I've read most of the recent thread on "expression" with 88-note
systems and found that others have agreed with many of my convictions.
For the most part, though, I haven't always found reference to the
integrity of the pianolist in the discussions.

I'm content not to have what some call a full "reproducing" mechanism
in my piano.  I treasure the interactive qualities of my 1911 foot-pump
Steinway with the dual tracker bar and the Themodist mechanism.  It lets
me do many things with a roll.  And therein lies my dilemma.  For, at
times, therein lies my license to tinker with the music.

I know that my "musicianship" is suspect.  I took some piano and
accordion lessons as a kid.  (All without distinction, and without
discipline.)  Also took voice for a while, and was told I was actually
more a "natural" musician than a natural singer.  And I sang in good
choirs and choruses for 30 years or so.  When I taught English, I hung
out habitually with friends in the music departments at Indiana
University and Arizona State University.  I mention the schools only
because they are respected in music, and because these colleagues
encouraged me to trust my musical instincts.  When I'd try to count
out a difficult rhythm in an art song, my professional accompanist
would tell me: "Listen: it goes like this.  You'll get it right if
you just listen and then do it."  That was not one _musician_ talking
to ANOTHER.

Okay, enter the player piano, and put it in the hands and feet of this
untrained, opinionated pianolist.  What sort of mischief can this guy
do (to the music, I mean)?  I think it depends on several factors.

Whether classical, or "popular," and whether 65- or 88-note, some rolls
are more helpful to the "operator" than others.  No need to go into the
effects of having the Themodist on or off (with appropriate rolls), and
no need to list all the types of the interpretive information shown on
rolls of many different types.  MMD readers are familiar with the tempo
markings supplied either by a number or by a metro-style line's movement
across the page.  Nor any need to explain how a similar dynamics line
tells us when to be loud, soft, or somewhere in between.  Markings can
even tell the pianolist when to punch a pedal and thus accent a note.
MMD readers know all of this.

We can explain these various roll conventions and learn to be pretty
good at following them.  But we all don't necessarily know how much
faith to put in them.  Probably the markings were, and remain, only as
trustworthy as was the editor who put them on the paper.  Only that
trustworthy, and never really enough.

I've listened hundreds of times to Arthur Rubinstein playing Chopin.
I've even followed the scores enough to know he didn't just "make
things up."  (Such an understatement.) But what a difference between
his way with the waltzes and what Abbey Simon did with them.  Am I to
quarrel with either's musicianship?   And then you could have someone
like Horowitz come along and play that great funeral march so much
differently from just about anybody else.  Yet all presumably struck
the same keys.  (Yes, I know, sometimes a maverick artist might play
a bass line in octaves or some such thing.  But let's not get into what
one great pianist did with the etudes.)

My point?  I have a couple of old Themodist 65-note rolls of Chopin.
One is a waltz, another a nocturne.  They both have highly detailed
metro-style markings.  And, as nearly as I can tell, they are correctly
edited to preserve the bulk of the composer's intentions.  Obviously,
the _notes_ are all the same every time I play one of these rolls, but
I doubt that they ever sound exactly the same any two times.  Sometimes
I set the original tempo a little above or a little below the standard
"Tempo 70."  Sometimes I miss a few accents.  Sometimes I advance the
stylus above or below the line in a passage with a quick tempo change
or fail to fail to make a successful diminuendo at the end of an upward
arpeggio.  Sometimes I even do some of these things deliberately,
depending on my mood.

How do I feel about my "performance" of some mighty, or delicate,
Chopin  piece?  Private.  Whether they be highly or minimally marked
rolls, I tend not to trot them out when real musicians are listening.
These folks take this stuff seriously!  They can't even agree on what
Glenn Gould did with the Romantic literature -- and, at least, he knew
how to count!  I've had them shake their heads sadly at what I, armed
with my "mechanism" have done.

So I tend to keep my enjoyment of the classics to myself (like Victor
Borge was said to have done.)  Instead, I play rags and arrangements
for others.  Even there, I have plenty of room to roam.  But the
listener is not likely to know how Frank Milne chose to arrange a
popular ballad from the 1940s.  A musical listener would be apt to
know if I did the roll a total disservice.  (But, of course, I wouldn't
do that.)

Oh, and one more thing.  This is all not cut and dried.  Listen
sometime to a recording of just about anybody playing a Joseph Lamb
rag.   And then listen to a John Arpin recording.  Is this literature
open to artistic interpretation?  You bet.  And will I ever be able
to play my wonderful BluesTone roll of the "Champagne" and "Excelsior"
rags without the influence of John Arpin moving from my head to my
feet?  I doubt it.  And I hope not.

Paul Murphy