Not much has been said lately about the folks who do roll scanning.
Terry Smythe was on the ground floor of this effort. His work has
paid huge dividends in preservation of rolls. In my case, he has
helped fill in some gaps of my Aeolian Duo-Art organ roll collection.
Since those rolls are in short supply to begin with, and since
there are no longer any recutting projects active, expanding this roll
collection is nearly impossible. I am still trying to attain 60 rolls
to complete my digital files of the entire Aeolian library.
Terry's earliest efforts at scanning the wide format Duo-Art organ
rolls was not always successful. Tiny holes of the 12-holes-per-inch
tracker bar required extreme fine tuning to get the tracking right,
but perseverance paid off.
From one of the scans Terry made available, I have just posted a lively
march that should be a fun listen to any collector. "A Deed of the
Pen March" celebrates the Louisiana purchase and was authored for the
St. Louis World's Fair of 1904. I don't know why the roll is scarce;
maybe it was played too much, maybe it was produced in small numbers.
But the scan from Terry comes to life at
http://aeolianorgan.com/aeolian/Special_Selections_5.html
Thanks, Terry!
Bob Taylor
Missouri
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