In MMD 120324, Don Teach commented on Wurlitzer using QRS masters for
some of their APP arrangements beginning in the 1920's.  Here is some
further elaboration on that practice.

At some point in the early 1920's Wurlitzer indeed decided to use QRS
masters for many, but not all, of their arrangements.  Just as the
Clark Music Roll Co. did for their A and G rolls, Wurlitzer abridged
these arrangements, usually taking the first and last third of the QRS
master, and dropping the middle third so the tune would be at the
obligatory 2+ minute length.  Wurlitzer added percussion and register
cuts, but virtually never the "bells on" or "xylophone on" register.
Wurlitzer's musical practice on APP rolls when bells were activated
was to add a bell tremolo effect in the treble section.  Xylophone
activation register was much more rare and did not usually require a
treble tremolo.

Since creating these bell tremolo effects required a major alteration
of the QRS master, it seemed Wurlitzer virtually never did this, thus
very few QRS masters in Wurlitzer APP rolls have bell activations.
A similar but not as conclusive statement can also be made about
xylophone activation in QRS masters.

Either for the specialized arranging that bell activation required, or
a combination of any other reasons (budget, style, workload) Wurlitzer
continued the practice of selectively arranging its own masters for a
sizeable amount of its tunes during the 1920s and into the early 1930s.
With little exception, these Wurlitzer masters contained the requisite
bell activation register and the treble bell tremolo.  Some also
contained the more rare separate xylophone activation.

Musically, these Wurlitzer masters are very different from the QRS
style.  While most QRS masters of this period were hand played, the
Wurlitzer masters appear not to have been.  The sound is much more like
a band organ arrangement, and I have found many parallels between the
same tunes on a Wurlitzer arranged APP master to a Wurlitzer 165 band
organ arrangement.

Placement and insertion of the Wurlitzer masters in a 5- or 10-tune
roll was always confusing.  It was not at all unusual to find these
rolls with a random mixture of QRS and Wurlitzer master, in no
particular order.  Some rolls could be all QRS or all Wurlitzer.
While I enjoy QRS music, I prefer Wurlitzer masters on APP rolls, so
I make a separate label for each of my APP rolls identifying each
tune's master origin, and whether it has bell or xylophone cuts.

As Don Teach also pointed out, this predictable practice seemed to
change in the mid 1930's when the arrangements seemed to be from
another source, not clearly identifiable with QRS masters.  While they
no longer sounded like typical Wurlitzer masters, my conclusion was the
changing of the Wurlitzer arranging guard and a different era created
new arrangers with different styles.  Curiously, many of these rolls
had bell and xylophone cuts, but the past predictable treble tremolo
was gone.

Glenn Thomas
Princeton, New Jersey
http://www.nickelodeonhouse.net/