For UK MMDers, "The Music Machine" on BBC R3 is covering reproducing
pianos tomorrow, Tuesday 3rd Feb, at 4.45 PM. Sorry about the short
notice, but I only heard today. (You can get Radio 3 on one of the Sky
TV audio channels, I recently learnt.)
Today's program was titled "The Player Piano" but should really have
been called "The German Cafe Automatic Piano" since that is what was
exclusively dealt with, except for one mention of a forty-dollar
Vorsetzer (also called, according to the interviewee Philip Legend, a
"clamp-on". You learn something new every day).
The presenter Verity Sharp visited Keith Harding's World of Mechanical
Music and (encouraged by them) placed the microphone close to the roll
motor for effect. The result was a bit doom-y and clangorous, but at
least the pianos were in tune.
Dan Wilson
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