Transcribing Piano Rolls, the Pythonic Way

Computer programmer Zulko describes an alternative way to scan piano
rolls in a blog post at

  http://zulko.github.io/blog/2014/02/12/transcribing-piano-rolls/ 

Zulko wanted to play "Limehouse Nights", by George Gershwin, but could
not find the sheet music.  Instead, he found YouTube videos of a piano
playing the piece on Duo-Art roll 1654.  One video focused on the roll
moving past the tracker bar.

In his blog post, Zulko explains how he wrote several short computer
programs using the Python programming language to convert the video into
sheet music.  He shows how the video can be converted into a single
image equivalent to a scan of the roll.  Then he discovers the spacing,
tempo, and pitch represented by the holes.  Finally, he sends the
results to another program, which prints the sheet music.

Zulko's short programs control and connect software developed by others
to process videos, perform mathematical computations, display charts,
and print music scores.  I am not an expert in any of those areas, but
I was able to understand Zulko's approach to the problem.  For those
who want to experiment, Zulko provides a link to download his programs.

Joel Shprentz

 [ Randolph Herr's Duo-Art plays "Limehouse Nights" at
 [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMsEbYCh7yY  -- Robbie