Greetings, MMD readers -- While we are currently snowed in here on
the Coast of Maine, we planned ahead and so had enough rolls for
processing from our storage building and are completing a solid weekend
of roll assembly.

Two titles of ours stood out when on the editing table due to the
graduated staccato perforating.  It occurred to me that these rolls
are actually _better_ than the keyboard pianist could be, due to the
possibilities inherent with music roll arranging.

Our rolls of Gershwin's "Three Preludes" and Grofe's "On the Trail"
(from "The Grand Canyon Suite") are at the moment two which show
visually the control an arranger has over the Pianola or reproducing
piano if the perforations can be allocated down to a 1/4 overlap punch,
by design.

There are at least four patterns of staccato, some of which are
superimposed, during the "Cowboy" theme of the Grofe number.  In order
to control the striking effectively, the roll was divided into phrased
blocks at Tempo 65 for this lyric portion, while the basic arrangement
is at Tempo 80 with an accelerated stepping for the coda.  A keyboard
pianist would rely on the sustaining pedal (which is note elongation
on the music roll) and this would blur the crisp interpolations of
animal hoofs, so perfectly conceived by the composer.  I used the
Paul Whiteman RCA-Victor 'Electric Transcription' 33-1/3 record of
the early 1930s for the musical ideas in most cases.

Similarly, the "2nd Prelude" with its blues accompaniment would
challenge a pianist, and does.  The roll can hold the bass notes with
the arranger controlling the "air space" between them while using just
enough pedal to smooth out the texture, but without smearing the treble
theme.  The Oscar Levant Columbia discs, on tape, were the source for
this Duo-Art roll.

All is not lost for the pianist, however, since Chopin's "Etude in
E-Major (No Other Love)" is never memorable as a legato rendition by
the music roll.  The artist adjusts his/her key depression times to
the sonority and sustaining abilities of a specific piano.  Effectively
performed, with the artist compromising a variety of effects, the
illusion of legato playing can be achieved even though the piano is
a percussion instrument with rapidly decaying power after the strings
have been struck.  As one virtuoso pianist told me when discussing
music of this kind, "The piano dictates the speed of the piece."

The player roll arrangement, made for a variety of instruments, does
not know these variables.  Hence, the Chopin opus mentioned above is
either blurry and organ-like in the Rythmodik school of arranging,
or choppy and often disconnected as in the "played by Cortot" Aeolian
release.  Note, however, that on the piano originally used by a factory
arranging staff, the results might have been far more artistic.

Still, when it comes to crisp, rhythmic compositions, the music roll
can soar if the arranger stays away from clusters of homogeneous
notes or graph paper methods (which today can be MIDI), depending upon
the detail used in the layout process.

If somebody asks you, "Which is better, the player piano or the keyboard
pianist," you can tell them, "It all depends upon the musical composition."

Regards,
Douglas Henderson - Artcraft Music Rolls
Wiscasset, Maine, USA
http://wiscasset.nnei.net/artcraft/