[ John Tuttle received this letter from Bill Blodgett, one of the men
 [ responsible for the QRS Educator series of rolls, and asked if it
 [ could be published at MMD.  The author replied granting permission,
 [ and told John:
 [
 [  "I guess you could post it. There was more I could say on the
 [   subject, like how angry I was that they didn't let me put my
 [   signature on the rolls along with Tom and David (youthful pride
 [   and all; I was all of 19 at the time), but that's a start.  :) "
 [
 [ Thanks, Bill and John, for sharing this with us !
 [
 [ -- Robbie

Howdy!  I was surfing for something completely different (of course!)
and saw your January post in the Mechanical Music Digest about the QRS
Educator set.

I'm so glad to hear that somebody actually used it and learned to play
the piano.  I did the graphics for the set about 22 years ago, and
never heard one way or the other if anybody ever really got anything
out of it.  It's kind of funny how sometimes things like that don't
surface until years later.  :)

Our remake of the 1920's version started on a Xerox copier, with staffs
I drew and notes printed on clear plastic, then taped to the staffs and
copied.  I then transferred the copies to Gestetner electronic sten-
cils, taped them end-to-end and they were run on a press that had its
drum extended up away from the machine about 15 feet.

The stencils were very fragile and had to be re-done from the artwork
several times before they hit on the idea of having the same photo-
sensitive plastic plates done as they use for printing magazines.
Those belts were far superior in durability and print quality to the
earlier process.

I suppose we should have had a test person try to learn from the set
to see that it was paced correctly, but our very modest budget barely
covered what we were doing.  I only know that I had out of curiosity
tried the last roll of the set to see that I could do it, but then,
I already could play the piano, and was editing and making rolls on
a daily basis.

Sorry to have rambled, but the mention of the Educator Set was kind
of a blast from the past for me.  Thanks for letting people (including
me :) ) know the set works.

Bill Blodgett