I requested and received from Wayne Stahnke his transcription of
Automatic Music Roll #1146 (MMDigest 990314) and the View editor,
and I'm now enjoying the songs.  Getting re-acquainted with DOS after
several years (via the "MS-DOS Window" under Win95) was fun, too!

One of the songs was very familiar and sounded distinctly like
J. Lawrence Cook.  Sure enough, I discovered that I have the 88-note
roll which was adapted for the nickelodeon roll arrangement:  QRS 3226
"The Farmer Took Another Load Away! Hay! Hay!", October 1925.

The 88-note roll seems to be identical to the A-roll version except
for a few bass notes.  I will loan it to Wayne for transcription and
comparison.  This will be another little piece of confirmation that the
legendary J. Lawrence Cook also arranged a lot of music for the coin
pianos and orchestrions.

Wayne is also delving further into the method used by Clark to compen-
sate for the diameter build-up at the take-up spool.  When Ed Freyer,
many years ago, made recuts of Clark rolls he carefully changed the
gears during the 10-tune roll to get the same tempo compensation which
Clark applied.  MMDer Frank Himpsl is looking in his collection for
for more historical data about Ed Freyer's method.

My tentative conclusion is that Clark arranged (or adapted) all their
coin piano production masters at 12 perforator steps per beat, no
matter what the metronome beats per minute.  The play beats per minute
was set by the gears which drove the paper through the perforator, as
well as compensating for build-up at the take-up spool.

The advantage of this system was that the songs of the 10-tune rolls
could be assembled in almost any order.  The disadvantage was that the
perforator operator had to be _very_ alert, else the playback tempo
might be quite inappropriate !

As Matthew Caulfield described several months ago, the Wurlitzer music
department used a related scheme, but it was simplified because of the
ingenious paper drive on the perforator which automatically compensated
for the build-up of the take-up spool.

Just for the challenge, Wayne and I would like to locate original
rolls of all the songs on Automatic #1146 for transcription.  And, for
our added incentive, George Bogatko says he might then make O-roll and
M-roll adaptations from some of the 88-note original arrangements! :-)

If you could lend us an original QRS roll of any these songs please
contact me or Wayne.  These songs were all released in 1925 by QRS as
played by J. Lawrence Cook or one of his familiar pseudonyms.

  Automatic Music Roll Co. A-1146 "Fascinating Dance Melodies"

  1. I Want You All for Me
  2. Oh Say! Can I See You To-Night?
  3. Funny
  4. Save Your Sorrow for To-Morrow
  5. Dear Old South o' Market Days
  6. The Promenade Walk
  7. Wonder Why I Love You
  8. The Farmer Took Another Load Away! Hay! Hay!
  9. Smile All the While
 10. Marguerite

You can download George's RealAudio G2 files of these songs at

    http://mmd.foxtail.com/Sounds/A1146_rm.zip  (3 Megabytes)

The xylophone and pipes really give the roll a good sound!

Robbie Rhodes