A "Triola" roll-playing mechanical zither in reasonable working
order was sold at Christie's auction in Melbourne recently for a hammer
price of $950 Australian.  Add 17.5% for Christie's and 10% of 17.5%
for the government, and the final price was close to $1200 Australian.
Although that is only about $600 American (at the current exchange
rate), it sure feels like $1200 to us Aussies.

Of the 19 rolls sold with it, there were only ten additions to the
list which I posted in MMD 2000.03.09:

1216  Hallo, la demoiselle du telephone (R. Stolz)
1221  Hail, Power of Love
1228  Einst spielt ich, aus "Czar und Zimmermann" (Lortzing)
1229  Pilgrim's March from Tannhauser (Wagner)
1328  O Taler weit, o Hohen (Mendelssohn)
1330  Stolzenfels on the Rhine
1358  A night of Romance (Horatio Nicholls)
1364  No One's Ever Kissed Me - Song One-Step (Phillip Braham)
1372  Alice - Romance (J. Ascher)
1394  Es ist ein Ros' entsprungen (Praetorius)

Would any other Triola owners care to contribute their roll details
to this list?

For those interested in what a Triola sounds like, I have attached
a MIDI simulation of "Rule Britannia" from Triola roll number 1125.

Recall that the Triola mechanism only plays the melody strings, and
the operator has to play the accompaniment himself.  The melody part
for this file was transcribed from an original roll using my home-made
optical scanner, which I intend to write more about later.  The
scanning software produces a playable MIDI file which was edited
manually to remove the tempo compensation.  (The Triola rolls gradually
increase the note lengths by about one-third from beginning to end to
compensate for paper build-up on the take-up spool).

The bass and chord accompaniment were then added manually according
to the instructions printed along the edge of the roll.  Finally, the
tremolo effect was added using a program called "miditrem", from a
set of very useful freeware MIDI utilities by Guenter Nagler (now at
www.gnmidi.com) The result sounds a lot cleaner than any Triola I've
ever heard, and is really not too bad.

For comparison, I have attached a rather rough MP3 file of a rank
amateur attempting to play a real Triola - I obviously need a lot
more practice!

John Wolff
Melbourne, Australia

 [ Thanks, John.  I'll place the MP3 file and MIDI file at the
 [ MMD Sounds site, http://mmd.foxtail.com/Sounds/  -- Robbie