conservato.ries of music in America. It is the official piano of the Scotti Grand Opera Company, and the Society of American Singers. The Emerson has been
known as "the sweet-toned Emerson" since 1849, and is preferred by many in a position to buy a more expensive instrument. Lindeman & Sons
; pianos are noted for their high quality and attractive prices since 1836, this company being the second oldest piano concern in America. All of the
pianos manufactured by the United Piano Corporation are also offered equipped with the Celco Reproducing medium. The Celco is the highest
development along the lines of re-presenting the work of the leading musicians, at the same time preserving to even the most minute detail of touch
all the expression of the original performance. It embodies the latest discoveries in the art that preserves great music plus masterful interpretation.
Concern in highest financial standing.
115
~fisf's <llnrnrr
-n
THE ART OF HAROLD SAMUEL
Koch Legacy CD LC 6644
Reviewed by Emmett M. Ford
KOCH Legacy has issued two CDs labeled The Art of Harold Samuel. Mr.
Samuel was a famous exponent of the compositions of J.S. Bach. He preferred
to use the piano in place of the harpsichord used by many other famous interpreters of Bach's compositions. In 1927, in Town Hall in New York, he gave six
Bach recitals in six days (January 18th to January 25).
II
Two CDs are of his 78 rpm discs. Information on this pianist may be found
in the AMICA Bulletin, July 1977.
Mr. Samuel's sudden death was January 15, 1937, which shocked the musical world to end the career of one of the greatest Bach interpreters of his time.
His Duo-Art rolls are all of the compositions of Bach.
HAROLD SAMUEL
~~l
SEPTEMBER 4, 1992 - MESSAGE FROM JOHNNY HONNERT
Temperature 90 degrees, and it's 2:00 p.m.
(Sent in by Dorothy Bromage)
Dear Dorothy,
room. Phooey - I don't get excited with it - neither. Ha!
It is so nice hearing from you. You feel bad? I never will get
over what Hurricane Andrew did to me. August 23 atl :()() p.m., they
said EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY, the whole place, about 56 of us,
in two buses, mostly in walkers and wheel chairs. And we had to
sleep on mattresses on the tloor in another nursing center with 900
patients there already. Wowie! and food-what's that? Not even coffee. We stayed two whole days and nights, before they drove us back
here, and no lights and water for days! So, what else is new?
"Maine Stein Song" reminds me of the time in 1937 when r
played piano at a gorgeous club in Chicago, on Rush Street. Rudy
Vallee came in with some folks one night, and the folks asked him to
come up on my stage and sing a few songs. But he didn't know I was
recording the thing with my machine, and he didn't notice it. Finally
he said, "Oh, recording!" But the little small record I gave to the
folks, and I ended up with the record anyway. Wanna hear it? Come
on, here in Miami.
I heard from Mike and Liz after the convention. They said they
all thought about me. Did you go? All' said he was gonna be there - I
haven't heard. I am OK now, thank God. I took off five pounds, at
least.
My grandson was in Florida City (next to Homestead, Florida).
Wiped out - in his duplex. He had sent his wife and Stephanie (oneyear old) to stay with her mother. And they are in the same town, and
their roof was blown off, I heard. Oh, my - wowie, eh? I haven't
heard from him at all, I wonder what's cookin'.
I celebrated my 84th birthday and was thinking of the day in
California when I was 80, when you all signed a card for me. I never
will forget it. How nice.
So [ see you moved - and to such a nice house - great! Have fun
- in the snow, soon? Ha! Don't you miss California?
I had an operation on skin cancer, under my left eye, and three
more on top of my dome. OK now, I think. I don't play the piano
here much anymore. I get tired, so what else is new?
I can picture you with all those nice instruments around you, in
that new house. Nice! All I have is a portable keyboard, here in my
116
I am still sitting on the bed typing this to you. OK? I'm tired
already, and I love you, of course, too. Hello to all the AMICAns that
you write to. OK?
Musically yours,
Johnny Honnert
c/o Heritage Rehabilitation Center
220 I NE 170th Street,
North Miami Beach, Florida 33160
1
Clarence Adler
by
CLARENCE
ADLER
"always gloves over the steel"
Leopold
GODOWSKY
Last year, the fiftieth anniversary of Clarence Adler's career as pianist and teacher, brought warm tributes from a host of distinguished fellow musicians.• Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, his outstanding talent was in evidence so early that he was admitted as a regular
student to the Cincinnati College of Music at the age of eleven. Later a student of Leopold Godowsky for five years in Berlin, he
made numerous solo appearances there, also with chamber groups. Returning to this country, he continued similar activities, including
performance of a cycle of fourteen Mozart concertos with the National Orchestral Association under Leon Sarzin. Long established
as ateacher in New York City, he has guided many outstanding pianists, and several, such as George Gershwin, Aaron Copland and
Walter Hendl, who were more than pianists.
-'
A QUARTER OF A CENTURY has slipped by since the sorrowful day that Leopold Godowsky departed this earth.
I had the sad privilege of attending the last rites. As I
looked at those expressive, flexible hands (they seemed
flexible even in death), I heard again the wonderful
sounds which emanated from his soul to the tips of his
fingers into the bed of the keyboard. I began listening to
them in the year 1905 and have been hearing them ever
since. His genial, warm personality, his wise precepts are
constantly inspiring me. The loftiness of his musicianship
has guided me every hour of my existence since 1905. It
has made of me a better musician and a finer instrumentalist. He set the goal for my pupils who, through me as
his disciple, are traveling the pianistic road to Parnassus.
There was nothing of the commercial or showman in
the musical stature of Godowsky. Every composition he
played, no matter how involved or technically difficult,
was tossed off with the greatest of ease and simplicity.
The audience was never for a moment aware that what
the Master was doing would have been impossible for any
other performer. He made beautiful music of pieces that
were written for the sheer display of virtuosity. He was
an ideal program builder. All styles were included in his
recitals. He had that rare ability to take his audience into
his confidence and to guide it safely through the labyrinth of the most abstruse compositions.
As a composer he occupies a unique position. Unfortunately, his compositions are neglected by the great and
less great pianists. What a pity! Why are they neglected?
Because they are very difficult, and because they have not
been written to bring forth enthusiastic applause from the
audience or to add glamor to the performer. If you wish
THE PIANO TEACHER
IMPACT
to worship at the shrine of music, study and play Godowsky's compositions.
In the editing of his music he reveals still another
miracle of his genius and his unselfish desire to give away
his knowledge. The phrasing, pedaling, fingering are
other examples of his learning and mastery. How unfortunate that he did not edit a large portion of the piano
literature! If he had done this, and if pianists had followed
his instructions religiously, teachers could sooner be disposed of. As a transcriber and paraphraser of music he
enhanced the original score through his keen and sensitive harmonic imagination. As a contrapuntalist, he had
no peer. As a performer, he was a pianist for pianists.
The titans of the keyboard bowed to him. Vladimir de
Pachman said: "Wait until you hear Godowsky play. We
are all woodchoppers in comparison." Josef Hofmann
exclaimed: "He is the master of us all," and RachmanInoff:" Godowsky is the only musician of this age who has
given a lasting, a real contribution to the development of
piano music." James Huneker, in his Unicorns, wrote:
"He is the superman of piano playing. His ten digits are
ten independent voices."
I have been asked repeatedly to describe Godowsky's
playing. The closest I can come to it is to recall faintly
from the deep recesses of my memory my impressions of
the first time I heard him in recital. This was in Berlin in
Beethoven Hall during the winter of 1907. I was then
busily engaged in strenuous rehearsals as pianist of the
famous Hekking Trio, which gave six concerts each year.
I had succeeded Artur Schnabel, one of the founders of
the organization. After a typical, strenuous, and fatiguing
rehearsal I felt the need of relaxation. How did I seek it?
continued
World-traveler Godowsky
in Berlin
GODOWSKY Contd.
. Simply by attending a Godowsky recital, which began
~ - several hours after the rehearsal. I purchased a ticket for
.
Lr
G
the left side of the hall, where the artist's hands were
plainly visible. The pleasure of listening was thus enhanced, particularly when Godowsky played. His hands
were very small, but wonderfully developed and exceedingly expressive. They were rubbery, and he had trained
them so marvelously he could master wide stretches and
dangerous skips with the greatest of ease. Godowsky's
hands always reflected the mood of the music he was propounding. He was less of the showman than any other
artist I ever heard. He would never resort to anything
theatrical, nor to any external effect in order to bring
forth applause. He was a true disciple of the composer,
whose message he hoped to convey to his flock.
He walked to the piano unobtrusively, bowed courteously to his audience, and sat down quietly. The public
could not notice any visible sign of anxiety or nervousness, but within himself there must have been a certain
questioning: "Will my memory serve me perfectly? Will
the limitations of human mind and body enable me to encompass the glories of the music?" There is nearly always doubt coupled with faith in the truly great artist.
Godowsky was ready to play. His whole manner
changed. His serious attitude, his philosophic countenance was like a Brahma. He began that beautifuL Weber
Sonata in A-flat major. (How unfortunate that this lovely
piece is so seldom played today. Surely an art work is
eternal and speaks a universal language through the
ages.) The opening tremolo of broken octaves on a flat
in the lower part of the piano sounded like a faint rumbling of double basses-and then came that haunting,
appealing first theme, so exquisitely and sensitively announced. His crystal, pearly scales played with feathery,
velvety fingers, his many, many shades of nuance between piano and pianissimo, his steadily mounting crescendi and powerful, resonant, ringing chords made you
realize that he also had wrists and hands of steel, though
there were always gloves over the steel. One never sensed
any harshness or rough contact with the hammers. In
fact, one never was conscious of instrument, keys,. hammers, pedals, but just the vision of an Apollonian sage
from whose pores the sublimest music was emanating.
Enthusiasm ran high after the concert. Applause was
unrestrained, and many encores were demanded. The
audience would not leave until the lights were lowered.
Thete was the usual rush to the artist's room. A galaxy
of artists and stars of the day swarmed about the Master,
offering hearty and sincere congratulations. He accepted
the praise graciously and modestly. He looked tired and
sad. I understood his feeling. The great artists are humble
and they are sad, even after sublime accomplisbment, because their goal is an apparition, always evasive, never
attainable.
in Constantinople
The Man Behind the Dour Mask
From The New York Times, April 4, 1993
By Igor Buketoff
Sent in by William Knorp
.1
That was the real Rachmaninoff remembered by his
Russian Friends: a warm and fun-loving man, in sharp contrast to the dour stage presence so familiar to his audiences.
Even now, as the music world observes the 50th anniyersary
of his death, on March 28, 1943, the personal side of the composer is little acknowledged beyond the reminiscences of
those who knew him.
My first experience of Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff
occurred when I was around 10. My father had taken me to a
Passion Week evening service at the Russian Orthodox
Church of Christ the Savior, on Madison Avenue and 121 st
Street. Everyone stood holding a lighted taper. The church
was dark but for the tapers and the candles illuminating the
saints on the sanctuary screen and side walls. The icons were
Byzantine in style, with elongated faces and heavy bags under
their stem, almond-shaped eyes.
I had busied myself examining those exotic, forbidding
faces, and was turning my attention to my candle when my
father whispered, "Look! Rachmaninoff!" There he stood,
barely 15 feet away, his back to the wall, head half-bowed,
eyes fixed on his candle, only occasionally looking up toward
the altar. In glancing around I had mistaken him for an icon. I
watched him for more than an hour, willing him to move, but ;_
he never did, not even to cross himself, as Russians frequently
do in church. I was fascinated.
..t
Sergei Rachmaninoff -
The look ofa Byzantine icon, with his
enlongatedface and bags under his stern, almond-shaped eyes.
The concert was one of Rachmaninoff's greatest triumphs, but as usual, his facial expression remained mask like:
unsmiling and austere. The audience left Carnegie Hall in
euphoria. Everyone was animated - except one person, lost in .
thought.
Michael Chekhov, a nephew of the writer Anton Chekhov
and one of Rachmaninoff's closest friends, had been invited to
the pianist's home for a post concert party. As he left the hall,
he struggled for words to express his awe. He walked through
Central Park to regain his composure. After some time, still
dumb struck, he headed for Rachmaninoff's apartment on
West End Avenue and rang the doorbell, expecting to be
admitted by a servant or another guest. Suddenly, the door
opened, and there stood Rachmaninoff. Completely undone,
Chekhov simply got down on his knees, bowed his forehead
to the floor and froze.
Finally, overcome by embarrassment, he looked up.
Instead of finding Rachmaninoff towering over him, he discovered that the great pianist and composer had responded by
also getting down on his knees and bowing his head to the
floor.
120
Many years later, as he and I walked along West End
Avenue, I told him about this first memory. We always spoke
in Russian, his preferred language. He would often retreat into
a shell when spoken to in English. He cultivated a stock
answer to anyone who inquired about his health: "A-numberone, First Class." Sometimes his answer missed the point of a
question.
Our conversation turned to the wonderful rector of that
Russian church, Father Vasily. A huge man, unmistakably
Russian, he owned a Russian wolfhound, which always
attracted attention during their walks. Like Rachmaninoff,
Father Vasily understood little English. One evening a passerby noticed the dog but was even more fascinated by t~e obviously Russian man in his clerical collar. Unable to contain his
curiosity, he asked, "Are you a Russian Orthodox priest?"
Father Vasily gave his usual reply: "Yes, yes, yes. Russian
wolfhound, Russian wolfhound." Rachmaninoff chuckled
when I recounted the incident. It was a familiar predicament.
Rachmaninoff's characteristic reServe belied his surprisingly
rowdy youth. Too precocious for the St. Petersburg
Conservatory, the 9-year-old "Seryozha" regularly cut classes, .
devoting his time to jumping on and off moving trolleys with£
his buddies. Before long, his mother sensed that all was not
going well. On the advice of her nephew Alexander Siloti, she
had Seryozha transferred to the Moscow Conservatory, where
J
,/
Siloti taught piano. With a full scholarship, Seryozha began to
study, and live, with the school's foremost piano pedagogue,
Nikolai Zverev. The surname, meaning "beast," was appropriate to how Zverev treated pupils. The tight discipline to which
he subjected Rachmaninoff partly explains the composer's
lifelong self-discipline and obsessive punctuality.
At that time, in the 1880's, the conservatory students
behaved in an affected manner, smoking, lacing their conversation with foreign words and wearing their hair long, in the
style of Liszt. In contrast, Rachmaninoffs demeanor was natural, his speech direct, and over the years he gravitated toward
the haircut "of a convict," as described by the Russian bass
Fyodor Chaliapin. This haircut was to become his signature.
Rachmaninoff was a wonderful pianist, but his greatest
aspiration was to become a composer. After graduating in
piano in 1891, he studied for one more year as a composition
major. For the final examination, he and his two classmates
were given one month to compose an opera, in piano score,
based on a story by Alexander Pushkin. When the time came
to submit their works, Rachmaninoffs opera, "Aleko," was
completely orchestrated, and the score was bound. He had finished the assignment in 17 days. He was 19.
By then, Rachmaninoff had experienced his first serious
crush, on his cousin Verochka Skalon. She was the youngest
of three sisters for whom he composed two pieces for piano,
six hands. Her family gave him the kind of love he craved,
and his heart went out to the 15-year-old. But they were
observed holding hands, and the budding romance was
brought to an abrupt halt.
Far more tantalizing and more typical of Rachmaninoff
was his relationship with the young poetess Marietta
Shaginyan. Slieinitiated a correspondence with him under the
pseudonym Re and gave him many ideas for songs. Judging
from their letters, this mutual affection was discreetly distant
yet profoundly intense. Eventually Rachmaninoff confessed to
her that he had known her identity for some time. They were
alone together only once or twice.
Not many people know that early in his career,
Rachmaninoff was a superb conductor and once the director
of the Imperial Opera. During this time, he developed a deep
friendship with Chaliapin, who was known to take excessive
liberties in tempo and interpretation. Once, during a rehearsal
of Glinka's "Life for the Czar," Chaliapin was to start singing
after a brief silence. He made the silence endlessly long.
Finally, Rachmaninoff, who was conducting, boomed, "It's
really ~ime for us to continue, Fyodor Ivanovich."
Despite this tense moment, the two giants (both well over
six feet tall) became close friends. Seryozha adored Chaliapin,
whose marvelous sense of humor often left him weeping with
laughter.
In later years, Rachmaninoff told one of Chaliapin' s sons,
also named Fyodor, that Chaliapin had scolded him about the
j way he took bows, insisting that he be more ingratiating to his
'" audience. Rachmaninoff explained that for him such behavior
was unnatural, adding, "Your father was a basso, but he
bowed like a tenor."
For a while, Rachmaninoff pursued a career as a composer, pianist and conductor. But the conducting career was shortlived. No one could understand why he had suddenly abandoned it. Finally, he told a friend that in a rehearsal, a musician tested his ear (a common occurrence even today) by playing a nursery tune instead of his part. Rachmaninoff stopped,
made his correction and promptly gave up conducting, choosing not to subject himself to another such insult.
In 1917, with Russia in political upheaval and most of
Europe in flames, Rachmaninoff fled with his family to
Scandinavia, where he had been invited for a concert tour.
Soon thereafter, an invitation to tour the United States compelled him, at age 45, to build a new piano repertory no longer
dominated by his own familiar compositions.
In 1927, he re-emerged as a major composer with the premieres of his Fourth Piano Concerto and Three Russian Folk
Songs for chorus and orchestra. My father, a Russian
Orthodox priest, was asked to assemble a chorus of basses,
drawn from the Russian clergy, and altos to sing the folk
songs with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold
Stokowski.
At the first rehearsal, as Stokowski started the third song,
Rachmaninoff rose from his seat in the dark hall and asked the
conductor to take a slower tempo. Stokowski agreed, then
resumed his original pace. Again, Rachmaninoff asked for a
slower tempo. Again Stokowski agreed, only to continue as
before. Disconsolate, Rachmaninoff returned to his seat, shaking his head, but at the first opportunity he went on stage and
appealed to the priests of the choir: "I beg you, do not ruin a
devout Russian Orthodox churchman! Please sing more slowly!" They replied that it was impossible to sing a tempo other
than that set by the conductor - a fact he ruefully understood.
In 1941, I became director of the Juilliard School's choral
department and, in my youthful hubris, decided to perform the
songs at Rachmaninoff s tempos. He agreed to go through the
work with me. I remember his faint smile as he played the
accompaniment and sang the vocal parts, seemingly three
octaves lower; when he smiled he was beautiful. He entreated
me not to take the third song too fast. But years later, on hearing a homemade record of my performance, I realized that I,
too, had let him down.
We talked frequently, and his manner was always gracious and often mischievous. Once, my wife and I drove him
home from a meeting of the Bohemians, a New York musicians' club. He sat in the back, resting his chin on the front
seat-back while we talked. Suddenly (and tactlessly) I asked,
"What do you think of ShostakovichT He replied instantly, in
his typically understated manner, "He's very talented, but he
should learn how to use an eraser."
On another occasion, he and the younger Chaliapin listened to a broadcast of the premiere of Shostakovich's
Seventh Symphony, conducted by Arturo Toscanini. After the
performance, Rachmaninoff remained silent until Chaliapin,
unable to stand the suspense, asked how he liked it.
Rachmaninoff stood up and said, "Let's go have some tea."
121
Newspaper accounts mistakenly attributed his death to
pneumonia and pleurisy. He died of cancer. Unaware that his
days were numbered, he blamed the excruciating pain in his
side on rheumatism. He gave his last concert in Knoxville,
Tennessee, on February 17, )943, and was traveling by train
to play in Texas but could not continue. He headed for his
new home in Beverly Hills. The train ride lasted an agonizing
60 hours.
In Los Angeles, he was rushed to a hospital, where tests
revealed the hopelessness of his condition. Sent home, he
seemed to improve for a few days: his appearance was good,
his humor intact, and he even entertained thoughts of working
in his garden. But after March )0, his condition deteriorated
with frightening speed while his wife, Natalie, his daughter
Irina and his sister-in-law, Sophie Satin, watched helplessly.
On March 27, young Chaliapin was allowed to see
Rachmaninoff, now in a coma. He kissed the pianist's emaci-
C,onlQD
ated hands, which were already becoming cold, and said,
"Farewell, you precious man." At ):30 a.m., four days before
his 70th birthday, he quietly ceased to breathe.
Non-Russians remember Rachmaninoff as a gaunt, severe
figure, remote and seemingly unapproachable. His friends
recall an intensely charming, gentle man who adored his family.
He blessed his two daughters repeatedly, whenever they
left him for even the shortest time. He listened to his granddaughter's first piano lessons, assuring her that he 'would
speak to his manager about her. Once he was found on the
floor with his grandson sitting triumphantly astride him. The
child, it seemed, would not eat his beans until he was
promised that he would become strong enough to defeat his
grandfather. So down went the beans, and down wentgrandfather.
That was the real Rachmaninoff.
Nancarrow in Concert
by Terry Smythe
Some months ago, I was approached by a local contemporary musician/composer, Jim Hiscott, inviting me to consider
loaning one of my reproducing pianos for use in a concert,
sponsored by Groundswell, in their New Music series.
They were planning a concert of contemporary music, featuring the piano in most unusual applications.
was a 9'Baldwin, turned end-on to the audience. The
Ensemble is a ten person group who surround the piano, not
unlike a circle of surgeons surrounding a patient on an operating table. The keys are not struck at all, but rather a large
number of four foot stranded loops of fine nylon fishing line
were each looped under specific strings.
Jim had in mind to feature Conlon Nancarrow with some
of his compositions for the player piano. It sounded like a fun
thing to do, so readily agreed, offering my )935 George Steck
Ampico AlB. Knowing that Conlons music places awesome
demands on the pneumatic system, I felt that only this piano
out of my collection had the courage to satisfy the performance requirements.
Each of the "players" were responsible for specific notes,
which they played by pulling the strands taut and "bowing"
the strings in a most unconventional, but nevertheless logical
fashion. The effect is astonishing! I would never have
believed that the sound of a full blown pipe organ could
emanate from a grand piano.
Both Jim and I set out to acquire some of Conlon's rolls,
hoping one of us would be successful. Recalling his introduction to AMICA in San Francisco in 1988, I contacted his sponsor, founding members Sally and Dale Lawrence, who did
their level best to find us some rolls. They put me onto a lady
in their area who confirmed she had a large number, but I was
unsuccessful in persuading her to part with a few of them.
Meanwhile, Jim made contact through a friend of a friend
of a friend, with someone name Trimpin in the Seattle area,
and was subsequently successful in acquiring three fine selections - Studies # 12, 21 and 25. They did indeed put enormous
demands on the Ampico system, but it performed beautifully.
The review sez it all.
Also on the program was the Stephen Scott Ensemble
from Colorado College, featuring a "bowed" piano. The piano
122
The ten "players" were all dressed in black, and silently
moved around the piano in absolute military precision that in
itself was quite an unusual sight. The concept of playing the
piano in this manner was somewhat similar to a group of hand
bell ringers, where each player has responsibility for precision
timing of only two notes. In the Stephen Scott Ensemble, each
of the 10 players had responsibility for many more notes, and
did an outstanding job.
While I was understandably pleased with the Nancarrow
portion of the concert, I must say I was quite impressed with
Stephen Scott's compositions for the "bowed" piano. Highly
recommend this group if they should happen to be performing
in your area.
My piano was returned safely, and a good time was had
by all. Who knows, we may try it again some time.
The Performers
The Colorado College
New Music Ensemble
Stephen Scott, Director
Brian Arnold, Kaya Ayers,
Scott Bramwell, Shawn Keener,
Jennifer Pierce, Michael Scagliotti,
John Steohenson, Julie Urquhart,
Daniel Wiencek
Diana McIntosh, Piano
1935 Steck Ampico Player
Grand Piano
The Bowed Piano
The 1935 Steck Ampico Player Grand Piano
The piano used in this concert was built by the American Piano Company and
contains an original Ampico reproducing mechanism. Self-playing pianos had
their origin just after the tum of the century, were short-lived, and eventually
evaporated approximately in 1930. The American Piano Company was one of
three major North American piano manufacturers equipping their premier
instruments with reproducing mechanisms. Those player pianos known as
reproducing pianos, got their generic name from their ability to faithfully
reproduce the expression and intent of the original artist recording the performance on a special kind of paper music roll. Little known today, they were
popular in the teens and 20's, and most of the legendary masters of the piano
of around the turn of the century, made recordings for use on these pianos.
This particular piano is owned by Terry Smythe, owner of Sounds of
Yesteryear, Canada's foremost collection of vintage self-playing musical
instruments, containing fine examples of reproducing pianos, nickelodeons,
circus band organs, and large music boxes.
The idea of producing a sustained tone on a
keyboard instrument other than an organ
dates back at least to the time of Thomas
Jefferson, who in the late 18th century commissioned a harpsichord fitted with a "celestial stop", a bowing device invented by an
English instrument builder named Walker.
first heard of a sustained piano tone in the
music of Curtis Curtis-Smith, a pianist/composer from Michigan.Some of his piano
pieces from the I 970s require the player to
draw filaments of nylon fishline beneath the
strings to produce an organ-like sound. I
have developed a form of this device which
I call the "soft bow", consisting of several
strands of rosined nylon fastened together at
each end with color-coded tags. When several of these are drawn under different
strings of the piano simultaneously by several players, sustained, resonant chords are
produced. The players may also sound different pitches consecutively, much in the
way hand bells are rung in sequence to produce a line of melody. In the last few years,
the palette of the bowed piano medium has
become more orchestral through the inclusion of pizzicato, tremolo, dampened keystrokes and various kinds of strumming.
Stephen Scott
123
Program
Rainbows (Parts One & Two) (1981)
Stephen Scott
Colorado College New Music Ensemble
Study #12.....•••••••••••••••••••••••••......•.•••.•.........Conlon Nancarrow
Study #21
Conlon Nancarrow
Music For Player Piano
James Tenney
Study # 25
ConIon Nancarrow
Intermission (15 minutes)
Murkings* (1993)
Music: Diana McIntosh
Text: "The Eighth Sea", Paul Dutton
Sound poetry: Paul Dutton and the composer
Photography:Vivian Sturdee
Additional direction: Richard Armstrong
Originally created slides: Marlene Milne
With thanks to Vinie Glass
Intermission (5 minutes)
Minerva's Web (1985)
Stephen Scott
Colorado College New Music Ensemble
*world premiere
Stage Manager/Lighting: Ian Fillingham
Sound technician: Clive Perry
School matinee: Karen Jensen, Richard Wedgewood
GroundSwell gratefullly acknowledges the financial support of
The Manitoba Arts Council and The Canada Council
Yamaha is the official piano of GroundSwell
Special thanks to Terry Smythe for providing the
1935 Steck Ampico Grand Piano
Program Notes
Study # 12 by Conlon Nancarrow is strongly Spanish in character. One hears flamenco guitars, and that wonderfully
intense singing that is associated with flamenco dancing.
These basic elements are extended, amplified, and elaborated
far beyond the ordinary boundaries of the flamenco style.
(paraphrased from notes by James Tenney, Wergo Records)
Study # 21 by Conlon Nancarrow is subtitled Canon - "X".
The "X" in the subtitle refers to the graphic image of the
changing tempo-relations between its two voices. The first
voice begins at a relatively slow tempo while the second
begins at a fast tempo. From the beginning to the end of the
piece the tempo of the first voice gradually increases, while
that of the second voice decreases. A little before the halfway point, the tempos of the two voices cross, reversing the
fast slow relationship between them. Nancarrow's harmonicmelodic language becomes more and more difficult to relate
to traditional tonality; thus, more like that of Charles Ives than
of Schoenberg or Webern. (paraphrased from notes by James
Tenney)
Study # 25 by Conlon Nancarrow.The most striking thing
about the sound of this study is the incredibly fast arpeggios
and glissandos which constitute one or more strata in the polyphonic fabric from the very beginning of the piece. These
linear aggregates are given much greater prominence than in
124
those earlier Studies, and they occur in several different
forms: (1) major triads, arpeggiated through one or several
octaves; (2) diatonic scales; (3) harmonic series sequences; (4)
7th-chord arpeggios; and finally, (5) longer concatenations of
such 7th chords, on successively different scale degrees. Each .,.
of these forms has a distinctive sonority or "timbre", even ~
though they are all quite similar in their general effect. Study
# 25 also marks the only extensive use, within the series of
Studies, of the sustaining pedal.
Music For Player Piano (1964) by James Tenney was composed during his last year at the Bell Laboratories. The computer was used in the composition process as in computer
sound-synthesis works of the same period (e.g. Phases,
Ergodos II ); that is, a stochastic process was organized into
temporal gestalt-units at several holarchicallevels. The work
as a whole exploits the fact that the same piano-roll can be
read by the player mechanism in four different ways- backward, forward, and "inverted"- so that one hears here the same
one-minute segment in all four of its "serial" forms: original
or "prime", retrograde inversion, inversion, and retrograde, in
that order.
About the Composers
Conlon Nancarrow
Born in 1912 in Arkansas, Conlon Nancarrow studied music
in Cincinatti, and later in Boston with Nicolas Slonimsky,
Walter Piston, and Roger Sessions. As an instrumentalist, he
played jazz trumpet. Among his music idols are not only Igor
Stravinsky but Louis Armstrong, Earl "Fatha" Hines, and
Bessie Smith. In 1937, Nancarrow joined the Abraham
Lincoln Brigade in Spain where he participated in the fight
against the fascist Franco Government. In 1939, upon returning to the United States, he underwent political harassment
from the federal govemment and in 1940 he relocated to
Mexico City, where he has resided ever since. Nancarrow's
relative isolation in Mexico, until 1981 when he travelled to
San Francisco for a New Music America Festival concert in
his honor, now seems to be thoroughly broken.
(Charles Amerikhanian, Wergo Records)
James Tenney
Born in New Mexico, Mr. Tenney received his early training
as a pianist and composer in Arizona and Colorado. He
attended the University of Denver, the Julliard School of
Music, Bennington College, and the University of lllinois. A
performer as well as a composer and theorist, he was
cofounder"and conductor of the Tone Roads Chamber
Ensemble in New York City (1963-70). He has long been
active in the field of electronic music, working with Max
Mathews and others at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in the
early sixties to develop programs for computer sound generation and composition. He has written works for a variety of
media, both instumental and electronic, many of them using
alternate tuning systems. An author of numerous articles and
two books, Mr. Tenney has received numerous prestigious
awards and grants. He has taught at the Polytechnic Institute
of Brooklyn, California Institute of the Arts, and the
University of California. He is currently Professor of Music
at York University in Toronto.
I
'?
CONCERT REVIEW
Uptown, Winnipeg's Entertainment and Lifestyles
.. _Magazines, Apr. 29-May 13, 1993 Vol. 7 Issue 11
.; Old Style Piano Not Forgotten
Smythe found his first instrument by placing ads in rural newspapers. While waiting for the first one to be delivered he heard of
another up for sale in Lac du Bonnet. Through digging, trading, buying and contacts made in his association with the Automatic Music
Instr~ments Collectors Association (he was international president
for eight years), he estimates a good 10 years of restoration ahead of
him.
Fortunately, he has a way with machines.
By Randal Mcilroy
Years before synthesizers and sequencers enabled composers to
create patterns miles beyond the human limitations of real-time playing, an American named Conlon Nancarrow was training player
pianos to do the impossible.
Working in Mexico, having exiled himself during the McCarthy
witchhunt, Nancarrow composed piano rolls designed to celebrate the
mechanical instrument as a musical machine, capable of multiple
simultaneous octaves, dizzying runs and punishing rhythms.
Interestingly, Conlon Nancarrow doesn't play piano.
Winnipegger Terry Smythe doesn't find that strange, though. After
all, Smythe's passion is collecting pianos he can't play. They play for
him.
One of Smythe's instruments took center stage April 22 at the
Winnipeg Art Gallery for GroundSwell's Nuts and Bolts, performance of Nancarrow works. The concert also included live piano
playing, although with a program completed by Diana Mclntosh and
the Colorado College New Music Ensemble (the latter played bowed
piano) conventional may not be the operative word.
By day the general manager for provincial Highways and
Transportation Taxicab Board, Smythe has been collecting player
pianos and other mechanical instruments since 1969, when he first
heard the instrument known formally as the reproducing grand piano.
"The terms reproducing grand piano comes from the instru- ment's ability to faithfully reproduce the expression and intent of the
,) original artists who recorded the original rolls," Smythe explains.
In its heyday, from about 1900-1935, the reproducing piano was
a luxurious home entertainment piece. It was also an antecedent of
sorts to the personal tape recorder, in that the punched-paper rolls
relayed not only the original pianist's notes and spaces but also the
inflections. Master rolls still exist of composers such as Grieg and
"It helps if people who own these kinds of pianos have some
natural technical skills as well as natural music skills. It's a relatively
rare combination."
It's getting harder to find the instruments. Smythe estimates
about 10,000 were produced and that no more than 2,000 have survived. Most are in private collections. Despite a growing awareness
of the rarity of the instruments, some reproducing pianos still find
their way into the hands of unsuspecting piano dealers who, finding
them difficult to sell, remove the reproductive workings.
"The mechanism is lost forever and that piano becomes another
casualty."
His instruments don't appear in public as often as they once did
- "People have all but forgotten that the collection exists, but I've
never refused an appropriate appeal for the use of the instruments" but they're kept in shape. Nancarrow's music makes especially high
demands.
"The instrument has to be in flawless operating condition,
because the rolls place such heavy functional demands on the mechanism. You may have 15,20,30 notes down all at once and you can
have simultaneous runs going up and down. The physical demands
are awesome."
Smythe even met the reclusive composer a few years ago in San
Francisco -"A very interesting fellow," he recalls. Now in his eighties, Nancarrow has been composing and punching piano rolls since
1948, and many of his several hundred rolls have yet to be reproduced. And while Nancarrow is a trained composer (and formerly a
professional trumpet player) his work still bypasses the piano keyboard.
"I don't play piano either," Smythe says with a shrug. "That
doesn't prevent me from enjoying it."
--------_._-------------------------------------Winnipeg Free Press,
Saturday, April 24, 1993
By James Manlshen Free Press Correspondent
An intriguing mix of Nuts and Bolts from
GroundSwell
GROUNDSWELL, an aggregation of several small avant-garde
musical ensembles, has always asked its audiences to be adventuresome in their listening habits.
In presenting the Colorado College New Music Ensemble, the
world's only professional bowed-piano ensemble, plus some striking
pieces for player piano and the premiere of a multi-media work by
Winnipeg composer Diana Mclntosh, GroundSwell served up an
intriguing mix of sounds for the piano Thursday to a regrettably small
audience.
Entitled Nuts and Bolts, this concert only contained about five
minutes where the piano keys were actually struck by human hands.
The rest consisted of frequently fascinating, though musically variable timbres produced from inside and underneath the piano.
For those to whom infatuation with novel sounds can sustain an
evening, this concert hit the mark nicely. But for those who must
,/ have a more involving, symphonically-argued musical journey, this
concert showed that the medium is not always the message.
The Colorado group, under the direction of Stephen Scott, goes
about its work with hair-trigger precision and dead seriousness.
'A
Gershwin performing their own music.
Using strands of rosined nylon drawn under the piano strings, the tenplayers dressed in black dart allover the place in fluent choreography
producing a decidedly un-pianistic, often very beautiful string tone.
With the players standing over the open piano, the scene resembled an operating table where some extra-terrestrial was being
sutured, such was the disembodied nature of the sounds.
But the two Scott pieces they played were of variable musical
invention, mainly repetitive minimalist trappings of not very interesting ideas.
Another story
Conlon Nancarrow's music for player piano was quite another
story, for here was music composed specifically for the player piano
to allow one to hear things a live performer couldn't do, namely play
more notes in less time than humanly possible.
A 1935 Ampico grand was lent to GroundSwell by Terry
Smythe for this concert, and Nancarrow's music was both ravishing
in its sonority and satisfying in its harmonic and dramatic structure.
Mclntosh's new work, titled Murkings, received its premiere. It
was set to a Canadian environmental poem by Paul Dutton and performed by McIntosh herself. Supported by evocative slides and
clever lighting, Murkings showed a comfortable handling of the
tricky multi-media technique. Though, again, it was of limited musical interest.
It came off reasonably well, despite some echo effects that outstayed their welcome. Mclntosh delivered like a trouper.
125
PLAYER-PIANO CONCERT AT THE LUDWIG HUPFELD FACTORY!
Wolfgang Heisig Interprets CONTEMPORARY MUSIC Rolls
Using An 88-Note "Hupfeld Phonola" Console Player
The photograph shows Composer and "Phonolist"
(Pianolist) Wolfgang Heisig of East Germany performing his
own - plus a few ARTCRAFT music rolls at the Hupfeld
buildings, for the Leipzig automatic musical instrument group:
Gasellschaft fuer Selbatspielende Musikinstrumente. This
concert took place on September 19, 1992, and was described
in a recent letter translated by Danilo Konvalinka of the
Musical Wonder House in Wiscasset, Maine. The Phonola is
shown in connection with a Hamburg-Steinway Model B
grand piano. A packet of other Phonola concert brochures was
included with the photograph, among them a performance at
The Goethe Institute in Berlin on July 7, 1992, featuring
Heisig's latest music roll compositions. An elaborate brochure
for the 1992 premiere of a Phonola composition entitled
CAGE-FACE (along with other John Cage pieces) dates from
October at the Dresden Center for Contemporary Music. A
lengthy article from the November 1992 issue of Positionen
magazine published in Berlin (not yet translated!) gives a
detailed profile of Wolfgang Heisig and his work in the "new
music" field, with a special emphasis on his music rolls for the
Phonola performances.
126
ARTCRAFT Music Rolls of George Gershwin's THREE
PRELUDES and most recently Balcom & Albright's BRASS
KNUCKLES RAG have been included in Herr Heisig's presentations. Of the latter, he writes on April 7, 1993: "Your
work is very interesting and technically so different from what
we have here. BRASS KNUCKLES held the audience in complete awe when they heard the roll!"
The German Composer-Phonolist has many other activities in progress, including a music roll composition entitled
HYMN TO JEAN GENET by Christian Muench, described as
a young Dresden Composer at the Semper-Opera in that city.
Another Heisig project (scheduled for June 1993) is an original work for the Weber Maesto orchestrion! On May 19 he
will premiere in Munich a SEPTETTE by Cornelius Hirsch for
"mechanical Klavier" (the Phonola).
Wolfgang Heisig is part of the European Renaissance of
the Pianola, in which the horizons of the instrument are being -y
expanded through the medium of experimentation and the cre- ....
ation of new music rolls.
TECH TIPS
DUO-ART ACCORDION PNEUMATICS
Functional Aspects and Adjustment Criteria
by David L. Saul
The Duo-Art reproducing piano's dynamic response depends
to a large extent on performance characteristics (or idiosyncrasies, if you will) of its expression regulators. The lessthan-ideal capacity of these venerable components to maintain
set levels of pneumatic tension under conditions of changing
demand was lovingly accommodated by Aeolian music roll
editors, who simply adjusted the expression coding until the
music came out right. In practical terms, this meant increasing
theme and/or accompaniment power as needed to maintain a
desired loudness level when larger numbers of notes were
struck, and lowering power levels as needed when fewer notes
were played. A Duo-Art piano's dynamic response further
depends on interaction of theme and accompaniment regulators with the expression box spill, residual leakage, pedal
operation, and many other system factors. To assure uniformity, Aeolian produced test rolls (several different editions of
I - which are extant) in which dynamic response was quantified
'"-i"'"1 in terms of note counts, pedal operation, and power levels
applied. When all factory instructions are carefully followed,
the test roll serves as an indispensable tool for achieving musically satisfying results from a Duo-Art piano. If accordion
pneumatics are not adjusted to factory specifications, however,
test roll results may become misleading and possibly fail to
yield an accurate appraisal of a Duo-Art's playing condition.
Reasons for this will become clear as this article's contents are
read and understood.
All expression components must function perfectly and work
together as a whole if the highest artistic potential of the DuoArt is to be realized. This article deals specifically with the
accordion pneumatics, and how their adjustment (or misadjustment) affects dynamic response. Hopefully the information presented here will help to clarify topics that tend by
nature to be somewhat obscure. Careful study confirms that a
sound technical basis exists for always keeping accordion
travel ~xactly as specified in service publications.
Aeolian's explicitly stated and often repeated numbers for
accordion travel remained unchanged in service publications
throughout the Duo-Art's production lifetime. In spite of this,
advice touting "improved" accordion adjustment for alleged
performance optimization (usually by forcing test roll results
- ~ during chord tests) continues to be propagated within today's
JDuo-Art community. Factory instructions (in contrast to more
recent publications) offer no suggestion that accordion travel
might at some point have been customized to accommodate
individual piano characteristics, or that accordion adjustments
were fair game for "polishing" performance or coaxing test
roll results into compliance. Such fanciful extrapolations are,
in fact, on very shaky ground from a technical point of view.
(Evidence suggests that theme and accompaniment regulator
springs were the items more likely to have been factory-selected for matching the characteristics of individual pianos,
accounting at least in part for today's plethora of subtly different regulator springs.)
Regarding the accordion pneumatics, all editions of the DuoArt service manual clearly state the following:
l.
The four respective sections collapse 1116", 118",
1/4", and 112", and
2.
Factory settings should not be changed.
In his 1929 Duo-Art treatise published in The Tuner's Journal.
Wilberton Gould reiterates the ubiquitous caveat about leaving
the factory settings undisturbed, and then goes on to declare
that accordion pneumatics " ...should be adjusted only by a set
of accurate gauge blocks that are made for that purpose. "
The times and circumstances of that treatise strongly .suggest
that Mr. Gould was describing the method of adjustment preferred and used by Aeolian.
The factory's use of precision gauge blocks for adjusting
accordion pneumatics would have made sense in many ways.
Gauge block adjustments in general tend to be accurate and
consistent. Such a method would always result in identical
travel for each pneumatic section at all three adjusting screw
locations, an important consideration in eliminating wobbles
and unsteady motion during operation. The adjusting procedure would have been quick and easy to learn, and skill
requirements would have been minimal. Factors such as these
would be especially significant in a production situation.
The accordion pneumatics for both theme and accompaniment
regulation are constructed identically. The same operating
principles apply to both. Each has four collapsible sections of
unequal size, corresponding to the I, 2, 4, and 8 power levels
of the tracks that activate them. Taken as a unit (ignoring connecting linkages for now), each accordion pneumatic is
designed to produce linear motion (i.e., motion in a straight
line), the extent of which can be varied by collapsing its
respective sections in various combinations. This linear
motion is additive, which means that total travel is the sum of
the combined travel of the individual collapsed sections. The
values of 1,2,4, and 8 assigned to each set of dynamic coding
127
tracks are recognizable as powers of two, with each number
double the one before. They can be written as 20= I, 2 1=2,
All Duo-Art test roll editions contain chord tests to check
dynamic buildup for both theme and accompaniment. The
chord tests utilize "play" followed by "no-play" (or play very
softly) sequences of chords as quantitative checks of dynamic
buildup at power levels 0, I, 2, and 4. This places them in the
dynamic scale's lower region, where interactions between note!
counts and power levels are most critical. Level 3, however,
is not explicitly checked, possibly because it is reached by
collapsing 1 and 2 together, and each of those is checked separately. (The logic of implicity checking level 3 in this manner, as will be shown, is jeopardized if the intended powersof-two travel relationship is not preserved.)
22=4, and 2 3=8, respectively. Note that accordion motion
occurs in increments directly proportional to powers of two.
These increments are measured in multiples of a sixteenth of
an inch. With each section traveling exactly double the one
before, properly adjusted accordion pneumatics move in direct
proportion to the powers-of-two weighting (i.e., 1-2-4-8) of
their respective dynamic tracks. The Duo-Art implementation
comprises basic elements of a binary-coded digital system, up
to the mechanical interface with the respective theme and
accompaniment regulators (which are, of course, analog
devices).
Note counts and pedaling vary somewhat for chord tests found
in various test roll editions, but they all work basically the
same way. Further test roll sequences strike chords that repeat
at several ascending power levels, but these can accomplish
little beyond confirming that each successive chord sounds
louder than the one before.
Accordion pneumatics perform the critical function of translating the music rolls coded theme and accompaniment levels
into mechanical motion, which, in turn, positions the knife
valve heels of the respective regulators. Sixteen discrete positions (including the zero position) can be reached by each of
the accordions, with total travel extending to 15116". (Note
that in-between positions are passed through "on the fly", and
examples can be found in music roll coding in which inbetween positions are accessed for subtle expression purposes;
the sixteen positions, however, provide repeatable reference
levels at closely spaced intervals.) Duo-Art service literature
variously refers to the sixteen positions as loudness degrees,
loudness gradations or dynamic gradations, and these are
enumerated from through 15. They are also less formally
referred to as power levels or loudness steps.
Accordion settings can be altered to force a change in dynamic response at a particular power level, but this tends to cause
problems at other power levels and distort the overall shape of
the buildup curve. Power levels adversely impacted often turn
out to be those not explicitly checked by the test roll. How
out-of-spec adjustments can lead to insidious irregularities can
be appreciated by considering the following: When you elect
to change the travel of anyone of an accordion pneumatics
four sections, you are changing not just one power level, but
eight of them. Each of an accordions sections reaches a collapsed state in exactly half of the total of 16 possible combinations, and remains open in the other half. These, as well as
the correct travel adjustments, are documented on page 6 of
the 1925 Duo-Art service manual in the "Pressure Chart
Showing Graduation Adjustments for Correct Settings".
There is a similar chart on page 16 of the 1927 Duo Art service manual.
°
Motion applied by each accordion pneumatic to its associated
knife valve heel undergoes non-linear mechanical transformation in the connecting linkage. Beyond that point, further system non-linearity influences pneumatic tension and the loudness of struck notes. Clearly, however, under controlled test
conditions, loudness should build up evenly, as opposed to
having abruptly large jumps between some steps, and little or
no change (or change in the wrong direction) between others.
SECTION
Graphic plots are useful for revealing exactly what happens
over the full range of travel when an accordions adjustments
ADJUSTED TO:
DUO-ART ACCORDION
TRAVEL
0.0625
2
0.125
4
0.25
c
::
Gl
g
~
0.5
8
i5
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0
NOTE:
All distances are
in inches.
NORMAL DUO-ART
128
N
q-
10
r
co
... ... ...
0
Loudness Degree
N
q-
DEGREE
DISPLACEMENT
STEP SIZE
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
0
0.0625
0.125
0.1875
0.25
0.3125
0.375
0.4375
0.5
0.5625
0 ..625
0.6875
0.75
0.8125
0.875
0.9375
0.0625
0.0625
0.0625
0.0625
0.0625
0.0625
0.0625
0.0625
0.0625
0.0625
0.0625
0.0625
0.0625
0.0625
0.0625
L?
TOTAL DISPLACEMENT:
0.9375
Factory value: 0.9375
FIGURE 1
----
--.
-----------------~--------_._-
SECTION
---- - - - - - - - -
-------~
ADJUSTED TO:
DUO-ART ACCORDION
TRAVEL
0.0625
..J
2
0.093
4
0.25
:§
I)
u
c::
..
III
en
8
0.5
is
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0
NOTE:
N
o:t
co
ex:>
0
o:t
Loudness Degree
All distances are
in inches.
are changed. The first plot presented here was done with the
factory recommended settings. This is followed by examples
in which selected pneumatic sections were set to values deviating from factory recommendations. Settings were selected
as might result from attempts to bring a test roll's chord tests
into compliance. To make these plots. an accordion pneumatics travel behavior was modeled in Microsoft Excel. which is
able to produce a new plot automatically each time an adjustment is changed. When this application is running on a computer. results for all sixteen positions are instantly displayed
, whenever a data entry (representing an adjustment change) is
-0('" revised in the "ADJUSTED TO" column. The numbers in the
column labeled "TOTAL TRAVEL" indicate linear displacement at each of the loudness gradations. These become ordinate values in the corresponding plots. The STEP SIZE column shows incremental changes between adjacent levels or
gradations.
(See Figure I)
Now let's create a hypothetical situation. Assume that the test
roll is running a play. no-play chord test at power level 2 (this
could be either accompaniment or theme). and both sets of
chords. play and no-play. are playing distinctly. To counter
this. we reduce the travel of the power 2 (second) accordion
section by 1/32". That's one full turn of each adjusting screw.
Figure 2 shows the result. Although the test roll result now
suggests that chords are behaving as desired at power 2. the
overall response curve has taken on a serpentine shape. (Any
resemblance to the critter that sank its fangs into our music
DUO-ART ACCORDION
TRAVEL
0.0625
4
0.21
0.9
0.8
0.7
:§ 0.6
8
0.5
I)
u
..
0.5
16 0.4
c3 0.3
0.2
0.1
o
o
NOTE:
All distances are
in inches.
SECTIONS TWO AND FOUR SHORTENED
N
co
0.0625
0.0305
0.0625
0.0945
0.0625
0.0305
0.0625
0.0945
0.0625
0.0305
0.0625
0.0945
0.0625
0.0305
0.0625
0.9055
TOTAL DISPLACEMENT:
Factory value: 0.9375
ADJUSTED TO:
0.093
STEP SIZE
Figure I plots the behavior of a normal accordion pneumatic.
with travel of all four sections set to factory specified values.
Note that the resulting plot is smooth and linear. Each incremental step is the same size as all the others. This is the way
an accordion pneumatic should work.
Readers may notice that certain decimal fractions shown with
these plots display a greater number of significant places than
practical conditions might suggest. This is a result of convert-
2
DISPLACEMENT
0
0.0625
0.093
0.1555
0.25
0.3125
0.343
0.4055
0.5
0.5625
0.593
0.6555
0.75
0.8125
0.843
0.9055
FIGURE 2
ing proper fractions (as given in Aeolian service literature) to
decimal form without rounding off. and is not intended as a
measure of accuracy or adjustment precision.
SECTION TWO SHORTENED
SECTION
N
DEGREE
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
ex:>
0
Loudness Degree
N
o:t
DEGREE
DISPLACEMENT
o
o
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
0.0625
0.093
0.1555
0.21
0.2725
0.303
0.3655
0.5
0.5625
0.593
0.6555
0.71
0.7725
0.803
0.8655
STEP SIZE
0.0625
0.0305
0.0625
0.0545
0.0625
0.0305
0.0625
0.1345
0.0625
0.0305
0.0625
0.0545
0.0625
0.0305
0.0625
0.8655
TOTAL DISPLACEMENT:
Factory value: 0.9375
FIGURE 3
129
SECTION
ADJUSTED TO:
DUO-ART ACCORDION
TRAVEL
0.0625
2
0.125
4
0.175
8
0.5
0.9
0.8
0.7
~ 0.6
"';; 0.5
u
lii
~
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0
N
~
<0
ClO
0
N
~
DEGREE
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
DISPLACEMENT
0
0.0625
0.125
0.1875
0.175
0.2375
0.3
0.3625
0.5
0.5625
0.625
0.6875
0.675
0.7375
0.8
0.8625
STEP SIZE
0.0625
0.0625
0.0625
-0.0125
0.0625
0.0625
0.0625
0.1375
0.0625
0.0625
0.0625
-0.0125
0.0625
0.0625
0.0625
~
NOTE:
All distances are
in inches.
Loudness Degree
SECTION FOUR SHORTENED BY 30%
rolls i's purely coincidental!) Serpent or no, notice that power
level 4 remains unaffected by the adjustment performed thus
far.
(See Figure 2)
Moving ahead to the next chord test at power level 4, it's as
likely as not that we'll again hear both sets of chords playing
distinctly when the second should be a no-play. To appease
the test roll at this point, we trim the accordions power 4 section by 16%, or 0.040", thereby reducing that section's travel
from 0.250" to 0.210". This takes about one-and-a-quarter
turns of each power 4 adjusting screw. Once again, the test roll
is successfully faked out. Two of the four accordion sections
are now mis-adjusted, and figure 3 shows the overall result.
(See Figure 3)
There's an obvious hump in the curve, and one step has
become excessively large. The level change from 7 to 8 is
more than four times as large as the step from 5 to 6. Dynamic
buildup has acquired some serious irregularities, although test
roll results appear again to have improved. Why? Simply
because the test roll doesn't check for conditions caused by
cheating! It's much like fiddling with a bathroom scale's zero
adjustment when you're weighing yourself. You can trim off
or add pounds as you like, but you can believe the indicated
result at your own risk!
Further mis-adjustment can actually cause changes in the
wrong direction, with power decreasing on advancing steps.
Figure 4 shows the result of shortening the power 4 pneumatic
sections travel by 30%, with the other three normal.
(See Figure 4)
Notice that loudness degree 4 is lower than 3, and 12 is lower
than 11. In the middle part of the loudness range, a large jump
upward occurs between 7 and 8. If this particular adjustment
had been done to fake out a chord test at power 4, it would
leave power 3 (which, as mentioned earlier, is not explicitly
checked by the test roll) in a too-high condition likely to
wreak selective havoc with musical performances. Sadly, that
condition would remain forever undetected by the test roll, as
130
TOTAL DISPLACEMENT:
0.8625
Factory value: 0.9375
FIGURE 4
would also the disturbing leap in power from 7 to 8, and the
11 to 12 intensity drop.
Another side effect of tampering with accordion adjustment is
changing the total extent of travel, which is nominally 15\16"
with all sections collapsed. This is a factor in determining
achievable dynamic range. Caution: don't try decreasing travel in one pneumatic section to offset increasing in another, or
vice versa. This only worsens the response curve's irregularities.
Changes from factory recommended settings also tend to dis- ~1
rupt the relationship of theme to accompaniment (i.e., theme ~
always one degree above accompaniment). With accompaniment following one sinuous buildup curve and theme another,
the two will be prevented from maintaining a consistent relationship over the full dynamic range.
From a listener's point of view, effects of tampering with
accordion adjustments are usually more subtle than dramatic,
but they are very pernicious nevertheless. The Duo-Art's
dynamic levels are many in number and closely spaced, and
musical dynamics undergo continual and often complex
changes. As a result, uneven buildup may not be directly
noticed as such during play. The human ear is more likely to
respond to uneven dynamic buildup by interpreting musical
performances as mechanical sounding, poorly edited or performed, or otherwise lacking in artistic quality. Dynamic
anomalies often affect certain rolls more than others, and it's
anyone's guess how many artists and music roll editors have
been erroneously blamed for problems caused by "customized" accordion adjustments.
What should one do, then, if one's Duo-Art stubbornly fails
chord tests when its accordion pneumatics are set to factory
recommended travel? First of all, make sure the tempo is set
accurately, and follow the test roll instructions carefully. A
visual check of accordion operation may be helpful. Get
under the piano with a good light, and watch the accordions in
operation to make sure they do exactly what they are supposed
to do. Having an assistant at the controls to repeat desired sections of the test roll can be very helpful at this point. Does
_--r
each pneumatic section respond independently of the others?
Do one or more sections respond slowly, possibly indicating
leakage or valve problems? Do both accordions consistently
return to their respective zero positions when released from
_various states of collapse? Does the spill valve actuating lever
-..../impede accordion travel to a noticeable extent? Does the manual control linkage interfere during normal DuoArt operation?
Are both accordions able to complete their full travel unimpeded? A useful technique for further checking is to stop the
roll with blank paper on the tracker bar and pull off tracker bar
tubes at the accordion valve box. (Be sure to label these in
advance if you remove more than one tube at a time!) You can
step an accordion through its full count by removing and
replacing tubes in various combinations. Be objective. If
something is wrong at this level, the piano is never going to
play well until the problem is fixed.
If the piano action is well regulated, Duo-Art components are
problem free, and theme and accompaniment zero levels can
be set to maintain their state of adjustment without undue difficulty, one available avenue would be to try a small change
of the theme and/or regulator spring tension. The service
manual allows this, within prudent limits; and it can make a
difference. Tightening up a regulator spring just a bit and
subsequently resetting the zero level causes the knife valve to
seek a new zero position, from which the buildup characteristics may be more favorable. Remember, too, that chord test
instructions indicate that certain sequences should "not play or
barely play". Overzealous individuals sometimes ignore the
second part of that instruction. Read the instructions carefully. Hearing some notes play very softly does not necessarily
.•••/ signify test failure! Hearing all of them play at mezzo forte, of
course, is another matter. Soft and loud are subjective, but
why not? Music itself is subjective, as are Duo-Art loudness
degrees. Try to use reasonable and prudent judgment.
One or both expression regulator springs may need replacement because of stretching beyond elastic limits at some time
in the past, change or loss of elasticity for any reason, or even
degradation caused by electroplating during restoration.
(Some plating processes tend to ruin springs.) If one of the
springs is made of thicker wire or is stronger than the other,
make sure the stronger one is installed on the theme side.
Regulator springs can be a serious problem for Duo-Arts. If
replacements are needed, the best procedure in this day and
age seems to be to try to find a pair of originals that work well
in your piano. If that isn't practical, you may be able to borrow a good pair and have a spring shop duplicate them for
you.
In grand Duo-Arts, re-positioning the linkage that transfers
motion from each accordion pneumatic to its respective knife
valve arm can change the mechanical transfer characteristic to
the knife valve heel, and this may help in obtaining a better
dynamic buildup. This technique has been mentioned by
Chester Kuharski in at least one technicalities article, and by
this writer at the 1972 AMICA convention in Los Angeles.
Other factors, such as residual leakage (a proper amount of
which is expected in a normally operating Duo-Art), condition
of components, correct pump speed, possible binding of manual control linkage, tension on the accordion pneumatic return
springs, and many, many more such items can influence
results obtained. Check all of these things to the best of your
ability. But to insure top results, set all accordion adjustments
correctly, if they aren't already, and once they are right, leave
them alone, as the Service manual instructs.
For the sake of completeness, readers should be aware that
accordion travel can be reduced or increased without loss of
linearity if the powers-of-two relationship is strictly maintained, i.e., each section's travel after the smallest must be
exactly double its predecessor. For example, settings of .05",
. I", .2", and .4" would yield a linear build up curve, but total
travel would be only .750". This would perhaps be less harmful to a Duo-Art's response than certain other pitfall-ridden
schemes that have found their way into practice, but dynamic
range would be curtailed. Greater than standard travel should
be avoided because of the possibility of exceeding the normal
operating range of the knife valve and its connecting linkage.
Abiding by documented factory settings remains the best and
safest course to follow, and is the recommended course of
action.
Perfect accordion pneumatics will, of course, never make a
Duo-Art outshine it's peers as long as other parts remain in
need of attention. But the accordions are critically important,
and results made possible by putting them in good working
order and keeping them in proper adjustment will be an
important step toward a better Duo-Art.
ADDITIONAL PIANO ROLLS OF PAYNE BISHOP'S COMPOSITION, HOME, HOME SWEET HOME
J
Emmett M. Ford
Charles D. Smith considerately mentions my article and roll review of the piano rolls of John Howard Payne's "Home,
Home Sweet Home", in the March/April 1993 AMICA News Bulletin. My neglect, which I apologize, was not listing other
piano rolls of this composition, that is the Welte and Welte-Mignon.
Not having a piano with Welte or Welte-Mignon, I didn't give thought to rolls of this composition.
Mr. Smith called my attention to the following piano rolls of Welte-Mignon. Pianist Angelo Patricolo (Gottschalk's paraphrase) C-7142: Edward Brightwell recorded Variations Op. 72 (arranged by Thalberg) No B-1534. Harry Perrela made roll C7741 with a series of other songs labeled "Gift Selection of Heart Songs."
131
Piano Company Lightens Tune in Timber Town
Hoquiam, Washington - From: Christian Science Monitor, March 10, 1993
Sent in by Alf Werolin
With a degree in forestry from Washington State
University and millions of acres of forests in the Pacific
Northwest, Greg Weist fully expected to have a long career
in his chosen profession. He specialized as a log scaler, the
expert who figures out how many board feet of lumber can
be produced from a truck full of logs, so that buyer and seIler can settle on a fair price.
~-
But with reductions in logging due to environmental
restraints and the general decline in the timber industry, he
was working less and less. "It got to the point where I was
laid off more than I was on," he recalls. It was a tough spot
for a young family man with two children. That was about
three years ago, when Mr. Weist obtained financial aid from
the state and enrolled at Grays Harbor Community College
in carpentry and cabinetry courses.
Greg West: Former Jog scaler finds 'certainly
rewarding work' building high-tech pianos.
belonged to the Port of Grays Harbor, and an attractive lease.
The state of Washington paid half of Weist's salary for his
first three months of training.
As it happened, his new skills were just what Del and
Barbara Fandrich were looking for a year ago, and they hired
him as the first employee of their new piano-manufacturing
company. Now, he is enjoying what he calls "certainly
rewarding work."
"There's something about building pianos that catches
the imagination," he says, taking a break from the drill press
where he is working on internal parts made of Olympic
Peninsula spruce.
"We're delighted with him, just delighted," says Del
Fandrich, who used to be head of research and development
for the Baldwin Piano & Organ Company.
The Fandrich Piano Company is just what this economically depressed area is looking for: a new company that will
put local people to work in a manufacturing operation that
has high potential for growth. That it adds value to local timber more often shipped abroad as raw logs is a bonus.
The Fandrich upright piano, which has been in production for about a year, is getting rave reviews from experts
around the world. Its patented action led Piano Quarterly to
call it "the greatest single technological advancement in the
development of the vertical piano in more than a century ...
the first vertical ever produced that truly functions as a grand
piano."
"We certainly can't replace logging in the area, but we
can make a dent," Weist says. "And we can set an example
for other industries."
••••••••••••••••••••••••
•
• ~~Pr6~~Pr6~~'
• ~ AMICA ITEMS FOR SALE ~
•
•
•
•
•
•
• ~
~
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
~
•
•
~
•
• ~
•
••
~
•
•
•• ~~~~~~~~~~
~
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~u
The company and its nine employees are now completing four to six upright pianos a month, but would like to
raise that to one a day by the end of the year. Also, queries
and even deposits already are coming in for the Fandrich
grand piano, which is still in the design phase and will not be
produced for several more years.
Barbara Fandrich, the company general manager, says
they plan to develop training programs at local high schools
and the community college to prepare piano craftsmen.
Eventually, they hope to employ 200 people. Local officials
wooed the couple with remodeled warehouse space, which
132
~
~
~
~
~
~
AMICA BULLETINS, BOUND ISSUES: 1971, 1972,
1973 bound Bulletins at $15 each. 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977.
1978,1979, 1980 bound Bulletins at $18 each. 1981, 1982,1983
bound Bullelins at $21 each. 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, and 1988
bound Bulletins at $24 each. PRICES INCLUDE POSTAGE
AND HANDLING. Spiral bound to lie nat. Send order to Mary
Lilien, 4260 Olympiad Dr., los Angles. CA 90043.
AMICA TECHNICALITIES BOOKS:
Volume I
_
:. .
(1969·1971), $9.50 postpaid
Volume II
(1972·1974), $7.50 postpaid
Volume 1/1
" .•..•... (1975·1977), $8.50 postpaid
Volume IV
_. . . . . .
(1978·1980), $6.50 postpaid
Volume V . . . . .. . . .
(1981·1988), $20.00 postpaid
Reprints of interesting technical articles which have appeared in
the AMICA News Bulletin. arranged and indexed into appropriate
categories. Brian Meeder. 904A West Victoria St.. Santa
Barbara. CA 93101.
~
~
~
~
~
.,,~
~
~u
Roll Leaders: Duo-Art. AMPICO and Welte: Excellent rePlicas.~
~
For order form. see mailing cover of Bulletin or write to Brian
Meeder. 904A West Victoria 51.. Santa Barbara. CA 93101.
AMICA STATIONERY: $3.50 (Ieller size). $3.20 (note size),
including mailing charges. Fine quality stationery with ornate
AMICA borders. Each packet contains 25 lellers and matching
envelopes. Send orders to Tim Passinault, 105 Hemlock St.,
Munising, MI 49862.
AMICA STERLING SILVER PINS: $8.00 each, postpaid.
Very allractlve on your lapel or dress. Send orders to Tim
Passinault, 105 Hemlock St., Munising, MI 49862.
Please make ALL CHECKS payable to
AMICA INTERNATIONAL
~
~-
~
~
~
NE-W-S FROM THE CHAPTERS
OUf April meeting was at Bob and Barbara Whiteley's
home and country garden on a hillside in San Rafael.
Barbara is ready to serve coffee from her "Mae West"
percolator. We had lunch in the garden and Barbara gave us
plant cuttings for our own gardens. Her maple trees were prolific this year, and the chapter helped her weed her garden as
they dug up saplings to take home.
The Chicago Area Chapter held its 1992 spring meeting
at the restored turn-of-the-century home of Dave and Toni
Ramey. Guests were invited to listen to the Seeburg orchestrion upstairs or to wander through Dave's restoration workshop
to see and hear other instruments. The "light refreshments"
promised in the invitation were an unending succession of
delicious hors d'oeuvres provided by Toni Ramey and her
daughters.
Barbara's friends played some snappy ragtime and Bach
for us.
Dave Ramey serves as chaperone in his workshop.
L-R Barbara Ward, Barbara Whiteley, Iris Mumford,
Mitzi Erickson, Jackie Palmer
Exploration.
Barbara Whiteley and "Mae West"
A bare two weeks after hosting the AMICA Annual
Meeting, the chapter gathered at the second band organ rally
hosted by Blackberry Farm, an outdoor museum of pioneer
buildings. A brief business meeting was held in a nineteenth
century one-room schoolhouse, after which members were
free to explore the grounds. After the park closed for the day,
members were treated to a fried chicken dinner and boat
cruise on the Fox River.
The Christmas meeting was held at the home, workshop
and showroom of Roger and Carol Dayton, who have converted an old schoolhouse to these purposes. In addition to
133
offering an abundant spread (this chapter appreciates good
food), the Daytons invited us all to listen to orchestrions,
music boxes, and pianos in their home and showroom; to look
for that elusive roll in their inventory; to enjoy the toy trains
set up in one of the bedrooms, or to simply socialize.
'"J
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Christmas party host Roger
Dayton demonstrating the
Photoplayer
-
I
You should see the ones
that got away!
So many choices.
The more the merrier.
Marty Persky calls the meeting to order
(to the tune ofthe hickory stick)
Jerry Biasella and the youngest AM/CAn
Los Kavourases offer an international flavor
to the band organ rally
134
......
A boy at heart
~
SIERRA NEVADA CHAPTER
Reporter: Ed Baehr
Our chapter hit the road for our first meeting in 1993. We
..... Journeyed to San Francisco for a tour of mechanical instruVnents in the Zelinsky Collection at the old historic "Cliff
House" at lands end on Point Lobos.
The program was to have started off with a picnic lunch
by The Carousel in Golden Gate Park. But Mother Nature
intervened with a typical spring Pacific rain storm that poured
buckets all day long.
So the few of us who braved the storm gathered at the
Cliff House for the tour and to meet the present owner and
curator of the "Edward Galland Zelinsky Collection," Daniel
Galland Zelinsky. The world is enriched by men like Edward
Galland Zelinsky - collector, restorer, and preserver of fascinating antique automata... marvelous machines whose only
purpose is to amaze and delight.
His collection includes hundreds of musical and mechanical pleasures that bewitch the eye with their beauty and skill,
some are over a century old, and some so cleverly restored
they seem to be ageless.
Doug and Bob with their heads together.
For your entertainment, he maintains a permanent, rotating exhibit of these fascinating articles from his collection in
the Musee Mecanique at San Francisco's Cliff House.
Whether for a look into the past or just the enjoyment of the
present, the collection will amuse and captivate people of all
ages.
Daniel Galland Zelinsky ... a 5th generation San
Franciscan and a 2nd generation collector. ..oversees the
exhibit, and is a primary force in its expansion.
There is a great deal of history and romance attached to
this location and collection. At this location at Lands End,
Adolph Sutro, who made his fortune on the Comstock Load in
Virginia City, Nevada, in the 1860's, was so enamored with
the Point Lobos area he bought and developed what came to
be known as "Sutro Heights," "Sutro Baths," and the "Cliff
House." The whole area overlooked the vast expanse of the
beautiful Pacific Ocean. The original "Cliff House" and the
second were opulent resort houses for the new wealthy of San
Francisco. Both houses burnt to the ground and the present
"Cliff House" does not come close to emulating the former
structures.
Dan Zalinsky at keyboard of his unrestored"Corona"
in his workshop.
There was one part of this play land that housed a vast
collection of mechanical musical instruments of all descriptions. Unfortunately a fire in 1966 (of suspicious nature)
burned Sutro Baths, the Museum, and also the building that
housed the mechanical instrument collection to the ground.
Miraculously some of the instruments did not perish and Dan
Zelinsky has some of the salvaged instruments playing in his
collection. For any of you AMICA members who visit San
Francisco, a trip to the "Cliff House" and Dan's collection
would certainly be worth while. Too bad for those "Sugar
Plum" members of our chapter who wouldn't brave the rain
storm, they don't know what they missed.
The entire group posing in front of an Orchestrion that came
from the "Wicked" Old Barbary Coast. The lady in the case in
the upper left hand corner of the picture is the "Old Laughing
Lady" rescued when "Whinney's' at the Beach was destroyed.
135
P
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA,
CHAPTER
Reporter: Shirley Nix/or Fra~1k Nix
It was a beautiful day, and the view from their home was
fantastic. Inside, the strains of the lovely music from their
machines filled the air, and everyone had a great time.
February 21 found fifty-some AMICANs traveling to
Fullerton to the lovely home of Lowell and Joanna
Boehland for our regular meeting.
The Seeburg KT, the Weber Unika, the Weber Styria, the
Seeburg F, and juke boxes from various time periods all wov
their spells, and the Mason and Hamlin piano with Ampico
played beautifully, with pieces hand-picked by Lowell. They
were great!
Our host & hostess, Lowell and Joanna Boehland.
Their gracious hospitality made us allfeel at home.
Pat Hange, Brooke Asmundson, Diane Lloyd, & Diane's
mother, Vicki Scott, enjoying the music from the balcony.
Robin Biggins, Bonnie Bottolfson & Rudy Edwards
by the lovely Weber Styria.
Melissa Walker admiring (and who wouldn't)
the Weber Unika.
Terry Bannister, Dave Reidy & Cal Soest having a
discussion by the lovely Mason & Hamlin Ampico.
Gloria Schack lining up volunteers for a mailing party at her
house. Bud and Pat Saiben are the willing couple.
136
In the garage was another surprise! A Photoplayer! What
a fun instrument to listen to. It seems there isn't room for it in
the house, so it will be housed in the garage, where it will play
its happy music. Fortunately, the Boehlands have a three car
garage.
We had a short business meeting, mostly centering on
requests for volunteers for work for the upcoming Convention
here in Southern California. There is a lot to do, and our members are hard at work planning a Convention which will be
one you will remember.
A sad note was that one of our members, Dr. Daniel
Beene, had passed away in November. His parents have his
instruments, and are now members of AMICA.
Lowell and Joanna had enough food to feed an army, and
I must say our AMICA army did a pretty good job of cleaning
up a lot of the delicious food.
Prior to the meeting, the Convention Committee met at
the horne of Dick and Millie Rigg, and plans were flying fast
and furious. As ideas become more than just that, and take
form as concrete plans, it is fun to watch it all take shape. Our
committee meets monthly, and the phones are buzzing in
between the meetings. All this so we can offer you many fun
things when you corne to California for our Convention. You
are corning, aren't you?
The Table Favor Committee has been having work parties
quite often, the last few being at the home of Frank and
Shirley Nix. (We have room in our yard to set up lots of
. tables and all the necessary paraphernalia). The response has
veen good, and we get a lot done at each work party. It is just
one more good reason for everyone to corne to the
Convention. We have a lot of great (we hope) things planned,
and the table favor will astound you!!!!!!
•
•
.MIDWEST CHAPTER ';
Bob Porter Reporting
On April 24 and 25, members of the Midwest Chapter
met in Sandusky, Ohio at Sawmill Creek Resort, on the shores
of Lake Erie. The hotel had a weekend package that gave us
free dinners and brunch. The weekend was coordinated by
Robin Pratt and Bob Porter.
Our first stop Saturday was the Merry-Go-Round
Museum. This is in downtown Sandusky, in the old Post
Office building. We rode a carrousel, enjoyed the band organs
(2), and were treated to a display and lecture on the origins of
the carrousel and carved horses. Some of the horses were truly
fantastic! Did you know that carrousel horses are carved on
only one side..,the side that showed?
-~
From the museum, we walked two blocks to the Follett
"-,,,House, Sandusky's Historical Society, which was built in
1837. We were impressed with the collections and history of
the area. The house is in the midst of wonderful old homes.
137
From there, we walked to the First Presbyterian Church,
where Robin Pratt, the church's organist and Director of
Music, gave us a tour of this 1855 church and demonstrated
the Moller organ and Yamaha Clavinova by playing piano and
organ duets with himself.
secretary, Alvin Wulfekuhl is treasurer and Liz Barnhart
continues as board representative.
During dinner big band type music played, which got many
of us up on the dance floor. Liz Barnhart and Bob Porter
even got to dance a Charleston!
It
.
"
~
(~
,
,~ ..
"
I
Dick and Dixie
Leis announced
that this would be
their last meeting
with our chapter,
as they are moving
to Florida. We will
certainly miss this
active couple.
Paul and Dorothy Hauser, Robin Pratt
Our next meeting
will be in
Indianapolis, July
31 st - August 1st.
Dick and Dixie Leis
Last Meeting with us.
•
•
-~
i
r
Jim Althouse, Dave Von Doster, Bob Elder
,I
MUSIC
DEPT.
-
.Please
I
aOh't
Ka;o
0
~&k~
Our business meeting was Sunday morning, where we
elected new officers.
Bob Porter is the new president,Harold Malakinian is
vice president, Henry Trittipo is reporter, Judy Barnick is
138
--~
ADVERTISING INFORMATION
FOR SALE
CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING: 20¢ per word, $3.00 minimum for members. Non-members may advertise at 40¢ per
word ($6.00 minimum) Because of the low cost of classifieds,
we are unable to provide proof copies.
AEOLIAN PIANOLA PUSH UP PLAYER includes 62 rolls
$1,800. Stroud Duo Art upright (electric) $650. Several different
player uprights $250. to $500. each. Bill Maguire, 159 Dix Hills Rd.,
Huntington Station, N Y 11746.516-424-6752.
PAYMENT: in U.S. funds mus't accompany order. Make
checks payable to AMICA INTERNATIONAL.
DEADLINES: 1st day of the odd months: January, March,
May, July, September, November. The Bulletin will be
mailed the Ist week of the even months.
DISPLAY ADVERTISING
Full Page -7'/," x 10"
Current Rate New Rate
$180.00
$120.00
'HalfPage-7'{," x 4'/4"
$100.00
$ 65.00
Quarter Page -3'/." x 4'/4"
$ 65.00
$ 35.00
Business Card - 3'{," x 2"
$ 40.00
$ 25.00
Each photograph or halftone $8.00
We recommend that display advertisers supply camera-ready
copy. Copy that is oversized or undersized will be changed to
correct size at your cost. We can prepare an advertisement
from your suggested layout at cost.
PAYMENT: in U.S. funds, must accompany order.
Typesetting, layout size alteration charges will be billed separately. Make check payable to AMICA INTERNATIONAL.
DEADLINES: 1st day of the odd months: January, March,
May, July, September, November. The Bulletin will be
mailed the Ist week of the even months.
GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT
ALL ADVERTISING IN THE AMICA BULLETIN
All advertising should be directed to:
Robin Pratt
515 Scott Street
Sandusky, Ohio 44870-3736
(419) 626-1903
Publication of business advertising in no way implies
AMICA's endorsement of any commercial operation.
However, AMICA reserves the right to refuse any ad that is
not in keeping with AMICA's general standards.
The BULLETIN accepts advertising without any endorsement, implied or otherwise, of the products or services being
offered. Ad copy must contain text directly related to the
product/service being offered. Extraneous text will be deleted
at the Publisher's discretion.
ADVERTISEMENTS: All advertising must be accompanied
by payment. No phone ads or written ads without payment
will be accepted. This policy was established by a unanimous
vote of the Board of AM ICA at the 1991 Board Meeting and
reaffirmed at the 1992 meeting. AMICA reserves the right to
edit or to reject any ad that we deem inappropriate.
6 UPRIGHT PLAYERS. $150. - $500. Reduced prices for 2 or
more. Ed Jones, Box 1381, Staunton, VA 24402.
AEOLIAN RESIDENCE ORGAN, 17 ranks, including 3-rank
Echo, plus 49-note Harp. 82 Duo-Art rolls; player in separate cabinet. Installed in Brooklyn in late 1920s. For sale or donation to nonprofit organization. Call: 718-636-1366.
Franklin Ampico upright, new hand rubbed mahogany finish, player unrestored original with bench, $3995.; Chickering Ampico
Grand, new hand rubbed walnut finish, new strings, keys and more,
good working condition, $9,500.; Weber Duo-Art Grand, new
mahogany finish, good working condition, $9,500.; Stroud Duo-Art
Grand Mechanism complete, rebuilt 1985, piano damaged in fire,
player may be removed from or taken with piano, $2,000.; Wm
Knabe Ampico upright, mahogany, unrestored and complete,
$1,500.; Marshall and Wendell upright, unrestored mahogany,
$1,200. or best offer; Aeolian Cabaret 42" upright, oak finish, leaded glass, .$2,995.; ShatTer & Sons upright 50", leaded glass, distressed pecan, like new, $3,800.; Kimbell Artist/Console with
Pianocorder, walnut, $2,995. or system only $1,200.; Yamaha
Ml00A Disklavier, polished ebony, $5,200.; Piano Disc systems and
parts. Call for info. Schroeder's Pianos, 13 119 Downey Avenue,
Paramount, CA 90723. 310-923-2311 or 925-8868.
1934 FISCHER AMPICO MODEL B, previous complete professional restoration of case, action and reproducer under auspices of
Phil Hill. Newly retubed. Gorgeous contemporary walnut case. Over
J50 rolls. Showroom condition. $ J4,900. or best offer 805-965-5802.
SEEBURG L NICKELODEON with 6 rolls. Oak. Late style.
Original art glass. Photos available. Roger Abdella, 900 Canterbury
Dr., Saginaw, MI 48603. 517-792-5620.
1926 CABLE & SONS UPRIGHT PLAYER with Chicago motor
player ("Electora") recordo system. Action restored 1991, refinished
mahogany case. $3,500. (Neg.). Sixteen (16) 13 1/4" pin end
Cecilian rolls. Poor to good condition. Make an offer? Howard
Stevens, RRI Box 1679, Moscow, PA 18441. 717-842-8528.
MILLS VIOLANO #423 no pot metal, $16,500.; Calliope Krantz?
37 pipes A-roll, $3,800.; Angelus Wilcox & White push-up Piano
Player with reed organ, with 20 rolls, $1,800. All unrestored. 313468-4480.
STECK BABY AMPICO, plays; Tangley Circus Trailer, $J,ooO;
33 key Street Organ, $1995; Chicago Bandbox, unrestored
Wurlitzer Orchestrions. Frank Rider, 1062 Alber Street, Wabash,
IN 46992.
WELTE VORSETZER, completely restored last year and converted to play iicensee rolls. New black finish to match new pianos.
Approx. 450 rolls, mostly recuts go with machine. Price - $13,500.,
or best offer. Complete works from Steinway XR Duo-Art grand vintage 1927. Price - $2,500. Richard Riley, days 916-791-8079 eves
624-8716. Sacramento, CA.
KNABE-AMPICO 5'4" late A, restored with 300 plus rolls.
Marshall & Wendell upright, restored. Bruce Mercer, 1226 S.E.
Second St., Evansville, IN 47713. 812-423-9706.
COINOLA CF (SELTZER) 177426, Oak, restoration started, 75%
original, $5,500. Welte-Mignon Kurtzman 95659, beautifully refinished, matching bench, 75 Welte rolls, $4,200. Ampico MarshallWendell 78346, walnut, refinished, Ampico rebuilt, 100 Ampico
rolls, $3,500. Automatic piano pulley pumps, 1140 rpm motors.
Polyphon style 46, 5 disks, several broken tips, plays nice, $700. Stan
Aldridge, 161 Morgan St., Tonawanda, NY 14150.
139
SPRING SALE OF GREAT OLD CHOICE STUFF: Rolls: 6
Hupfeld $50., 5 Mills Violano $560., 20 "A" recut $400., 4 Kimball
Electramatic Organ $35. Duo-Art Grand Player Piano system
$1,000. Reproduco $11,000. Wurlitzer 150 Band Organ $35,000.
Wurlitzer Theatre Orchestra (Ency\. pg. 696) $24.000/ Chickering
Player Grand Piano 6' 5" $16.500. Mortier Fairground Organ
w/539 pipes $110,000. Link Ax Orchestrion $26,000. Seeburg "E"
Nickelodeon $10,000. Seeburg "K" Nickelodeon $16,000. Seeburg
"L" Nickelodeon $10,000. Wurlitzer "A" Nickelodeon (Ency\. pg.
673) $19,000. All of above restored/refinished. Aeolian 1980 manual/electric player piano, perfect $3,800. WANTED: Seeburg KT
Special Replica by Bill Edgerton. Wayne Edmonston, 2177 Bishop
Estates Rd., Jacksonville, FL 32259. 904-287-5996 or FAX 904-2874131.
AMPICO VORSETZER - skeleton only with B drawer & stack &
A expression - needs case & some work including external vacuum
source $3,500. Howe, Mimosa Museum 606-261-9000. WANTED:
Red Welte Rolls for Mimosa Museum seen in January, 1991 AMICA
for our newly acquired Vorsetzer. Please help the Mimosa Museum
find rolls. 606-261-9000.
REBUILDER HAS 1909 MILTON NICKELODEON with
Mandolin, Triangle, Tambourine, Bass & Snare drums, 6 (0) rolls
$6,200. 1924 Lyon & Healy AMPICO upright, satin ebony player,
restored, $7,500.1927 Weber Duo-Art 5' 8" Spanish walnut artcase,
completely rebuilt, restrung & refinished with original papers and
bench, Collector Quality $14,500. We also rebuild various types of
automatic instruments...714-836-7368 Mr. Kim Bunker.
ADAM SCHAFF WELTE-MIGNON, rare collector's item. 5' 4"
grand reproducer, case professionally refinished with bench, new
hammers, pins, keys, strings, regulation, voicing & etc., 850 Welte
and Deluxe rolls in original boxes. Pictures available. Moving must
sell!!! Incredible bargain at $11,000. Negotiable. Delores J. Olson
612-251-5018.
J P SEEBURG 88 note upright player piano, mahogany finish, serial
# 90278. 1912 Steinway Themodist metro-style 88 note upright, serial #152751 $4,000. Robin Pratt, 419-626-1903.
STEINWAY DUO-ART PIANO Model XR 1925, Serial No.
23680 I, modem standard mahogany case, non-working, original tinish, $7,500 or a reasonable offer will be considered. 106 rolls included. Contact: Molly Morris, 216 South Columbia Ave., Columbus,
Ohio 43209, pH. 614-258-6051.
PIANO ROLL SALE. Large variety of rolls for reproducing pianos
and 88-note player pianos. Send large SASE for free list. Robert F.
Commagere, 761 Claymont Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90049-1302.
PIANO ROLL AUCTIONS, reproducing and 88-note rolls. Bennett
Leedy Rolls, 4660 Hagar Shore Road, Coloma, MI 49038. Phone
616-468-5986.
VINTAGE PIANO ROLLS. Since 1970, we have supplied collectors with the tinest in reproducing and 88-note rolls thru our mail
auctions. We regularly feature Ampico, Duo-Art and Welte rolls, and
a great variety of 88-note rolls with a specialty in hard-to-find rags
and jazz categories. We also recut many of these gems and produce
our Hot Piano Classics label of rag and jazz performances never
before available on rolls. These are sold at a fixed price. Try us you'll like us! Mike and Annie Schwimmer, Piano Roll Center, 325
E. Blodgett, Lake Bluff, IL 60044-2112.
PIANO ROLL AUCTION. Periodic mail auctions of mostly 88note rolls and some reproducing rolls from collection of the late Si
Riman. For the latest auction, call or write Dan Inglima, P. O. Box
769, Hayesville, NC 28904. 704-389-3744.
1929 STEINWAY DUO-ART XR Walnut #262226,6'2", original
unrestored, excellent condition, w/bench. $10,500. B. Koenigsberg,
77 High Pine Circle, Concord, MA 01742. 508-369-8523.
1929 STROUD DUO-ART UPRIGHT. Electric Model 593-P. Full
Duo-Art mechanism. Original, complete, unrestored. One location for
63 years. $1,600. Call or write: David Charrier, 7607 Fillmore St.,
Philadelphia, PA. 19111,215-342-1074.
1932 MARSHALL & WENDELL AMPICO B, 4' 8" grand,
William and Mary Art Case with matching bench. Brown mahogany,
original ivory keys. Professionally restored & refinished. $14,900.
Call or write: David Charrier, 7607 Fillmore St., Philadelphia, PA
19111. 215-342-1074.
140
WURLITZER STYLE 153 BAND ORGAN, the most popular of
the Wurlitzers, older restoration needs some "tweaking", new
(1970's) Stinson facade, Artizan double tracker system, great for
parades and rental, $32,000. National Automatic Dog Race piano,
with automatic changer/selector system, unrestored $5,500. Peerless
44-note upright coin piano, great oak cabinet with fretwork, con~
verted to Pianolin endless system long ago, from the Harvey RoeW;
Rhode Island hoard, $5,500. Harmonipan style monkey organ, 33key, 37 pipes, needs restoration, $4,500. Regina 15 112" curved front
automatic changer music box, mahogany home model, $17,500.
Martin Roenigk, 26 Barton Hill, East Hampton, CT 06424.203-2678682.
WANTED
WANTED: DISK AND CYLINDER MUSIC BOXES in any condition. Especially Regina, Mira, New Century. What have you?
Arnold Levin, 2634 Woodlawn Rd, Northbrook, IL 60062. 708-5642893.
WANTED: AMPICO B PNEUMATIC STACK. Will pay top dollar for original, restored or unrestored 32 valve block per deck layer.
Please call or write AI Zamba, 1010 Merchant Street, Ambridge, PA
15003. Days, 412-266-1840, nights, 412-761-4456.
WANTED: SEEBURG KT SPECIAL REPLICAS (BY BILL
EDGERTON), Built-up orchestrions, Mills Violanos, Replica
Orchestrions and Antique Orchestrions. Wayne Edmonston, 2177
Bishop Estates Rd., Jacksonville, FL 32259. 904-287-5996 or FAX
904-287-4131.
WANTED: ALL KINDS OF PIANOS - Specializing in Steinway,
Mason and Hamlin, and Art Case Grands. Top prices paid!! We also
trade and sell players. Write or Call Irv Jacoby, Jay Mart Wholesale
"The Piano Store for the Piano Stores.", P. O. Box 21148, Cleveland,
Ohio 44121. 216-382-7600.
WANTED: 80 NOTE DUO-ART STACK with 16-31-17-16
pushrod count. Mel Septon 9045 Karlov St., Skokie, II 60076. 708679-3455.
WANTED: AEOLIAN PIPE ORGAN ROLL No 51130
Symphonic Fantasy by Victor Herbert needed for research study#
Will pay top price. Rollin Smith, 1150-41st Street, Brooklyn, NY-',
11218-1909.
WANTED: AEOLIAN DUO-ART ORGAN ROLLS by Louis
Vieme: No. 3543: Legende; No. 3545: Berceuse. Would like to buy,
borrow, or pay for tape recording of same. Rollin Smith, 1150-41st
Street, Brooklyn, NY 11218-1909.
WANTED: I am trying to locate a tubing diagram for a Wurlitzer
"G" or "0" photoplayer. I appreciate any assistance you might be
able to provide. Douglas Mahr, 9503 Flintridge Way, Orangevale,
CA 95662. H: 916-988-7794, W: 916,657-5405.
WANTED: PNEUMATIC STACK, case parts and other parts for a
CREMONA, style 3 piano. Tim Cragg, 2704 Rawhide Lane,
Lawrence, KS 66046. 913-842-0038.
WANTED: STEINWAY GRAND PIANO style M, 0, or A from
1900 to 1970. Also STEINWAY PLAYER GRAND PIANO
(DUO-ART) XR 6'-1 3/4", OR 6'-5", or AR 6'-1/4". Need to know
color, serial number, condition, price. Also need some photos. Please
Fax or write to:NAOYOSHI KAWAKAMI 1-4-26 Higashi, Shibuyaku, Tokyo 150 JAPAN. Fax: 81-33409-4476.
WANTED: "M" ROLLS used in Cremona Orchestrions; especially
roll number "M 626". Please write or call John G. Ravert, Sr., 9
Meadowvale DR., Watsontown, PA 17777.717-538-2155.
WANTED: AMICA BULLETINS Jan.-Feb. 1977, July 1983, MayJune 1987, Jan.-Feb. 1990. Emmett M. Ford, 649 N. Pinecrest,
Wichita. KS 67208-3554.
WANTED: REGINA MUSICAL SAVINGS BANK. Am also still
purchasing original literature. Richard Howe, 73 Saddlebrook Lane,
Houston, TX 77024. 713-680-9945.
W ANTED: MILLS VIOLANOS, art-cased pianos, orchestrions,
nickelodeons, band organs, monkey organs, coin-operated machines'F
automatic disc changers, upright/console or table-top disc musilO>
boxes, on matching tables. Am also buying collections (large or
small), with fast payment and pick-up at your door. Wayne
Edmonston, 2177 Bishop Estates Rd., Jacksonville, FL 32259. 904287-5996 or FAX 904-287-4131.
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~frinfua\!
and other fine pianos
including Reproducers
and
4,000 Select Rolls.
Fabulous Private Collection.
Boston 617-277-8925 Weekdays.
Liperi, Finland 358-73-651-871 All Times
~
INFORMATION WANTED:
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1 11
1927 Steinway Duo-Art 65 "OR"
Completely rebuilt, a "Screw Polished" level
of restoration throughout. $20,000.
Pictures and videotape available.
Tim Wheat
9773 Quincy St., Mnpls., MN 55434
(612) 574-5972 wkdys, 780-5699 res.
WAITED
!ted Welte !tolls
The Midwest Chapter of AMICA is
looking for Red Welte Rolls they can
buy and donate to Mimosa Mansion in
Covington, Kentucky. This Victorian
House Museum has recently obtained a
Welte Vorsetzer and they are in need of
rolls.
Contributions to Mimosa are tax
deductible.
For the restoration of a 1914 Farrand-Cecelian.
Need photos of missing light tops. IF YOU'VE
SEEN one of these pianos, please call collect or
write:
Dan Crawford
1040 - 21 st Street
DesMoines, Iowa 50311
(515) 244-1013
For anyone with rolls to sell please
contact:
Ed Ward
191 Riverview Drive
Woodville, OH 43469
Phone 419- 849-2616.
141
IN SEARCH OF HOFMANN
or
THE TECHNOLOGY OF THE REPRODUCER
Reproducers, Nickelodeons
and Fine Grand Pianos
The early XXc pneumatic reproducing piano today is a turkey.
Its performance is so poor that most musicians and musical people
shun it, even where they know about it. Is this inevitable? Is the
legacy of paper rolls carrying the signatures, pictures, and impri·
maturs of the great pianists of the first post·Uszt generation, and
the machines to play them, to be nothing but collectors' items?
Merely a curiosity in private museums, garages, and living rooms
up and down the land? Does it matter what they sound like?
These recordings and their hardware are now closer in time
to Uszt and Chopin than they are to us. Are they to continue to be
ignored beyond small interest groups?
The author makes an attempt to answer these questions by an
inquiry into the technology of the reproducer from the grass roots
up. The results give an insight, free from hunch and dogma, into
the way they work. It suggests which of them are most worth
improving, and how and why.
Of particular interest to owners of Duo-Art pianos.
202 pages
A4 spiral bound
99 figures
Cost including postage, etc.: U.S.A.
air
$34
Send US$ cheque (not banknotes) to:
Pacific/Far East
COMPLETE RESTORATION
FACILITIES
OWNER OPERATED
22 years of experience in each related field
of restoration
CASE AND VENEER REPAIRS
HAND-RUBBED MIRROR
or SATIN FINISHES IN VARNISH
VOICING AND lONE SPECIALIST
Concert Quality Regulation
Lowest Prices, Known References,
Guaranteed Work.
Only the worlds finest known grades of material are used.
They are always fresh and continually checked.
Hot glue and original materials used throughout
wherever possible.
Surface
mail
$27
air
$36
Craig Brougher
H. V. Stephenson, The Mines House, CQrony Bridge, Ramsey
Isle of Man, via England, U. K.
3500 Claremont
(816) 254-1693
Independence, MO
64052
SURPLUS TO THE MUSICIANS' BENEVOLENT FUND
.:;:;
I~
WANTED
~
J\n J\merican JJfotop1atler
STYLE 35 OR BIGGER
ALSO WANTED: FilmusiclPicturolls, recuts & originals, pamphlets, owners
manuals, sales brochures and information.
PARTS ALSO NEEDED: Especially a double roll spool box, tracker bar switch
mechanism, dual wind motor and Fotoplayer stack.
ANYTHING TO DO WITH
AMERICAN FOTOPLAYERS
..... - -
SEND TO, OR CALL:
'i:h:~~~~f.l5lYettl
~;I3ISTIi:R'O
142
--
The Voice o£
the Screen
JIM BLANCO
13 HALL PLACE
EXETER, NH 03833
(603) 772-4882
(603) 772-2222 (after 7:30 pm EST)
Also needed: Pipe chest and pipes for the Reproduco.
~~
Three NEW Interpretive Arrangements -from
ARTCRAFT. •
all Composer's/Virtuoso Pianist's requests!
«Merengue'" Concert Etude for Piano (1990) by Frank French
Composer-pianist Frank French sent Mr. Henderson of ARTCRAFT n score of his complex concert piece,
MERENGUE, based upon a Dominican Republic melody - and now the virtuoso number is ready for the
Pianola World! Imagine the intricacies of a Gottschalk selection combined with the infectious rhythms of a
Brazilian dance ... that's MERENGUE! Videotapes of music played by the talented Composer assisted in
the creation of this spectacular "tour de force" for the Player-Piano! Duo-Art @ $18.50; 88-Note @ $17.50.
«The Oyster Shimmy" (1992) by Galen Wilkes
Composer-pianist Galen Wilkes penned THE OYSTER SHIMMY very recently as a homage to Jelly Roll
Morton's lewd bordello dances ... only this composition is a few shades HOTTER! Introduce your Pianola
to the "bumps and grinds" of tfle most erotic music roll ever created! The title comes from the Composer's
research about Sedalia, Missouri's old red light district, but modesty prevents us from printing the details
- which are interpolated into the sizzling Player-Piano arrangement! THE OYSTER SHIMMY is definitely
not for prudes, who would recoil from ~ in their Steinways! Duo-Art @ $18.50; 88-Note @ $17.50.
"Pickles and Peppers Rag" (1906) by Adaline Shepherd
Virtuoso pianist (alld tflat 's all ullderstatemellt!) Masanobu Ikemiya recorded PICKLES AND PEPPERS and
recently suggested a music roll version from ARTCRAFT. Here it is! The Player-Piano simulates his crisp
touch and then augments the arrangement with Pianola variations! Duo-Art @ $18.50; 88-Note @ $17.50.
Master·Card or VISA accepted on orders.
Shipping costs are extra.
Catalogue with demo. tape: $3.50. (207) 882-7420.
ARTCRAFT Music Rolls, P.O. Box 296, Wiscasset, Maine 04678 U.S.A.
WANTED TO BUY
MUSIC EOXES •
MUSICAL CLOCKS
MECHANICAL OrleANS
Always in the market for better quality disc and
cylinder music boxes, musical clocks, singing
birds, band organs, player organs, monkey organs,
Wuriitzer 78 rpm jukeboxes, slot machines. Any
condition.
MASTIN SO!NICK
26 Barton Hill
East Hampton, Connecticut 06424
Phone (203) 267-8682
143
AMICA INTERNATIONAL
MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION
FULL FORMAL NAME (including name of spouse or second household member):
COMMON FIRST NAME (salutation/nickname) (including spouse or second member):
ADDRESS:
_
CITY: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ STATE:
ZIP:
_
COUNTRY (if not in USA):
TELEPHONE:
_
HOME (
J
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BUSINESS (
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_
OCCUPATION:
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RECOMMENDED BY:
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Do you repair or restore your own instruments as a hobby?
. . . for others part-time?
. . . full-time?
COLLECTION LISTING:
(Optional)
EXAMPLES:
DYes
DYes
DYes
o
o
o
No
No
No
r
Please be complete for directory listing accuracy.
Use back of form if additional space is needed.
1909, Aeolian, Player Piano, Upright, Standard
1932, Knabe, Reproducer Grand Piano, 6'6", Louis XV, AMPICO B
1928, Wurlitzer, Band organ, with Marimba, 153
YEAR BRAND/MAKE
TYPE
SIZE
CASE STYLE
MECHANISM/TYPE-MODEL
Please circle any of the following miscellaneous items in your collection:
MUSIC BOXES
JUKE BOXES
ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP DUES:
(Bulletin Mailing)
(Check One)
PHONOGRAPHS
fiHER
REGULAR USA (Bulk Mail)
REGULAR USA (First Class Mail)
CANADIAN (Surface Mail)
OVERSEAS (Surface Mail) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..
OVERSEAS (Air Mail)
$22.00
$37.00
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$28.00
$48.00
0
0
0
0
0
ENCLOSE A CHECK (For Canadian and Overseas an 'International Money Order drawn on a US Bank in US Dollars) FOR THE
AMOUNT PAYABLE TO AMICA INTERNATIONAL.
RETURN TO:
144
AMICA MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY:
Michael A. Barnhart
919 Lantern Glow Trail
Dayton, Ohio 45431
Phone (513) 254-5580
~
-;
®
• PIANO ROLLS
for all player pianos
See Your Local QRS Dealer or Contact
QRS MUSIC ROLLS, INC.
1026 Niagara Street
Buffalo, NY 14213
Phone 1·800·247·6557 • Fax 1·716·885·7510
~~
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• PIANOMATION MIDI
makes any piano
a high-tech player
For information, phone, fax or write:
QRS PIANOMATION CENTER
2011 Seward Avenue
Naples, FL 33942
Phone 1·813·597·5888· Fax 1·813·597·3936
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~Spot~'
best sellers in the
last ninety days
1934
1938
1950
1951
1967
1972
1975
1979
1965
1973
1982
1985
1986
1987
1988
1990
1992
1995
1081
1978
1983
1984
1884
1711
1874
1883
1727
1976
1888
1004
1680
1677
1838
1766
1441
0,
ThelVewest The Oldest
EVERYTHING in
PLAYER PIAIVO MUSIC ROLLS
IMAGINATION
UNTIL THE REAL THING
COMES ALONG
IN THE STILL OF THE NIGHT
UNFORGETTABLE
THERE'S A KIND OF HUSH
MRS. ROBINSON
AUTUMN OF MY LIFE
I WISH YOU LOVE
THOSE WERE THE DAYS
L1TTl.E GREEN APPLES
THE SONG IS YOU
TAKE ME IN YOUR ARMS
STANDING ON THE CORNER
GENTLE ON MY MIND
HEY JUDE
THE GIRL FRIEND
LES BICYCLETTES DE BELSIZE
AMERICAN BOYS
ALONE TOGETHER
WICHITA LINEMAN
LET THE REST OF THE WORLD
GO BY
GIRL WATCHER
STRANGE MUSIC
BY THE TIME 1 GET TO PHOENIX
RAINDROPS KEEP FALLING
MY PRAYER
SHADOWS OF THE NIGHT
TILL
DIRTY HANDS, 01 RTY FACE
WHERE DO I GO
GOODBYE
ALABAMY BOUND
WHOWILLBUY
CONSIDER YOURSELF
CABARET ("From Cabaret")
CLIMB EVERY MOUNTAIN
("Sound Of Music")
EVERYTHING'S COMING UP
ROSES ("Gypsy")
GEORGY GIRL ("Georgy Girl")
ON THE STREET WHERE YOU
LIVE ("My Fair Lady")
PEOPLE ("Funny Girl"l
PHOENIX LOVE THEME, THE
SOMEWHERE MY LO\lE
("Lara's Theme From Dr. Zhivago")
SOUND OF MUSIC, THE
("Sound Of Music")
World's finest
collection of selections
for the player piano
for every mood and occasion