-- forwarded message, please reply to sender and MMD --

Hi Robbie,  I just got back from traveling and got your message about
Ramsi Tick.  The Buffalo News carried an excellent obituary in the late
edition of November 1, which I'll be happy to fax if you'd like.

 [ It's a fine article, but I could not secure permission from
 [ The Buffalo News to reprint it in MMDigest.  -- Robbie

As for my own remembrance, I just hope the collectors' community
understands and appreciates what he did for QRS during his years here.
He told me he considered QRS something of an American institution and
thought of himself as its temporary steward.

While he himself enjoyed rolls from earlier days, he understood that
QRS had always survived by catering to the taste of the majority,
bringing out current popular music.

His innovative thinking in reviving the "hand-played" roll (The QRS
Celebrity Series) added great prestige to the catalog, especially so
because his experience in the arts management field served him well
in negotiating with the biggest stars in pop piano.

His successful quest in revising and producing the QRS Educator Set
gave the player piano industry an effective sales tool; and his
decision in the early 1980's to "computerize" made many aspects of
recording and manufacturing so much more efficient.

He took his work seriously, but there was in his tenacious leadership
a sense of fun and an appreciation of the absurdity of sustaining a
19th-century business as we hurled toward the 21st.

It would be hard to imagine a better steward.

Regards,

Bob Berkman
QRS Music Center
Buffalo, NY
http://www.qrsmusic.com/