Tracker Bar with Extra Holes
By Terry Smythe
Georges Vaillancourt <ghvaill@ht.ireq.ca> sez:
> The tracker bar on it has 102 holes disposed in three groups:
> 7-88-7, the holes in the first and last groups are round and the ones in
> the 88 group are square.
Yes, I've seen a number of such instruments in the past 30 years. What you have is a "transposing" tracker bar system, where the complete tracker bar is moved over a single note at a time to change the key. The array of 7 holes at both the bass and treble end is intended to provide a method for sensing paper edge no matter what key is selected. The ragged paper edge is telling you that the tracking system no longer works, and needs restoration, likely along with the rest of the instrument.
The transposing feature is kinda neat, particularly if you are using the player piano as accompaniment to a sing-along situation. Not too many player pianos have some form of transposer, I would guess at about 20-25%.
Regards,
Terry
Terry Smythe smythe@mts.net
55 Rowand Avenue smythe@freenet.mb.ca
Winnipeg, MB, Canada R3J 2N6 http://www.mts.net/~smythe
(204) 832-3982 (voice/fax) |
(Message sent Fri 8 Nov 1996, 14:38:52 GMT, from time zone GMT-0500.) |
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