The Milne Question

We will never be able to answer the questions with any accuracy
because the _only_ one who could definitively answer this would be
Milne himself. We have to be very careful about conjecture as it
may be totally false.

We know that all of these rolls were edited. All of the reproducing
rolls companies had to edit their rolls. We know that Milne could
actually play the piano but I have never seen or heard of any of
his recordings. The Milne rolls and known pseudonyms all have a
kind of distinct style. Even his later QRS rolls have that same
kind of style.

Unfortunately, the recording logs and source documents for music
production are not known to exist. All of the individuals directly
involved have passed away. When Larry Givens rescued the remaining
perforators, etc., at Aeolian-American in the 1950s, he did _not_
get everything -- he bought what was left. Most of what we know
has survived from catalog lists, a few personal interviews, etc.,
of artists and or people involved in the process at the time.

In the case of phonograph records, we have original recording logs
and lots of data records that have survived for Edison and Victor.
We know exact recording dates, specific artists, number of takes,
recording locations etc. For most others, no!

What we do know is that reproducing roll recording was a labor
intensive process. Milne was very good at what he did. Remember,
when the Ampico B rolls came out, several of the Ampico A classical
rolls were re-coded to the B format. Again, that was all editing.
Some of the original Duo-Art rolls were re-coded for Ampico. The
people responsible were not credited. The simple answer is that we
just do not and probably will never know for sure.

A very similar example at QRS is with J. Lawrence Cook and his use
of pseudonyms. Cook actually would occasionally use names of actual
real people who had recorded at a different time. I am sure that
even though they are still in business, QRS could not answer these
same questions with a high degree of accuracy.

Randy Hammond