Introduction
By Janos Macsai
01 06 1995
Dear Automusicians,
Although I have already changed messages with some of you, I haven't introduced myself properly yet. My name is Janos MACSAI, I am a musicologist, and a professional piano restaurateur. I work for the Institute of Musical Sciences, (Hungarian Academy of Science [MTA ZTI], Budapest, Hungary). In this Institute we have a Museum for musical instruments (Museum of Musical History) with more than 2000 piano rolls, most of which are the Welte red type. In Hungary there are only a few collectors of mechanical pianos and rolls, but the largest collection is in our museum.
I am working together with my friend, electrical engineer Zoltan JANOSY (you see, Hungarian is a funny language: Janos MACSAI and Zoltan JANOSY are similar names, but are two different people). Zoltan has already introduced himself to you. (e-mail: janosy@tsys.hit.bme.hu)
Our Project 'PIANO ROLLS' is a methodology, which is suitable for studying, sounding and, if it is needed, restoring the rolls. We hope that by the careful, computer-aided analysis of the rolls we will be able to learn the recorded material more deeply. The information processing practice is the following: the codes (i.e. the holes) of the piano rolls are optically scanned. This information is transformed into MIDI. The optical pictures of the rolls are saved and at any time can be used for further processing or later playing.
My main interest lies in the history of mechanical musical instruments, and in historical performances. Presently I focus on Hungarian pianists, like Bela Bartok, and Ernest von Dohnanyi. We have written an article on our project "Computer Analysis and Restoration of Reproducing Piano Rolls", which has been published in: AES Preprint (96th Convention, Amsterdam, February 1994 - 3841 [P11.1]) or in German: in "Das Mechanische Musikinstrument" Nr. 60. Mai 1994 p. 18.
Hope to keep in touch with you cheers:
Janos
e-mail: h7539mac@huella.bitnet
[
[ editor's note: Users not on bitnet may find the following address
[ better to use:
[ H7539Mac@ella.hu
[ Jody |
(Message sent Thu 1 Jun 1995, 16:27:13 GMT, from time zone GMT+0100.) |
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