The sustain pedal cannot be dispensed with merely by extending note
duration.  That is a final fact.  Temponome rolls use extended
perforations to simulate sustain pedal effects.  They are not perforated
for sustain pedal mechanisms.  (I understand Temponome rolls were made
from early Stoddard Ampico rolls with the expression coding removed).
When played they sound with a lifelike performance but there is just
something that is not quite right and, in fact, rather spooky about the
sound.

When a pianist depresses the sustain pedal all the dampers a lifted
clear.  Notes which are played will be sustained.  Crucially, however,
all the other notes will ring in sympathy to a degree with the notes
struck although they themselves are not struck.

Try it yourself.  Press the sustain pedal and strike a "C" loudly or C
in octave.  Then, silently depress the C an octave above the one you
struck so the damper mechanism is off the string.  Release the sustain
pedal.  The silently pressed C (with it's damper off the string as you
still have your finger pressed down on the key!) will be heard ringing
very softly in sympathy with the C you struck.  OK, you can take your
finger off the keys now.

If you play an arpeggio up the keys with the sustain pedal on you get
all this wonderful sonorous buildup of sympathetic string vibration.
If you just play the notes and a roll extends the perforations you get
none of it.  The two are entirely different effects.  Some pianos are
fitted with a third (sostenuto) pedal.  The mechanism of this when
depressed in conjunction with notes being played is to only sustain
those played at that instant.  This is the effect readily achieved in
most Ampico rolls especially dance music.  You can make every player
piano sound as if it has a sostenuto fitted just by extending certain
perforations.

Certain piano music utilizes sustaining effects an resonating effects
to the maximum.  Some pieces call for notes to be silently depressed
before others are struck to allow certain resonances to be produced.
The effect produced is very subtly different from not silently
depressing the keys at all.  It is not a feature that appears in more
than a handful of pieces.  I cant say it appears on piano rolls as I
cant think of a way rolls could silently depress keys and hold them
down.  The reproducing roll systems would probably find this, by
definition, nigh impossible.

To learn that solenoid players are still being built and programmed in
this manner shows that nothing has been learnt since 1911 and that the
people who built the system probably aren't pianists or good ones.
There are  very very good solenoid player systems out there, don't get
me wrong.  However, in my opinion, from a purely musical and pianistic
perspective merely extending note duration is no alternative for the
sustain pedal.  The only true alternative would be for the solenoid
player to silently depress all the other keys not struck at the same
time - and that ain't gonna happen without a short circuit is it!

To see a picture of the Temponome roll with the extended note perfs go
to my website and have a look at the pictures of piano rolls there.

The site is at  http://website.lineone.net/~agr/index2.html

Yours sincerely

Adam Ramet