Ken W. List writes:

Here's a bit of trivia.  Did you know that 'way back sometime in the
18th Century (I think not the 17th) there was at least one harpsichord
whose keyboard was equipped with little rollers and trackers which ran
over to little pencils which marked along a roll of paper, pulled along
by clockwork?  This was for the recording of improvisations - the
markings could then be transcribed into written notation, and the
improvisation preserved and reproduced.

Also, in the Don Bedos "L'art d'Facteur d'Orgues" (Vol. IV, 1778) shows
not only the construction of little "cylinder organs" of various kinds,
but also gives us the pinning for a cylinder to play a little "Romance"
by M. Claude Balbastre, a celebrated organist in Paris at the time.

Now there had been automatic playing instruments for a good 250 years
prior to this - but no one had taken very great pains to ensure that the
recordings would be "true to life."  In this instance - and we do not
think that this pinning was probably ever actually 'manufactured' in
its own time, existing only on paper - the composer wrote out the piece,
including writing out the ornaments; then the recording notation (with
added ornaments) was made, and then the charts showing the exact pinning
of the cylinder were made.  A stop watch was used to time the playing
of the piece and bits of it - so that we know exactly how long the piece
should be, hence the exact tempo.

Further, there is a statement by Balbastre which indicates that this is
virtually an exact reproduction of how he himself would play the piece
- so we have a real "recording" of 18th Century piece, played as an
18th-Century player would have played it, at his tempo and style. WOW!
(Of course, according to all the knowledge I have of 18th Century
ornamentation from my harpsichord study, he does it all wrong!!!)

This information is contained in a wonderful lecture by Dr. David
Fuller, (1973)  which was re-printed under the title "Mechanical
Musical Instruments as a Source for the Study of _Notes Inegales_."
copyright 1979 by the Musical Box Society International, ISBN
0-934276-00-5 and includes a recording of the piece made at the
University of Buffalo on a computer which duplicated the
pinning-notations accurately.

It also contains this remarkable quotation from Joseph Engramelle -
author of a treatise on mechanical instruments. (His word "notage" has
been translated as "recording"):

  "Music has suffered irreparable losses.  We should still be able to
  enjoy the playing of such men as Lully, Marchand, and all the great
  musicians who enraptured their contemporaries, if they had know the
  art of recording; their best works, transmitted by themselves to
  posterity on unalterable cylinders, would have been preserved in a
  style of performance that we know only through history." (1775)

Ken W. List
euphonia@home.com