The AMICA BULLETIN AUTOMATIC COLLECTORS’ ASSOCIATION NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005 VOLUME 42, NUMBER 6

ISSN #1533-9726 THE AMICA BULLETIN AUTOMATIC MUSICAL INSTRUMENT COLLECTORS' ASSOCIATION Published by the Automatic Musical Instrument Collectors’ Association, a non-profit, tax exempt group devoted to the restoration, distribution and enjoyment of musical instruments using perforated paper music rolls and perforated music books. AMICA was founded in San Francisco, California in 1963. PROFESSOR MICHAEL A. KUKRAL, PUBLISHER, 216 MADISON BLVD., TERRE HAUTE, IN 47803-1912 -- Phone 812-238-9656, E-mail: [email protected] Visit the AMICA Web page at: http://www.amica.org Associate Editor: Mr. Larry Givens

VOLUME 42, Number 6 November/December 2005 AMICA BULLETIN FEATURES Display and Classified Ads Articles for Publication Street Organ Festival ...... Ristro Lehiste . . . .308 Letters to the Publisher Chapter News 2005 Convention Board Meeting Minutes ...... Florie Hirsch . . . . 311 UPCOMING PUBLICATION DEADLINES 2005 Convention Annual Meeting Minutes ...... Florie Hirsch . . . .330 The ads and articles must be received 2006 Chicago Convention ...... Mel Septon . . . . by the Publisher on the 1st of the 331 Odd number months: January July Joad’s Pleasures of the Pianola ...... From Player Group . . . .334 March September May November An International View of the Advent Bulletins will be mailed on the 2nd week of Self-Playing Instruments ...... C. G. Nijsen . . . .352 of the even months. Reroll/Repeat Tubing Diagram Dr. Michael A. Kukral, Publisher for Late 1920’s AMPICO Uprights ...... Jeffrey Morgan . . . .366 216 Madison Blvd. Terre Haute, Indiana 47803-1912 Phone: 812-238-9656 e-mail: [email protected]

DEPARTMENTS MEMBERSHIP SERVICES AMICA International ...... 306 New Memberships ...... $47.00 President’s Message ...... 307 Renewals ...... $47.00 Additional $5.00 due if renewed Publisher’s Message ...... 307 past the Jan. 31 deadline She Shall Be Remembered ...... 365 Address changes and corrections Directory information updates New Piano Rolls & Recuts ...... 367 Additional copies of Chapter News ...... 370 Member Directory . . . . $25.00 Classified Ads ...... 376 Single copies of back issues ($10.00 per issue - based upon availability)

Front Cover: Postcard form Renier Music House - Dubuque, Iowa, William Chapman (Bill) 53685 Avenida Bermudas submitted by Mike Kukral La Quinta, CA 92253-3586 Inside Front: “Trepac” Russian Dance, submitted by Mike Kukral (760) 564-2951 e-mail: [email protected] Back Cover: #54 Paling’s March Series, The Capitol, submitted by Mike Kukral To ensure timely delivery of your Inside Back Cover: “Spanish” Dance, submitted by Mike Kukral BULLETIN, please allow 6-weeks advance notice of address changes.

AMICA Publications reserves the right to accept, reject, or edit any and all submitted articles and advertising.

Entire contents © 2005 AMICA International Printed by Engler Printing Co., Fremont, OH • [email protected] 305 AMICA INTERNATIONAL INTERNATIONAL OFFICERS CHAPTER OFFICERS PRESIDENT Mike Walter BOSTON AREA NORTHERN LIGHTS 65 Running Brook Dr. Pres. Bill Koenigsburg - 978-369-8523 Pres: Phillip Baird Lancaster, NY 14086-3314 Vice Pres: Bob Tempest Vice Pres: Paul Watkins 716-656-9583 Sec: Ginger Christiansen Sec: Jason E. Beyer - 507-454-3124 e-mail: [email protected] Treas/Bd Rep: Allan Jayne Treas: Barbara Watkins Reporter: Don Brown Reporter: Dorothy Olds PAST PRESIDENT Dan C. Brown Board Rep: Dorothy Olds N. 4828 Monroe Street CHICAGO AREA Spokane, WA 99205-5354 Pres: Mel Septon - 847-679-3455 PACIFIC CAN-AM 509-325-2626 Sec: Carol Veome Pres: Halie Dodrill [email protected] e-mail: [email protected] Vice Pres: Troy Taylor Treas: Joe Pekarek Sec: Brian Tate VICE PRESIDENT John Motto-Ros Reporter: Curt Clifford Treas: Jack & Mary Lou Becvar P.O. Box 908 Board Rep: George Wilder Reporter: Ron Babb Sutter Creek, CA 95685-0908 FOUNDING CHAPTER Bd. Rep: Carl Dodrill - 206-236-0067 209-267-9252 e-mail: [email protected] Pres: John Ulrich - 510-223-9587 ROCKY MOUNTAIN Vice Pres: Bing Gibbs & Karen Simons Pres: Larry Kerecman - 303-377-7729 SECRETARY Florie Hirsch Sec: Jack and Dianne Edwards Vice Pres: Jere DeBacker 8917 Wooden Bridge Rd., Potomac, MD 20854-2448 [email protected] Sec: Louise Lucero 301-340-6664 Treas/Bd Rep: Richard Reutlinger Treas: Fred Wilson e-mail: [email protected] Reporter: Bonnie and Bob Gonzalez Reporter: Jere DeBacker TREASURER Wesley Neff SIERRA NEVADA 128 Church Hill Drive, Findlay, Ohio 45840 GATEWAY CHAPTER Pres: Yousuf Wilson Pres: John Motto-Ros - 209-267-9252 419-423-4827 Vice Pres: Sonja Lemon e-mail: [email protected] Vice Pres: Gary Craig - 314-771-1244 Sec: Mary Wilson Sec/Treas: Doug & Vicki Mahr PUBLISHER Dr. Michael A. Kukral Treas: Cynthia Craig Reporter: Nadine Motto-Ros 216 Madison Blvd., Terre Haute, IN 47803-1912 Reporter/Bd.Rep: Gary Craig Board Rep: John Motto-Ros 812-238-9656 [email protected] SOWNY (Southern Ontario, e-mail: [email protected] Western New York) HEART OF AMERICA MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY William Chapman (Bill) Pres: Mike Walter - 716-656-9583 53685 Avenida Bermudas, La Quinta, CA 92253-3586 Pres: Tom McAuley Vice Pres: Daniel Tenerowicz Phone & Fax: 760-564-2951 Vice Pres: Robbie Tubbs Sec: Garry Lemon e-mail: [email protected] Sec: Rick McDowell - 816-781-1965 Treas: Holly Walter Treas: Mike Schoeppner - 816-767-9766 [email protected] — COMMITTEES — Board Rep: Ron Connor Reporter: Garry & Anne Lemon AMICA ARCHIVES Tom Hutchinson LADY LIBERTY Board Rep: Audrey Cannizzaro 15361 Hopper Rd., Sturgeon, MO 65284 Photographer: Nancy Group & Anne [email protected] Pres: Vincent Morgan - 718-479-2562 Vice Pres: Aris John Dousmanis Lemmon AMICA MEMORIAL FUND Halie Dodrill Recording Sec: Bill Maguire SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 4488 W. Mercer Way, Mercer Island, WA 98040-3934 Corresponding Sec: Richard Karlsson Pres: Jerry Pell 206-236-0067, e-mail: [email protected] Reporter:Buzz Rosa Vice Pres: Richard Ingram AUDIO-VISUAL & TECHNICAL Harold Malakinian Board Reps: Marvin & Dianne Polan Sec./Reporter. Shirley Nix 2345 Forest Trail Dr., Troy, MI 48098 631-673-0388 Treas: Lloyd A. Osmundson Board Rep: Frank Nix CONVENTION COORDINATOR Frank Nix Newsletter Editor: Bill Maguire 6030 Oakdale Ave., Woodland Hills, CA 91367, 818-884-6849 MIDWEST (OH, MI, IN, KY) TEXAS Pres: Don Johnson - 248-879-7713 Pres: Jerry Bacon - 214-328-9369 HONORARY MEMBERS Jay Albert Vice Pres: Bill Boruff 904-A West Victoria Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93101-4745 Vice Pres: Liz Barnhart Treas: Vicki Brady 805-966-9602 - e-mail: [email protected] Sec: Sharon Neff Sec:Maureen Barisonek Treas: Alvin Wulfekuhl WEB MASTER Karl B. Ellison Board Rep: Dick Merchant Reporter: Christy Counterman Bulletin Reporter: John McCall 6 Lions Lane, Salem, MA 01970-1784 Board Rep: Liz Barnhart e-mail: [email protected] AFFILIATED SOCIETIES AND ORGANIZATIONS ATOS FRIENDS OF SCOTT JOPLIN MUSICAL BOX SOCIETY PLAYER PIANO GROUP President - Fr. Gus Franklin 1217 St. Croix Ct. INTERNATIONAL Julian Dyer, Bulletin Editor 6508 Willow Springs Road Kirkwood, MO 63122-2326 Rosanna Harris, Editor 5 Richmond Rise, Workingham, Springfield, IL 62707-9500 website: http//stlouis.missouri.org/fsjoplin 5815 West 52nd Avenue Berkshire RG41 3XH, United Kingdom Phone: 217-585-1770 Fax: 217-585-0835 [email protected] Denver, CO 80212 Phone: 0118 977 1057 E-Mail: [email protected] INTERNATIONAL PIANO Phone: 303-431-9033 Fax: 303-431-6978 Email: [email protected] Editor - Dale Baker ARCHIVES AT MARYLAND E-Mail: [email protected] P. O. Box 51450 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION Performing Arts Library,University of Maryland NETHERLANDS MECHANICAL Division of Musical History Indianapolis, IN 46251-0450 2511 Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center Phone: 317-838-9345 ORGAN SOCIETY - KDV Washington, D.C. 20560 College Park, MD 20742 A. T. Meijer E-Mail: [email protected] SOCIETY FOR SELF-PLAYING Phone: 301-405-9224 Wilgenstraat 24 MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS ASSOCIATION ITALIANA MUSICA Fax: 301-314-7170 NL-4462 VS Goes, Netherlands MECCANICA E-Mail: [email protected] Gesellschaft für Selbstspielende Musikinstrumente (GSM) E.V. Via Comte le Monticino No. 485 INT. VINTAGE PHONO & MECH. NORTHWEST PLAYER PIANO Ralf Smolne 47020 Cesena, Italy MUSIC SOCIETY ASSOCIATION Emmastr. 56 Phone: 39-547-346-046 C.G. Nijsen, Secretaire General Everson Whittle, Secretary D-45130 Essen, Germany AUSTRALIAN COLLECTORS OF 19 Mackaylaan 11 Smiths Road, Darcy Lever, Phone:**49-201-784927 MECHANICAL MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS 5631 NM Eindhoven, Netherlands Bolton BL3 2PP, Gt. Manchester, England Fax:**49-201-7266240 19 Waipori Street Home Phone: 01204 529939 MUSICAL BOX SOCIETY OF GREAT Business Phone: 01772 208003 Email: [email protected] St. Ives NSW 2075, Australia BRITAIN DUTCH PIANOLA ASSOC. Alan Pratt, Editor PIANOLA INSTITUTE Nederlandse Pianola Vereniging P. O. Box 299 Clair Cavanagh, Secretary Eikendreef 24 Waterbeach, Cambridge CB4 4PJ 43 Great Percy St., London WC1X 9RA 5342 HR Oss, Netherlands England England 306 President’s Message The purchase of a simple musical gift for someone special might be an easy task for most people, but takes on a life of its own for many others. This annual ritual usually starts on Thanksgiving Day while listening to “favorite” rolls acquired during the spring and summer months. Subtle hints about a particular “must have” roll are sometimes planted around this time. The addition of a Jelly Roll (Morton) might appear on a grocery list. A trip to the Shoe man (Schumann) could come up in conversation. Also, a gentleman might say that “…of course he coughs when he sees bumblebees in flight”, but it’s probably due to the pollen in the air. (Rimsky-Korsakoff, Flight of the bumblebee). Another subtle hint for the automotive enthusiast would be to say that he loves pure Ethel (Leginska) for the power in the performance. For those who have chosen to be less vocal in their hints, the following items might possibly do the trick: ✯ A computer program for making piano roll box labels is a desirable addition to the person who acquires old rolls on occasion. This program should be available at any time of the year. ✯ A t-shirt or sweatshirt with musical notes, or keyboard on it is a premium gift that may require much searching. ✯ Earrings or regular rings with musical notes on them are always popular. ✯ Ties with notes or keyboards come in a variety of designs and colors. ✯ Music boxes are priced from very modest to very expensive. These include musical Christmas Tree stands. ✯ Mugs come in a great variety of musical designs, as well as pens, pencils, pads, hand pencil sharpeners, candles, and piano banks. ✯ Wallpaper borders have musical motifs that can be played as well as appreciated for their design. ✯ Wrapping paper designed with musical notes is always a fitting cover for the perfect musical gift.

I hope these suggestions have given you a hint of the possibilities that may be available to you. Best Wishes, Mike From the Publisher’s Desk Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Wonderful New Year to All!

AMICA Please count your blessings as you reflect on all the suffering, disasters, war, ignorance, and poverty around Ð CONVENTION DATES Ð the world during this past year.

2005 Minneapolis, Minnesota June 29 - July 3 Peace be with you. 2006 Chicago, Illinois July 25 - July 30 Mike Kukral, Publisher

2007 Germany/Holland July 5 - July 20 (This is not set in stone yet. Hotels and buses are unable to commit this early, but it looks like this is.)

307 ") Ristro Lehiste TREET ORGAN FESTIVAL n IN ESTONIA, JUNE ~9 - JULY ~, ~006

Dear Street-Organ Players, Street-organ music and culture is a part of the city culture in many places all over the world. Its influence to the life quality and local culture is the main reason why Estonian Theatre and Music Museum and Varkaus Mechanical Music Museum (Finland) have started a street-organ festival tradition in Tallinn, Estonia. The Second International Street-Organ Festival in Tallinn will take place 29.06 - 02.07. in the year 2006. The festival includes many open-air, indoor and church concerts, festival clubs and other events in the most wonderful places in Tallinn and Estonia. Organizing committee of the festival provides participants with free accommodation, food (twice a day), security (performers and instruments), local transport and sightseeing tours in Tallinn. The only expenses for the participants are the travelling costs to Tallinn and back. The first festival was a success and the feedback from players and audience has been very positive. This has given us courage and energy to invite the best organ players to enjoy Estonia and Tallinn and to introduce street-organ culture to Estonia. In short, to orga­ nize the Second International Street-Organ Festival in Tallinn Based on the previous information, we are looking for the street-organ players all over Europe who are interested in participating in our festival. We are gladly waiting for Your response and for information about You and Your music. It would be great if the responses will be posted before the end of November. This information helps us to organize the festival so, that people from Estonia and abroad will remember You forever. The addresses for Your response is following:

Jtirgen Kempf Mechanical Music Museum in Varkaus Pelimanninkatu 8, 78850 Varkaus Finland CJ

Risto Lehiste Estonian Theatre and Music Museum Miiiirivahe 12,10146 Tallinn Estonia

More detailed information about the festival will be given before the end of this year. Until that, the information E-mails are: jurgen.kempf@mekaanisenmusiikinmuseoJi and [email protected]

With best greetings,

Organizing Committee VIle Reimets - Director of the Festival (Estonian Theatre and Music Museum) Risto Lehiste - Main Organizer of the Festival (Estonian Theatre and Music Museum) Jtirgen Kempf - Artistic Director of the Festival (Mechanical Music Museum in Varkaus)

;#a::'$ RabvDSValleline Tallinl'la Vinlarelilestival II Inlernatlonal Streel-Orgall Festival III Tallinn IIIII1II '?""'-

308 A Reminder from the Membership Secretary Due to postage rate increases it was necessary to make a modest increase in AMICA membership dues. In spite of the hefty workload done by volunteers which keeps operating costs as low as possible, AMICA too, must work within a budget. Bulk Mail Rate has been increased from the old rate of $42 to the new rate of $47. This is cheaper than the price of a new piano roll ! Kindly remit dues by the date indicated on your renewal letter. The reason for this is that AMICA must know how many Bulletins to print for the new year. Late dues payment requires that extra Bulletins must be printed so that even the late payers receive a Bulletin. These extra Bulletins cost much more in shipping and handling. Among the many excellent suggestions submitted by our members, one has already been implemented— that of providing an easy method of giving a gift membership for a friend or relative. AMICA thanks the many people who took time to fill out the yellow survey cards. It is amazing to see the depth and quality of our members in their responses. Could it be that our membership comprises just a sight cut above the norm? I think so. BILL CHAPMAN, AMICA Membership Secretary

309 Advertise in the 2006 AMICA Directory Full Page $150 1/2 Page $75 1/4 Page $45 Business Card $30

Display Ads should be camera-ready and received before March 1st, 2006

For more Information please contact: Mike Kukral, Publisher Telephone: 812-238-9656 E-mail: [email protected]

310 By Florie Hirsch MICA MINUTES 2005 AMICA BOARD MEETING

1. Roll Call and introductions. or with a different aspect of our organization. Each section is The meeting was called to order on Wednesday morning, well organized with photos, sights and sounds to pique the June 29,2005 by President Mike Walter. Board members interest of the web surfer. I am particularly pleased that a present: number of chapters have been able to set up their own individual Mike Walter websites, listing their meetings, displaying their instruments John Motto-Ros and showing human faces. I am hoping that the remainder of Wes Neff the chapters will be able to follow in these footsteps. Many Florie Hirsch thanks go to Karl Ellison and Jack Edwards, Karl’s assistant, Bill Chapman for their efforts in creating this web page and making it as Marv Polan appealing as it is. Dianne Polan Wes Neff, our current treasurer, recommends the amending of Holly Walter Article IV, Section 6 of the By-laws to more accurately reflect Dorothy Olds his duties. Ron Connor Honorary Membership Committee - Jay Albert has tendered Halie Dodrill his resignation as chairman of the Honorary Membership Carl Dodrill Committee. We will need to fill this position. Liz Barnhart AMICA Hall of Fame inductees. The names of worthy people Frank Nix have been brought to my attention for possible inclusion in the Dan Brown AMICA Hall of Fame. Richard Reutlinger Around September 2004, Stuart Grigg, former “Keeper of George Wilder the Technicalities” informed me that, because of his expanding Guests were also in attendance. business and limited storage areas, he would no longer be able to house the technicalities and bound bulletins in his shop. After 2. Approval of minutes from 2004 Board Meeting. consulting with the Executive Board, were made There was a request for clarification on last year’s to offer partial or complete sets of the technicalities to chapters of establishing the Hall of Fame/ Roll of Honor. There was free of charge. Bound bulletins were added to these offerings. discussion on the current status of Honorary Members and These were then offered to AMICA members for the price of how that would change. The Honorary membership category is shipment. Shortly after January 1, 2005 the remainder of the part of the bylaws, so can not be eliminated. It was suggested to bulletins and technicalities were shipped to Tom Hutchinson, the maintain current Honoraries with their privileges until they all new “Keeper of the Technicalities”. He has taken orders from pass on. Motion made and approved to establish the AMICA many members and has also posted their availability on the Hall of Fame/Roll of Honor. The committee of Ron Connor MMD to AMICA members. To my understanding, AMICA has (chair), Dorothy Olds, and Holly Walter will establish the gained new members because of Tom’s aggressive promotion of guidelines and criteria for nomination. these bulletins and technicalities on the MMD. Our goal of The motion to approve the minutes of the 2004 Board getting these languishing volumes into hands that will use them meeting as published in the November/December 2004 AMICA has been reached! Our thanks go to both Stuart Grigg and Tom Bulletin was made, seconded, and passed. Hutchinson for their efforts on our behalf. This has been an interesting and exciting first year for me as 3. Officers Reports president. I have enjoyed the exchange of ideas and thoughts A. President’s Report- Mike Walter with members across the globe. I am looking forward to meeting AMICA continues to be a vibrant organization with many and working with every member of our organization in the activities at the International and Chapter levels. future. The AMICA Bulletin, under the care of Dr. Mike Kukral, has Respectfully submitted, maintained its superior quality during the transition from the Mike Walter previous publisher, Robin Pratt, to himself. Each issue has AMICA International President included well-written articles on a variety of subjects that appeal to the vast majority of our members. Accolades go to There was discussion on replacing the Honorary Committee both former and current publishers for jobs well done. Chair, and it was decided not needed since no new activity The AMICA Web Site is an amazing living “organism”. planned. It brings currency to our group and binds all of the chapters together “under one roof”. It provides a means for our B. Past President’s Report- Dan Brown organization to be seen globally in a most favorable light. During the past year I have provided historical, procedural, Each of the twelve sections of the web site provides the visit and other advice to President Mike Walter and in accordance 311 continued. . . with by-laws, serve as chair of the Nominations Committee and sought six additional members to serve on this committee. E. Treasurer’s Report- Wes Neff These are: Don Barton, Minnesota • Janet Tonnesen, Texas Maury Willyard, Washington • Dee Kavouras, Florida January 1, 2004 through December 31, 2004 Mary Wilson, Missouri • Roger Stumfoll, Kansas And Fiscal Year 2005 Projection Submitted by Dan Brown INTRODUCTION AMICA National had income in fiscal year 2004 of C. Vice President’s Report- John Motto-Ros $45,143.66. This was 33% less than the average for the prior During the past year, I have communicated with President 4 years with the 2001 Australian gross convention receipts Mike Walter, primarily to maintain continuity in making sure excluded. The expenses of $57,554.46 were down 17% from our goals are being met. Membership Secretary Bill Chapman the prior 4 - year average, excluding the Australian gross has kept me informed on membership issues—gains and losses. convention expenses in 2001. Expenses exceeded income in I have not been receiving chapter reports, but do not feel this 2004 by $12,410.80. The variance is caused to a large part by is too important. What is important is the Board Members’ the timing of membership dues receipts. Yahoo site. When Karl Ellison first suggested this format, I had AMICA International income (National and Chapters) in mixed feelings, but it is great! I think this is as good, if not 2004 was $104,065.99. Total AMICA International expenses better than, reports. It appears Board Members are providing (National and Chapters) in 2004 were $114,188.16. Total input from A to Z. Karl is commended for his dedication to AMICA expenses exceeded income by $10,122.17 in fiscal year our web site; music changes monthly. Jack Edwards of the 2004. Founding Chapter is “live help,” and answers many questions. In addition, most of our new members come from the web. If INCOME (National Only) you have not checked out the site, I encourage you to do so. Income from bulletin advertising in 2004 was off 25% As Chairman of the Awards Committee, I requested Fran & from 2003 levels, and continues a trend of declining advertising Maury Willyard (West Coast) and Marvin & Dianne Polan (East income. The projection for 2005 shows an increase in Coast) to be committee members; all are very knowledgeable advertising income based on receipts to date in 2005. of the membership. There were several nominees for the Net (income less expenses) Denver Convention income was Leo Ornstein Award and the AMICA International Award. The $125.57. The projection for net income for the 2005 convention winners are: in Minneapolis, MN is $1,000.00. President’s Award - Yousuf Wilson Interest received in 2004 was off a significant 54% Leo Ornstein Award - Art Reblitz compared to 2003 due to depressed interest rates. The interest AMICA International Award - Kurt Morrison and Ron Babb projection for 2005 is up slightly. Currently AMICA has $20,000 in a one - year certificate of deposit earning 3.17%. This CD The cost for four award plaques was $234.23 and for ten matures in July, 2005, and will likely be replaced with a CD medallions $171.60. earning about the same amount of interest. Additional monies as Respectfully submitted, available are shifted into and out of a passbook savings account, John Motto-Ros currently earning 0.78%. Total National dues collected in 2004 were $38,072.27, off D. Secretary’s Report- Florie Hirsch $9,759.34 from 2003. Most of this decrease is due to the earlier In preparation for the Board Meeting I emailed all officers, start of the membership drive in 2003 as compared with 2004. committee chairs, and chapter presidents requesting their The projection for 2005 shows dues of $54,500.00, which is reports. When the deadline approached, I posted a message on near prior year levels when compared on an “April to April” the Yahoo group AMICA Board. When the deadline passed, basis. The last increase in AMICA membership dues was $5.00 I emailed individually to the chapter president and board per year to $42.00 in 2002. representative whose reports were outstanding. I did the same to Memorial fund donations in 2004 were $1,072.00. The the committee chairs. After receiving the reports, I reviewed all projection for the Memorial Fund in 2005 is $1000.00. the reports and re-formatted as needed. The disc with all the Bound bulletin sales in 2004 were $95.00. No sales are information was taken to a copy place for copying and binding. expected in 2004. The information was also posted to the files section of the Yahoo Sales of technicalities and leaders were $178.50 in 2004, and group. are projected at $115.00 in 2005. I participated in the awards voting, and had other In late 2004 AMICA was asked to dispose/relocate Bulletins communications with officers and committee chairs during and Technicalities that were being stored by Grigg Graphic the year. Services in Detroit, MI. These were offered to members for I will be taping and transcribing the minutes of this meeting payment of shipping, and those left over were sent to for publication in the AMICA Bulletin. Tom Hutchinson in Sturgeon, MO. The net cost of this Respectfully submitted, disposal/relocation project is projected for 2005 at $875.00. Florie Hirsch Total income for 2005 is projected at $61,185.00, about $2000.00 less than the prior 5 year average. 312 continued. . .

EXPENSES (National Only) the convention proceeds, or $278.37 less expenses for the $57,554.46 of expenses was incurred in 2004. Annual Board Meeting and other adjustments. Expenses for the The largest single item was the cost of the “Bulletin” and chapters are mostly related to printing, postage and expenses associated reprints. Counting the costs of the publisher, printing, for chapter meetings. The end of year 2004 balance for the handling, postage, reprints and inserts, the “Bulletin” costs in chapters of $57,914.83 is up about 4 % from the beginning of 2004 were $46,756.00 (about 81% of the total expenses). This year balance. equates to $7,800.00 per issue. At the Annual Meeting in Denver in 2004, the Board placed a moratorium on reprints. Projecting SUMMARY year to date expenses for 2005, the “Bulletin” is expected to cost AMICA International continues to be financially sound due about $40,000.00 this year, which does not include any reprints. to a steady income from membership dues, Memorial Fund Publishing of the “Bulletin” is an essential part of maintaining contributions, convention profits and to a lessening extent – AMICA’s tax exempt status. advertising and interest. For the period 2000 through the The next group of expenses include postage, copies and projection for 2005, expenses exceed income by $1,035.72. miscellaneous office supplies used by the officers; and, mostly All required informational forms for 2004 were filed in a associated with membership renewals. Telephone costs are timely fashion with the IRS, the California Secretary of State, negligible due to E-mail and reduced long distance rates used the California Franchise Tax Board and the California Registry to conduct AMICA business. The total of these categories in of Charitable Trusts. Since the gross receipts for 2004 exceeded 2004 was $3,418.66, and is projected to be $3,400.00 in 2005. $100,000.00, filing of Federal Information Form 990 was No officer other than the publisher and membership secretary required. As in the past, the Chapter Treasurers have been very receives any fee for his or her time. helpful in providing the necessary Chapter information. Thanks to all of the Chapter Treasurers for their support. Other Expense Notes: Respectfully submitted, • The premium for liability insurance coverage in 2004 Wesley Neff, Treasurer was less than budgeted. The premium is expected to be around $2900.00 in 2005. • The Membership Secretary did not receive a stipend in AMICA National 2000 thru 2004 Actuals and 2005 Budget 2004. The 2005 budget includes monies to pay a stipend AMICA International 2004 Income and Expense Summary to the Membership Secretary for both 2004 and 2005. AMICA 2004 Chapter Accounts • Nearly all of the bank charges in 2004 are for credit card (Charts on following pages) payment handling, amounting to $483.49. Fees average about 3.5 % of the payments made by credit card, and are Bank balance as of June 24, 2004: $64,843 expected to be about $500.00 in 2005. AMICA’s bank, Bank balance as of June 24, 2005: $68,750 Fifth Third Bank of Northwestern Ohio, does not charge There was discussion about the problem of dues checks banking fees to non-profit organizations. being posted in two fiscal years, making it difficult to analyze • Award expenses in 2004 were $845.96, and are expected financial trends. An attempt will be made to deposit checks in to be around $750.00 in 2005. January even if received in December, so all deposits are in the • AMICA Brochures are included in the 2005 budget at a same fiscal year. cost of $1450.00. Other Reports MEMORIAL FUND F. Publishers Report- submitted by Mike Kukral The Memorial Fund account stood at $9,250.28 at the end of Printing Costs: 2004. During the year AMICA received $1,072.00 in donations and added $247.95 in interest. The Brochure printing mentioned AMICA Ð 2004 -$43,973.06 above will be paid from the Memorial Fund. Qty Bulletin Pgs Printing Env. Mail Label Postage 1,625 Jan-Feb 64 $4,219 $140 $249 $86 $1,505.46 CHAPTERS 1,600 Mar-Apr 60 $4,115 $121 $249 $83 $1,465.53 At the end of 2004 AMICA had fourteen chapters. The 1.450 May-June 80 $4,688 $122 $249 $84 $1,550.31 Southern Skies Chapter dissolved at the end of the year 2003, 1,450 July-Aug 88 $5,678 $123 $249 $87 $1,115.59 and their fund balance was forwarded to AMICA International in 1,450 Sept-Oct 44 $3,085 $126 $249 $87 $851.44 January, 2004. The Gateway Chapter did not submit a financial 1,450 Nov-Dec 64 $3,883 $130 $249 $87 $1,045.47 report for 2003. The Texas Chapter submitted a late financial $25,668 $762 1,494 $514 $7,533.80 report for 2003, and their information for both 2003 and 2004 is included in the Chapter Account Summary. The Rocky Qty Reprints Printing Insert Insert Mountain Chapter was re-activated in August, 2004; and, their 1,570 Knabe 86th Anniversary $2,826 $50 $50 Denver Conven- only financial activity was for the 2004 Convention. tion Chapter income is mostly from dues and interest. The Rocky 1,600 Pianos by Charles Stein $1,384 $50 $50 Optional Bus Tour Mountain Chapter hosted a convention in Denver, Colorado with 1,570 Charles F. Stein-Chicago $1,925 $88 $50 Membership Appl. a net profit of $795.35. AMICA International received 35% of $6,135 $188 $150 313 continued. . . AMICA National 2000 thru 2004 Actuals and 2005 Budget

AMICA NationalAMICA National2000 2000 thru thru 20042004 Actuals Actuals and 2005 Budgetand 2005 Budget

INCOME

Category 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 (plan) advertising (bulletin) 3,150.80 2,173.10 3,172.10 1,969.80 1,462.95 2,500.00 advertising (directory) 0.00 0.00 0.00 1,755.00 0.00 0.00 convention fund 0.00 167,654.31 2,246.33 5,101.05 3,347.57 2,000.00 interest received 2,480.73 1,932.64 1,664.13 1,432.46 655.00 795.00 membership dues 59,738.79 40,147.89 89,699.90 47,831.61 38,072.27 54,500.00 memorial fund donations 329.00 322.00 1,329.00 1,040.00 1,072.00 1,000.00 sales (bound bulletins) 252.00 764.00 744.00 15.00 95.00 0.00 sales (tech and leaders) 413.50 239.50 265.00 115.00 178.50 115.00 reimb (dispose bulletins & tech) - - - - - 275.00 miscellaneous 45.00 745.70 0.00 10.00 260.37 0.00

TOTAL INCOME 66,409.82 213,979.14 99,120.46 59,269.92 45,143.66 61,185.00

EXPENSES

Category 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 (plan) awards 774.56 44.75 653.30 116.61 845.96 750.00 bank charges 429.13 653.81 643.16 665.18 483.49 500.00 convention 3,116.37 158,632.80 1,082.25 4,745.00 3,222.00 1,000.00 handg:(dispose bulletins & tech) - - - - - 1,150.00 handling: bulletin 2,640.00 3,048.00 3,193.00 3,937.25 2,703.50 2,800.00 handling: directory 0.00 0.00 0.00 497.00 0.00 0.00 handling: dues notices - - - - 366.15 350.00 insurance 1,909.00 2,093.00 2,457.00 2,648.00 2,437.00 2,900.00 internet 460.55 0.00 289.00 165.00 165.90 175.00 legal & professional fees 20.00 35.00 35.00 35.00 105.00 55.00 membership sect. stipend 2,283.00 2,219.94 2,174.83 2,049.00 0.00 4,000.00 misc: copies 227.70 299.03 326.00 0.00 63.48 100.00 misc: office equipment 1,099.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 misc: office supplies 678.93 298.75 482.10 754.24 493.21 250.00 miscellaneous 1,919.00 -0.50 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 postage: bulletin 8,354.90 8,533.43 7,378.63 8,722.03 6,570.26 6,000.00 postage: dues letters - - - - 383.94 500.00 postage: directory 0.00 0.00 0.00 1,664.53 0.00 0.00 postage: officers & misc 1,375.41 2,352.05 2,287.73 2,518.28 2,111.88 2,200.00 printing: bulletin 25,238.00 24,076.00 21,086.00 29,819.00 21,785.00 21,500.00 printing: directory 20.00 0.00 0.00 8,600.00 0.00 0.00 printing: inserts 3,370.49 537.00 2,098.23 1,083.56 562.24 950.00 printing: reprints 3,502.00 11,697.00 2,683.00 7,636.00 6,135.00 0.00 printing: stationery 73.00 80.50 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 printing: AMICA brochures 0.00 1,624.47 49.25 1,418.82 0.00 1,450.00 printing: leaders 0.00 0.00 624.95 0.00 0.00 0.00 publisher fees 10,500.00 7,500.00 9,000.00 9,000.00 9,000.00 9,000.00 refunds 37.00 84.00 0.00 42.00 104.00 0.00 telephone 581.27 33.14 2.55 24.79 16.45 20.00

TOTAL EXPENSES 68,609.31 223,842.17 56,545.98 86,141.29 57,554.46 55,650.00

NET GAIN (income - expense) -2,199.49 -9,863.03 42,574.48 -26,871.37 -12,410.80 5,535.00 -1,035.72

Prepared by Wesley Neff April 22, 2005

314 continued. . . AMICA National 2000 thru 2004 Actuals and 2005 Budget

AMICA International 2004 Income and Expense Summary

National Memorial Convention Chapters Total Income Fund Fund advertising 1,462.95 - - - 1,462.95 convention income - - 3,347.57 49,804.65 53,152.22 convention seed return - - - - - events (chapters) - - - 147.00 147.00 interest received 407.05 247.95 - 403.40 1,058.40 membership dues 38,072.27 - - 7,344.00 45,416.27 memorial fund - 1,072.00 - - 1,072.00 sales: bulletins 95.00 - - - 95.00 sales: tech and leaders 178.50 - - - 178.50 miscellaneous 260.37 - - 1,223.28 1,483.65 Total 40,476.14 1,319.95 3,347.57 58,922.33 104,065.99

Expenses awards 845.96 - - - 845.96 bank charges 483.49 - - - 483.49 convention expenses - - 3,222.00 49,009.30 52,231.30 dues paid - - 1,938.75 1,938.75 dues - NSF 104.00 - - - 104.00 events (chapters) - - - 544.00 544.00 handling bulletin 2,703.50 - - - 2,703.50 handling directory ----- handling dues notices 258.07 - - - 258.07 insurance 2,437.00 - - - 2,437.00 internet 165.90 - - - 165.90 legal & prof. fees 105.00 - - - 105.00 membership sect. 108.08 - - - 108.08 memorial fund - - - 600.00 600.00 miscellaneous - - - 2,572.05 2,572.05 misc: copies 63.48 - - - 63.48 misc:office supplies 493.21 - - - 493.21 postage 9,066.08 - - 1,272.44 10,338.52 printing: bulletin 21,785.00 - - - 21,785.00 printing: brochures - - - - - printing: reprints 6,135.00 - - - 6,135.00 printing: directory - - - - - printing: misc. 562.24 - - 460.85 1,023.09 publisher fees 9,000.00 - - - 9,000.00 supplies (chapters) - - - 236.31 236.31 telephone 16.45 - - - 16.45 Total 54,332.46 - 3,222.00 56,633.70 114,188.16

Account Balances 1-Jan-05 30,873.28 9,250.28 125.57 57,914.83 98,163.96 1-Jan-04 44,729.60 7,930.33 - 55,626.20 108,286.13

Prepared by Wesley Neff April 22, 2005

315 continued. . . April 22, 2005 Prepared by Wesley Neff Prepared by Wesley 0.00 0.00 72.76 406.00 407.58 627.00 732.80 294.86 1123.15 585.00 1033.00 Income Income 1 2004 y, (chapter) (national) AMICA 2004 Chapter Accounts AMICA 2004 Chapter is included in the above totals. y for 2004 (1/1/04) y Balance Income 0.000.00 0.00 477.660.00 0.00 477.66 4912.92 405.00 4912.92 30.00 2.58 42.76 49804.65 49804.65 0.00 1037.03 1037.03 1120.00 3.15 0.00 890.93 890.93 402.00 19.90 50.00 471.90 24.00 3304.42 3328.42 118.76 5053.99 5172.75 410.00 25.48 312.00 747.48 356.14 0.00 356.14 406.00 584.53 5693.99 6278.52 250.00 15.11 147.00 21.00 433.11 1127.45 5367.51 6494.96 275.00 19.86 3486.17 5245.00 8731.17 765.00 1638.00 109.76 255.28 2768.04 2148.76 0.00 2148.76 448.00 1293.99 7851.82 9145.81 568.00 164.80 6390.76 0.00 6390.76 375.00 252.00 late. 2003 activit y 15790.93 39835.27 55626.20 5454.00 1890.00 403.40 49804.65 147.00 1223.28 58922.33 financial activit y ort an p ter dissolved - Balance of $260.37 forwarded to International in Januar p orted 2003 activit p ter did not re p ter re hts p y g Mountain Cha y y y g o Area g Libert y Chapter Starting 2004 Pacific Can-Am **** Rock Sierra Nevada Southern California SOWNY Name Cash Savings Total Dues Interest Conv. Events Miscellaneous Total Foundin *** Southern Skies 260.37 0.00 260.37 Total ** Texas Boston Area Chica * Gatewa America Heart of Lad Midwest Northern Li * Gatewa *** Southern Skies Cha ** Texas Cha ** Texas August, 2004 **** Rocky Mountain Chapter re-activated

316 continued. . . April 22, 2005 Prepared by Wesley Neff Prepared by Wesley (12/31/04) Ending Balance 0.00 3328.420.00 0.00 762.14 3328.42 0.00 762.14 49,009.30 795.35 0.00 795.35 4.30 150.12 1156.63 5483.07 6639.70 10.00 292.72 2889.04 0.00 2889.04 260.37 260.37 0.00 0.00 0.00 848.00 1,028.37 833.62 8016.62 8850.24 1,596.00 229.99 2,208.36 4290.85 5000.00 9290.85 Paid 550.00 653.30 487.46 4779.47 5266.93 1 50.00 4.00 101.07 0.00 784.17 784.17 400.00 252.00 845.24 6172.52 0.00 6172.52 84.00 665.39 884.71 117.82 5709.10 5826.92 49,009.30 Expense Expense Fund Dues Expenses AMICA 2004 Chapter Accounts AMICA 2004 Chapter 460.85 1272.44 0.00 236.31 0.00 49009.30 544.00 600.00 1938.75 2572.05 56633.70 22457.49 35457.34 57914.83 Sierra NevadaSouthern CaliforniaSouthern Skies 24.87SOWNY 165.19Texas 207.20 22.20 12.52 113.86 9.98 20.00 267.46 6.36 300.00 150.00 90.75 423.27 537.68 0.00 500.00 4562.41 1122.50 4562.41 1622.50 Boston AreaChicago AreaFoundingGateway AmericaHeart of Lady Liberty 69.19 101.38 123.57Midwest 18.03 91.86 #Northern Lights 117.29 Pacific Can-Am 25.00 10.00Rocky Mountain 70.00 22.25 180.37 103.30 187.72 160.00 239.19 1123.64 0.00 1123.64 Chapter 2004 Total Name Printing Postage Telephone Supplies Awards Conv. Events Memorial National Misc Total Cash Savings Total

317 continued. . .

Qty Printing Insert fewer applications are derived from AMICA brochures, while there has been a slight increase of applications derived from the 1,450 Convention Registration $61 $50 web site. Piano Technician’s Guild members will be exposed 1,300 Convention Registration $66 cost in $88 above to an AMICA advertisement. AMICA can expect some new $127 $50. applications from Piano Technicians Guild. publications. Piano Technicians’ Guild: As a result of a decision made in Qty Miscellaneous Printing Freight 2004 a reciprocal agreement is being made with Piano 29 Comb Bind 2003 Bulletins 128.00 20.00 Technicians’ Guild that is enabling an exchange of 45 Extra postage & freight 2003 639.51 advertisements in respective publications. An agreement has 500 Letterhead- Bill Chapman 90.00 9.00 been reached with PTG, however their office is essentially 10 Comb Bind Bulletins closed during June while they prepare of their annual meeting. 95,96,97.98,02,03 38.00 7.50 PTG’s advertising rate is $250 per month f or a three-inch 50 Chapman Env. For square ad, published monthly. Although the Bulletin is Robert Taylor 9 x 12 20.00 6.25 published every second month, PTG feels that the exchange of 50 Chapman Env. For free advertisements will benefit both organizations. Robert Taylor #10 reg 17.50 New Affiliate: Added to the Affiliates at the 2004 Annual 50 Chapman Env. For Meeting is Associazione Italiana Musica Meccanica. Their Robert Taylor 6 x 9 18.50 magazine is published written in Italian on high quality paper 1 shipped all reprints with excellent color and text. Two copies are received and one is to Robert Taylor 70.00 227.00 forwarded to Mike Kukral, Publisher. Contact the Membership 7 e mails for Karl Ellison 60.00 Secretary if you would like to review a copy of their publication. 442.00 909.26 2005 Survey of Membership Interests Submitted by Discussion at the 2005 board meeting resulted in the Mike Kukral Membership Secretary a survey of members’ interests, ideas and expectations of the organization. A design Wes reported that no reprints were done this past year, saving was made incorporating ideas from members. Twelve interest almost $9,000. Discussion ensued as to whether reprints should categories were selected, but with space allocated to open-ended be published in the future. questions. The responses were differentiated between those A suggestion was made to publish them but sell separately who were more participating members (had attended a from the Bulletin. The issue will be discussed with the publisher. convention) and those who relied only on the Bulletin or local chapter meetings. This was done to determine if there were G. Membership Secretary’s Report- Bill Chapman different perceptions, attitudes or expectations between the two population samples. Some differences were noted between Report Period: June 1 2004 to June 1, 2005 these groups. See below—Chapter News and Basic Midi. Membership Statistics: There were 581 responses, representing 47% of the July 31, 1999 - 1551 members membership. Many excellent suggestions were made and some June 1, 2000 - 1494 members of these are found in the text to follow. Space does not permit June 1, 2001 - 1459 members listing all of the innovative and interesting suggestions. June 1, 2002 - 1375 members Note that had the members’ interest in technical material July 15, 2003 - 1354 members been satisfied, the lower ranking categories would appear June 1, 2004 - 1341 members significantly different. Listed below are summaries of the June 1, 2005 - 1315 members * categories on the “circle choice” on the yellow postcard.

Applications approved during the reporting period: 58 High Interest in Technical Aspects (1 year). Net loss of memberships is 26, as compared to 13 Responses indicate technical articles are the most important the previous year. to subscribers. Rebuilding Techniques 253. Technical Articles Basic 218, Technical Articles Advanced 197. Although * This total includes – Affiliates 17, Founding Members 5, there have been few MIDI related articles in the Bulletin, Basic Honorary 4, Utility 4, and “dual households” 44. Dual Midi received 123 positive responses. It is likely related to the Households were not identified separately past reports. Those technical interests of the general membership. Roll Preservation memberships coded as “Utility” are used for archiving the also ranked high (160) perhaps due to the technical aspects of Technicalities, and for allied businesses in the automatic the subject. instrument field. Dual households are single memberships with 2 persons with different last names. The adjusted total for paid Reprints of Old Brochures memberships is 1240. Reprints ranked 8th out of 12 for interest. However Reprints While no formal count was made regarding the source of were often asked for in the open-ended question. To satisfy this applications, it is the Membership Secretary’s impression that 318 continued. . . need, reprints could be produced on an occasional basis. Bulletin. Could be a form to fill out, a card directed to the recipient. Chapter News • Put tech topics on video for amateurs Chapter News ranked 9th. There is a notable difference • I joined for the reprints only—there is no point to between those members who attend conventions (83) and those remaining a member that read the Bulletin only (46). Among the latter there were • AMICA needs young technicians and new people requests to shorten the articles about local meetings. Others • Archives could be put on CD on a subscription basis suggested less description of the food served. • The Bulletin needs more on materials and supplies, availability Basic MIDI • I looked to AMICA as a source on MIDI, but found Basic MIDI ranked 10. There was split in responses between nothing…where else can I go if I want to MIDI-fy my convention attendees (47) and Bulletin only readers ( ). older instruments • AMICA should make a video for public TV that makes Instrument Provenance and Member Profiles the public aware of the organization Instrument Provenance (97) and Member Profiles (93) ranked • I would like to see larger print in the Bulletin lowest in interest. Instrument Provenance was included because • More of modern things, such as MIDI, also wider of its important to serious antique collectors. Member Profiles variety of instruments was selected because of its ability to highlight collectors and • Need a ‘members only’ web site for technical info promote a positive and lasting connection with the organization, • Give a free classified ad for new members similar to employee-of-the-month seen elsewhere. DISCUSSION Comments Reported The high rate of return of surveys (47%) was helped by Two write-in, open ended spaces were provided worded “ I sending it out with the 2005 renewal form letter. Many would like to see More of, Less of.” Several of the responses suggestions were made on the opened ended question. are: Responses were very positive with much praise for the Bulletin and the volunteers running the organization. In order More of: unbiased technical articles; historic reprints; to meet the interests of the members, AMICA should consider Pianodisk; Violano; technical 88 note pianos; nickelodeons; increasing solicitation of technical material, rebuilding tips interviews with ‘old timers’ in the industry; new roll boxes; best and illustrations. Requests were made for items that AMICA performances on rolls; awareness of Christmas rolls; restoration; may not be able to provide, such as listing of Technicians or larger but fewer chapter photos; coin pianos; monkey organs; Rebuilders. Another need expressed was where to obtain classified ads; biographies. rebuilding supplies. Members who rely on the Bulletin for their contact with the organization would like more information Less of: pianos; wordy chapter reports; information about food on MIDI. at meetings; orchestrions; pettiness. The range shown on the chart indicates positive interest in all the categories. Items ranked lower should not be taken as a lack Convention Favorites: Workshops; home tours; live bands; for of interest. It must be remembered that if the Technical articles sale bulletins board; meeting people. had met the need of the members, the lower ranking categories would appear quite differently. Write-in Comments: Submitted by • Include an option to buy gift certificate of a year’s Bill Chapman membership in the renewal notice or in the Nov/Dec

Interests as reflected by member’s choices are shown above. Total respondents are 581, which is 47% of the AMICA population. A good conceptual fit exists when the Bulletin content is compared to the interests with one notable exception. AMICA members desire technical articles but the technical content of the Bulletin is largely absent.

319 continued. . .

Discussion on specifics of survey followed, especially on The raw scanning of this Tech II 101 page document took content of the Bulletin. Dianne Polan moved that a calendar 1 hour, or about 1 minute per page scanned. Technicalities I, III, of events be published in every Bulletin listing the individual IV, V, and VI sum to 781 pages. Technicalities VII is still chapter meeting dates and locations and list the name and unknown, but 150 to 200 pages is not unreasonable. The telephone number of the person to contact. This motion was minimum time required for the raw scan for all would be seconded by Bill Chapman. The motion carried. about 15 hours. Addition of an index to each will be at least comparable. The task is do-able, but labor-intensive. But, H. Nominating Committee Report-Dan Brown not nearly as labor-intensive as the cut-and-paste process, See past president’s report. particularly pagination. For a future DVD option, the critical ingredient is access I. Memorial Fund Report-Halie Dodrill to each complete issue of the Bulletin in a computer This Memorial Fund report covers the period of time from machineable format. The objective is a computer form of June 1, 2004 through May 31, 2005. During this one-year cut-and-paste that can only be done from within an editable period, a total of $914 was given to the Memorial Fund. Of computer file of each issue of the Bulletin. This process has the this amount, $640 was donated in memory of an individual and additional benefit of making possible full text searching and $274 was contributed along with yearly dues. a meaningful index. For donations in memory of an individual, letters were sent to The size of the Technicalities files, about 1.6 gigs to date, family members or a friend telling them of the memorial with will make it virtually impossible to post them on our AMICA copies to donators and to Wesley Neff (Treasurer) along with the web site, even in compressed ZIP format. The impediment is check. Thank-you letters were also sent to anyone who added a not only file size/disk space consumption, but also mammoth contribution when paying their yearly dues. These names were time required for downloading, most likely exceeding the limits received from Bill Chapman, Membership Chairman. available to any member who tries to do so. It is an honor to be able to serve AMICA by handling the Memorial Fund letters. Once again, I am recommending: Respectfully submitted, 1. Access to each issue of the Bulletin in a form suitable Halie Dodrill, Chairman for downloading from our Publisher and subsequent AMICA Memorial Fund cut-and-paste processing.

J. Audi-Visual Report- Hal Malakinian 2. Periodic assembling of Technicalities into a single DVD No official report. Mike Walter received and viewed the VHS format. ie., a single DVD containing all Technicalities to and U-matic tapes from past AMICA meetings and discussed the date. As each issue of Technicalities is assembled, it will cost of transferring to DVD. be added to a master DVD from which copies can be made upon request. A lo-cost single sided DVD can hold up K. Technicalities- Terry Smythe to 4.5 gigabytes of data. Our current Technicalities Three years ago, I indicated that a successor would be consume 1.6 gigs. With Tech VII included, about 1.9 gigs appreciated. Thus far, a successor has not materialized. in total. Technicalities VII is in a state of suspension at this time. The materials are together to assemble a paper cut-and-paste version 3. Future issues of Technicalities be produced in DVD ready-for-camera. format for mailing, upon receipt of a modest fee. Such a For the past year or so, there has been a modest discussion on fee would be dramatically less than the current printed a Yahoo Discussion group about scanning Technicalities into version and its companion mailing cost. Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format for publication in the form of a DVD. In the absence of interest, this discussion group was 4. My successor should be somebody reasonably recently terminated. comfortable with the power and magic of the internet, I have in the past recommended that the Technicalities be and with the computer processes needed to effect the published in DVD format. It is feasible. I have converted transition to DVD format. Technicalities II into Acrobat format. It is 101 pages and consumes 203 megabytes of disk space. CD copies of this Caution: will be available at the Board meeting for those interested 1. The existing Technicalities, particularly the earlier issues, in viewing. Basically, this experiment provides the existing contain references to materials and techniques we now document in a computer readable, printable format. know to be invalid. Because the process for the existing Technicalities is 2. If the DVD process replaces the existing printed process, fundamentally a graphic image, text searching of its contents is there is a risk that not possible. It may be possible to add an index for rudimentary A. A few members may still want to buy Technicalities in browsing, not too much different from existing paper versions. paper form, and This will be the best that can be done for all existing B. A few members may want to buy Technicalities in a set Technicalities through to and including Tech VII yet to be of 4 CD’s, in their absence of a DVD reader in their published. computer. 320 continued. . .

Benefits: 2008 - Southern California 1. Elimination of printing, storage and mailing costs This will be hosted either just before or just after the associated with current paper printing process. MBSI meeting in September in Las Vegas to make attending both meetings feasible. (AMICA will be in 2. Elimination of the 2 additional copies of the Bulletin the Southern California area) printed and mailed to whomever has responsibility for assembling future Technicalities. 2009 - And subsequent years are still open. Respectfully submitted Frank Nix Terry Smythe Frank said he needs suggestions for locations for 2009. There was discussion about meeting in the NYC/NJ area, however Discussion followed on the feasibility of storing the MBSI is meeting there that year. The Board acknowledged the Technicalities on DVD or CD. Bill Chapman volunteered to Nix’s and the Barnhart’s for their work in putting the Germany investigate. and Holland trip together.

L. Archives Report-Tom Hutchinson N. Publications Report- no report Not much to report other than that the distribution of the bulletins is going along smoothly but much slower than O. Awards Committee Report- John Motto-Ros expected. The slowness is caused by a reluctance of the See VP report recipients to remit funds in a timely manner. To date there have been 23 boxes go out in three shipments. At this point P. Honorary Members Report- no report the bulk of the bound volumes have been shipped. I’m going to make a concerted effort to have them all shipped before the Q. Webmaster’s Report- Karl Ellison convention. Introduction: This is to inform you that all the remaining bulletins, 24 packages, were shipped on 11 June. Have one remaining In 2004 I volunteered to redesign and manage the AMICA package which will be delivered to the Canadian member at website. The old website was created years ago when the the Minneapolis convention. The following is a breakdown internet was in its infancy. Simply having a presence in this of the distribution of the bound volumes. There were a total of new technology was considered impressive at the time. In the 44 packages that went out in four shipments. All shipments 1990s with the advent of web-management tools and complex were shipped via USPS Media Mail except the foreign requests. web browsers, the standard set for website competency has There were four shipments to England and one to the been raised many fold. Entities are no longer considered Netherlands. The latter was paid for by AMICA and was viable unless they have a website, which must provide useful authorized by Mike Kukral. There were six unfilled requests information to it’s visitors rather than simply existing in where membership could not be confirmed. There were seven cyberspace as a nominal presence. Today’s web visitors are requests that arrived after the supply of bulletins was exhausted. conditioned to expect much more than our old site was If requests arrived after the first or second of March the supply providing. was already exhausted by that point. This has been an interesting The prior web manger, Metta Brown, did not have the time experience and I am glad to have been able to help. to update the site. Her efforts in the past provided visitors Tom Hutchinson with information and with a presentation that was appropriate at the time of its development. It was Metta that had the M.Convention Coordinator’s Report- Frank Nix initial foresight to recognize the importance of the internet, and Upcoming Conventions: to start an initial site. Many clubs are experiencing a declining membership caused 2005 - Minneapolis, Minnesota by an unresponsiveness to the way and manner in which As you can see from your Jan./Feb. 2005 AMICA bulletin, people get their information on hobbies - by way of the web. Minneapolis promises to be another fine convention This first-pass of a web design is the first step towards meeting not to be missed. the demand for modern on-line content. Dates - June 29-July 3rd. Technical: 2006 - Chicago, Illinois The site is managed on my PC using “Microsoft FrontPage Most of you know what is in store here. For those who don’t, 2000” - part of the Microsoft Office suite of software it will be previewed in Minneapolis. tools owned by AMICA. The program disks are kept by Bill Dates July 25/30 Chapman. This is an easy-to-use, graphical (what you see is what you get) program that allows me to get the webpages 2007 - Germany and Holland the way I want them, then automatically ‘upload’ them to Previews begin in Minneapolis the AMICA website once I’m satisfied with my work. Anyone Dates July 5-20 competent with other Microsoft products can learn use this tool quickly. 321 continued. . .

All the difficult work in getting a consistent look-and-feel we use to host the site. We would remain in control of it’s actual to the site has been done. I am presently coasting along, modifications as we do today. Having our site hosted by a group making small changes as needed or requested. I would estimate that was technically advanced and “music friendly’ has its my present effort to be less than 1 hour per month. advantages. Unfortunately the MMD site owner concluded that I had also initially proposed some functionality that would their time needed to be solely focused on the MMD site. Our allow members to ‘log in’ and update their own membership current Internet Service Provider is located in Canada, and is data. This effort will have to wait as I am in the middle of a administrated through member Terry Smythe from Winnipeg. multi-year career effort that has taken priority - unless there is a The service has proven quite reliable and reasonably priced, so member of AMICA that would like to propose and implement for the foreseeable future we’ll be staying with this service. a technical solution to interface the website to a secure membership database ... please let me know. Activity: Last year, there was the possibility of having the people who host the Mechanical Music Digest (MMD) also host our web Visitor Frequency to the site has been respectable. We average space - that being only the “disk-space” and internet port service 40 visitors a day as shown below:

Your counter was created on August 25, 2004 at 2:10 pm Membership is a hot topic in our group, so a professional- CDT with a starting count of 0. You currently have your counter looking membership application form exists on the site. The set to increment on Unique Hits Only. Hits Since Start: 9207; user prints it out, fills it in and sends in a check. A link to this Average Daily Hits Since Start: 39.39 particular membership page is placed prominently on the home Visitors are attracted from other targeted sites. At the bottom page. I believe Bill Chapman has received new memberships of every AMICA webpage there are links to ‘Webring’ sites - from this source. groups of targeted websites that are individually managed by a In the past year, the only difficulty I’ve encountered is the ‘Ring Manager’. Similar sites are grouped together in rings and lack of support from the general population for information to each site is linked to another by a simple navigation bar. These enhance the site. Requests for new information, photos or pleas can be compared to an electronic bulletin-board of websites. By for routine updates languish. registering with (at present, 4) music-specific Webrings, visitors - Karl Ellison to these other sites are attracted to our site, increasing the odds of attracting new members. R. Chapter Reports The website invites visitors to ask questions after they’ve A. Boston Area browsed the FAQ page. One AMICA member in particular, President: Bill Koenigsberg Jack Edwards of San Jose CA., is a retired English professor. Vice President: Robert Tempest Jack has agreed, on a trial basis, to be the focal email address Secretary: Ginger Christiansen of general inquiries sent in by the site’s visitors. He averages a Treasurer: Karl Ellison few messages a week, and when he can’t answer them Chapter Rep: Karl Ellison himself he forwards the message to a small group of members whom he feels can best address the inquiry, thus spreading The chapter has met an average of 3-4 times a year, at varied the workload down to the local chapters. The workload is venues. presently manageable for Jack, who has agreed to continue this Mar 28, 2004 - Home of Chris & Ginger Christiansen, critical work as his time permits. Nashua NH; general meeting

322 continued. . .

Aug 21, 2004 - Andover Company, Andover MA; Our Vice-President and meeting coordinator, Karen Simons, Factory Tour and Luncheon is working at placing AMICA brochures at a local mechanical music location. Dec 05, 2004 - Home of Dorothy Bromage, Billerica MA; to Respectfully submitted, dispense 5000+ Ampico/DA/Welte rolls Richard D. Reutlinger, Board Rep.

We continue to look for new venues in the area, and to D. Gateway occasionally meet in remote (distant) areas. Venues other than We will hold three meetings this year as our past president member’s homes, that are a reasonable drive, and of interest - dropped out of AMICA in January due to his wife’s illness. to attracting and retaining members - are a difficult find He did not inform the chapter until early March. Thus we in New England. We’re also experiencing difficulties finding had to scramble to organize even three meetings. We are having members willing to occupy Officer seats – consequently the a difficult time sustaining this chapter since we have lost over current officers will stay in this role for 2005. half of our members. The chapter has 57 paid households for 2005, compared to: We continue to hold an organ rally a year, and we have 49 in 2004, 45 in 2003, 49 in 2002, 66 in 2001. There are no continued to create chapter activities that involve group effort chapter members that are not National members. such as building a John Smith organ. Nevertheless, membership Due to professional obligations, the Chapter Representative continues to decline due to death, lack of interest, or lack of will not be able to attend AMICA Conventions for some years. desire to join the National. We are searching for someone to fill this position. We are seriously thinking about becoming inactive after There’s $1538.87 in the bank as of this writing. Our chapter the first of the year, if membership does not improve over the dues are $8/household/year, and the money is used to subsidize summer and fall. activities and food, as well as printing/postal expenses. I will not be able to attend the convention as we will be in Karl Ellison, Europe from June 15th to July 12th. Chapter Representative & Treasurer Gary Craig Board Representative Gateway Chapter B. Chicago Area Currently we have 94 paid members in the Chicago Area E. Heart of America Chapter. Our last meeting of 2004 was at the home of Ms. Carol President: Tom McAuley Veome, in Chicago. We elected a new slate of officers and Vice President: Robbie Tubbs everyone is working to tie up all the loose ends for the 2006 Secretary/Treasurer: Rick McDowell AMICA Convention. Board Rep: Ron Connor Convention limited to 300. We plan to make the 2006 Chicago convention one that you The Heart of America Chapter is a strong and active chapter won’t want to miss! Make sure you register early and often! with 57 member households with about 98 individuals. We hold (This is a take off on the Chicago political theme of “vote early four to five meetings a year and due to the large geographical and often”). Whether you come by train, boat, plane, stage coach area we cover these usually involve overnight stays for many of or on horseback, make sure you come to Chicago in 2006! us. We have held two conventions and co-sponsored a third Submitted by which has left us in good financial condition. We try to have a George Wilder variety of types of meetings so as to appeal to everyone. Chicago Area Chapter September found us at the Concordia, MO fall festival. We Board Rep. enjoyed a parade on Friday evening and then on Saturday set up and played our band and monkey organs. At the end of the day we had dinner in the German beer garden and then went to the C. Founding Chapter home of John and Barbara Washburn for desert. The following The Founding Chapter has a total of 52 paid up renewals morning we returned to the Washburn home for brunch and a and new members. We had held four meetings during the business meeting. past year. We unfortunately lost 2 long-time members this past In December our Christmas meeting began on a Saturday year. One, Dale Lawrence, was a Founding Member of AMICA; afternoon in the Kansas City District. We visited the Negro the other, Ed Sprankle, was a long-time member who was Baseball Hall of Fame and the American Jazz Museum. an expert at identifying obscure titles on nickelodeon rolls We went up the street to a nice restaurant for dinner and then and had a first rate collection of ragtime and blues music. We to the Blue Room at the jazz museum for an evening of jazz. In will miss both. the morning we went to the home of Charles and Dee Tyler for Our secretary/newsletter person, Sandy Swirsky, developed brunch and our traditional gift exchange. our local web site with great success. We held another band organ meeting in Leavenworth Kansas The Founding Chapter made a pledge of $3,000 towards the in April. Some of the officers of the Fort had open house at their Adopt-a-Piano campaign toward restoration of instruments in homes. Nevada City, Montana. We are hoping that this program gets off In June Blaine Thomas held a meeting at his museum in the ground this coming year. Manhattan, Kansas. He has a number of band organs, music 323 continued. . . boxes, gambling machines, pinball machines, and many other the Knabe Ampico piano currently owned by the Morgans that items. The queen of all is the Duchess, a 101 key Mortier dance it seems as if it was an unofficial chapter project. organ that had just been gone through by Ed Schmidt. Blame Following the business session we had two open houses. provided us with lunch and the next morning we returned to the One group went to Keith Bigger’s home to hear a concert on his museum for a business meeting. Haines Bros. Ampico piano that was once owned by Melville Last year I reported that we had decided to rebuild the Dewey (inventor of the Dewey Decimal System of cataloguing player piano of one of our member families. By fall the various books) and his Moller Artiste Reproducing Player Pipe sub assemblies were brought together and the piano was Organ. The other group went to the home of Dave Palter to see reassembled and returned to its owners. None of the volunteers his vast collection of steam and electric trains, listen to his who rebuilt the various parts submitted a bill for materials so pianos, music boxes and Edison 24 changer—and to view his the project cost the chapter nothing. At our last meeting we 1939 Auburn, which is in factory showroom condition. Then the voted to donate $1000 to the carousel museum in Leavenworth groups switched places. Kansas for projection equipment. There will be a plaque In July we were treated to a special viewing of the Murtogh mounted in the building telling of the donation and of course Guiness collection of mechanical musical instruments at there will be AMJCA brochures for anyone who wants one. the Morris Museum, Morristown, NJ. Our own Marvin and Respectfully Submitted, Dianne Polan are the docents of that collection, which gave Ron Connor, Board Rep, this meeting a very special personal touch. Many of the Heart of America Chapter instruments that are currently on display can be seen and heard at www.morrismuseum.org. Following our wonderful and very F. Lady Liberty informative time at the museum we had a delicious dinner The Lady Liberty Chapter held five meetings since our last together at the local South Street Trattoria. annual report. The chapter remains solvent with funds Our activities for the rest of the summer have been suspended increasing substantially due to the donation of a collection of since many of our members plan to attend various mechanical piano rolls that was donated to the chapter to be sold to the musical functions such as: the Bumbling Bruder European Tour, members. Our membership remains steady at 63 members. the combined MBSI and MBGB meeting in England, the Great In July we had a barbecue at the home of Bill Maguire where Dorset Steam Fair and others. Our president recently spent time we were treated to view a very rare Mason and Hamlin piano in Israel where he met with AMICA member Eliyahu Shahar in with no tuning pins. We were informed that this type of Tel Aviv who has built a great collection by buying “handyman piano would go out of tune so rarely that the piano tech unions specials” and restoring them. He also met with another forced the company to abandon the production. Each piano gentleman who is planning on establishing a Mechanical came with its own tuning device and instructions for the Musical museum in Israel, probably in the Tel Aviv area. owner to tune his own piano. Our workshop, presented by Barry Respectfully submitted, Dennis was on the fine points of restoring a Duo Art piano. Marvin and Dianne Polan, Board Reps In October we met at the lovely home of Paul Ciancia and Dennis Westervelt in New Jersey. The beautifully restored G. Midwest Hupfeld Phonoliszt-Violina stole the show. Even the Mills President: Don Johnson Violano Virtuoso sat silent as we watched the dance in Vice-President: Liz Barnhart the top of the Hupfeld. We did listen to both Ampico and Duo Secretary: Sherri Neff Art pianos between rolls, but they were no match for the star Treasurer: Alvin Wulfekuhl performer. Reporter: Christy Counterman Our end of the year meeting was held in the home of Board Rep: Liz Barnhart Glen Thomas and his lovely wife, Kim Kleason. The weather cooperated nicely as we listened to the Ampico piano, Link The Midwest Chapter has 68 family memberships. nickelodeon, Wurlitzer changer and more. The wonderful dinner was prepared by Kim and her mother, while her father set up a For our summer meeting the Midwest Chapter was “back Lionel train to represent trains in Manhattan. home again in Indiana”. We met at the Indianapolis home of Tim Due to inclement weather our first meeting of 2005 was held Needler for an open house where we enjoyed his grand pianos off until mid March. This was a triple-header. We began at the and Double Mills Violano. Tim also entertained us by playing home of our president and his lovely wife, Vincent & Maryam his organ. We left there for dinner and a show at Boggstown Inn Morgan with a home-cooked meal that brought many Cabaret. The owner is an AMICA member and he welcomed us compliments and some people asking if they could stop by often to his place. Many of us wore our “Roaring 20’s” clothing and for a meal. Business was taken care of and discussion of a new some of our members became part of the entertainment as chapter logo took center stage, with several options being people in the audience were asked to participate in the show. presented by our resident artist, Bob Stuhmer. No decision Our Sunday gathering was hosted by Miriam Hanscom and her was made at that time, but people were asked to think about sister Jody Trittipo, who served a delicious breakfast before our the various options and we would vote on them at the next meeting. meeting. It also turned out that over the years so many of We held our fall meeting in the Detroit, MI area. We had a the members of the chapter had a hand in repairing and restoring Saturday open house at the home of Nan and John Flint with 324 continued. . . their pianos, band organ, music boxes and organs. Everyone involved in the chapter has remained relatively constant. is always fascinated with Nan’s huge collection of rolls in her “closet.” After dinner together we attended a Vaudeville Treasury 2004 program at the Redford Theater. Their 3/10 Barton Organ In March 2005, we had $702 in our checking account, $2,071 was played by Don Haller. Sunday morning our chapter in a certificate of deposit, and a savings account with a balance meeting was at Marlene and Wally Donoghue’s. After enjoying of $2,709. The chapter has authorized that some of these funds their pianos, music boxes and clocks, Wally told us about be used for specific projects to advance the objectives of the history of his home which was part of a hideway conclave AMICA in our area. developed by an associate of Henry Ford. During our business meeting, Mike Barnhart made a Chapter Activities proposition to order 200 copies of “Mechanical Music” written Chapter activities continue as before plus some additions. by Kevin McElhone in London, England. This 48 page book Each year we have four meetings with 15 to 40 people in has over 100 color photographs and is an excellent introduction attendance, and our meetings occur on Saturday or Sunday to all aspects of automatic musical instruments including history, afternoons. Members and visitors come to the hosting home at descriptions and basic principles of operation. We voted to sell around 2 PM and there is approximately two hours of visiting the book at or near cost of $6 postpaid with 10 or more at $5 with other members while the instruments in the home each. This is not a money making project, but an opportunity to are viewed and played. This considerable period of time for educate the public about our hobby. interaction with other AMICAns has proved to be one of the Our spring meeting was in Coloma, MI at the homes of most valuable features of our meetings, and people become Bennet and Barry Leedy. Saturday we enjoyed Bennet’s well acquainted with others during this time. At approximately workshop and hearing his wonderfully restored pianos. After 4PM, we have our Business Meeting and show and tell dinner at a local country club, we went next door to Barry’s time. At roughly 5 PM, we share our potluck meal together. where we were entertained by a young pianist friend of This schedule works very well for us. This year, we had one their family and Tim Needler. Our morning meeting was again of our meetings in Canada. There are several AMICAns in at Barry’s who was planning to leave the next day for his the Vancouver B.C. area who have interesting collections of summer and fall job at Yellowstone Park. Mike Barnhart automatic musical instruments, as well as other collections, and reported that only 15 of the “Mechanical Music” books were left we spent an interesting day in Canada enjoying them. so we voted to order 200 more. We will almost break even on In addition to our quarterly meetings, we have had several sales of the first 200. We elected Don Johnson as our new other activities of interest. Kurt Morrison and Ron Babb president and the other officers will remain the same. have ably represented AMICA in their work at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle. When the theatre opened in 1928, it had Our next meeting may be in Fowlerville, MI not only a large Wurlitzer pipe organ with a piano in the organ, Submitted by, but also a Knabe grand piano with an Ampico player in it. Liz Barnhart Neither one of these pianos has played very well in many years. Midwest Board Rep. Kurt and Ron spent the hours that it took to get both them up and going, and both are now in regular use, with full credit H. Northern Lights to AMICA. For example, the Knabe is played routinely during Northern Lights chapter held a meeting on December 2004, the regular tours of the theatre and also before and after which was our annual Christmas party. A second meeting selected events at the theatre, including their twice yearly silent was held in February at a delightful farm, where we were film series. While some additional work is needed on both privileged to see and hear a magnificent collection of band instruments at the time of this writing, the work of Kurt and and dance organs and other related memorabilia. Otherwise, Ron has been so successful that both of these fine AMICAns only the convention committee met frequently. have been named as awardees at this years’ AMICA convention Dorothy Olds in Minneapolis. Congratulations, Kurt and Ron! Board rep. On April 4, 2005, our chapter was involved in the support of an evening in the Paramount Theatre in Seattle with I. Pacific Can-Am noted organist Jonas Nordwall (Jonas is the organist who President: Halie Dodrill played the theatre organ at the roller rink as part of the Vice President: Troy Taylor AMICA convention in Portland in 2003). Jonas did a fabulous Secretary: Brian Tate job at the theatre organ that evening, and he made special Treasurers: Jack and Mary Lou Becvar; note to the audience of the playability of the piano in the Chapter Representative to the Board: Carl Dodrill. organ, which, as he observed, is rarely the case in most theatre organs he plays. Our chapter and the Pipe Organ Foundation Membership co-sponsored the reception which followed for the As of June 1, 2005, the Pacific Can-Am Chapter membership approximately 200 people who attended. Many people consisted of 47 individuals who come from 33 households. gathered around the Knabe during the reception while it played. Although these figures have fluctuated considerably from one Other events in our chapter are ongoing. Our chapter has year to the next, the number of members which are actually a band organ rally planned for Leavenworth, Washington, on 325 continued. . .

August 20 and 21, 2005. Leavenworth is a Bavarian town in By-Laws: the Cascade Mountains east of Seattle, and it is ideally suited The Chapter began operation using the By-Laws that for an event of this type. Rob Wilson has taken the lead on had been used in the original incarnation of the Chapter. this event, and it promises to be a truly enjoyable experience The executive committee has prepared a revision of the Chapter with the opportunity to share our automatic musical instruments By-Laws, which will be presented to the membership for with a large number of people from the general public. Bill approval at the next meeting. Masterman maintains a Wurlitzer band organ that he has rebuilt, and he has been successful in getting it installed in Treasury: Washington State’s largest county fair, the Puyallup County Fair. The Chapter treasury was the recipient of $1,076.79 on Brian Tate continues to go to schools to illustrate automatic February 10, 2005 as its share of the 2004 Convention proceeds. musical instruments. Other members furthered the mission of The Chapter account was not opened until it was determined AMICA by volunteering their time on a consistent basis. that all expenses for the 2004 Convention had been paid. Carl Dodrill Income from Chapter dues and expenses for mailings, etc. put Pacific Can-Am Chapter Representative to the AMICA Board the present balance of the Chapter treasury at $ 1,167.62.

J. Rocky Mountain Membership and Meetings: Officers Since the Chapter covers a large geographical territory, we President: Larry Kerecman have elected to have a variety of meeting dates and locations to Vice-President: Jere DeBacker better accommodate members who do not live in Colorado. In Secretary: Louise Lucero 2005 we will have two Sunday afternoon meetings, one Treasurer: Fred Wilson weekend meeting and one Saturday meeting. Reporter: Larry Kerecman (interim) We are also beginning a campaign to attract more members of Board Rep: Jere DeBacker or designated substitute AMICA to become members of the Chapter.

Chapter Re-Activation: Adopt-a-piano: 12 members of AMICA who were on the 2004 AMICA The Executive Committee has recommended that the Chapter Convention Committee petitioned the AMICA Board at the make a donation of part of the 2004 Convention proceeds to the 2004 annual convention in Denver to reactivate the Chapter. Adopt-a-Piano program. We will wait until after a report on the At that meeting the Board voted to accept the petition to program from the 2005 AMICA Board meeting is available reactivate the Rocky Mountain Chapter with a territory to before taking a vote on the amount to donate. include Colorado, western Kansas, New Mexico, western Submitted by Nebraska and Wyoming. Larry Kerecman

Post-Convention: K. Sierra Nevada Don and Ginger Hein hosted a post-convention thank Officers: you party in October 2004, at which plans were made for the President: John Motto-Ros reactivation of the Chapter. Vice President: Tom Hawthorn Secretary: Sonja Lemon First Official Meeting: Treasurer: Doug Mahr The first official meeting of the Rocky Mountain Chapter Reporter: Nadine Motto-Ros took place at the home of Larry Kerecman on December 12, Board Rep: John Motto-Ros 2004. 24 enthusiastic AMICA members attended to make this an exciting kickoff event. Five people who were at the first The Sierra-Nevada Chapter is “awake” and well. Our official meeting of the original Rocky Mountain Chapter membership remains about the same—20 paid households; on October 31, 1976 were present. Dates were set for the four gained a few—lost a few. We hold four meetings each year primary meetings of 2005 with other dates to be added if with varied attendance from good to bad. One of those meetings desired. was to check out and spiff up the Chapter’s 1923 Gulbransen player piano on location at the Heidrick-Ag Museum in 2005 Meeting Dates: Woodland, CA. At that same meeting, Ray and Betty Stacey - April 17 – Boulder brought their 1924 CA-43 Tangley Calliope with automatic “A” - June 11/12 – Pueblo and Colorado Springs roll system. We were hoping to attract some new AMICA - September 24 – Denver members or perhaps additional visitors to the museum. - December 11 – Arvada Just prior to this year’s convention, our June 11/12 meeting will be a joint venture with the Golden Gate Chapter of Membership: MBSI. Similar events in the past have been a great success as 24 AMICAns paid Chapter dues at the December meeting. both groups share the same interests. Subsequently, we have had five more AMICAns join the Chap- We continue to have fun at meetings and keep the music ter for a total paid membership of 29. playing. 326 continued. . .

Submitted by and Beverly Ingram to hear their pianos. John Motto-Ros We have a band organ rally in Descanso Gardens, an annual John Motto-Ros suggested leaving old copies of the affair April 23 and 24. May 22 finds us at the Museums of the Bulletin with an application form attached to Arroyo event in Pasadena for another rally. Other rallies are in encourage new members. the developmental stage at this time. October 8 and 9 will find us heading North to Sutter Creek L. S.O.W.N.Y. and Sonora in the Historical Gold Country for a meeting at the Officers: homes of John and Nadine Motto-Ross and Marion and Joan President: Mike Walter VanVedhuizen, with a stop at Mike Argain’s home in Fresno. Vice President: Dan Tenerowicz We have a healthy treasury under the hand of our Treasurer Secretary: Garry & Anne Lemon Ken Hodge. Our membership has dropped some, but seems Treasurer: Holly Walter fairly stable with the addition of a few new members. Reporter: Garry Lemon As you can see, we are having a good time and keeping busy. Board Rep: Audrey Cannizzaro Submitted by Frank Nix The S.O.W.N.Y. Chapter of AMICA remains a small but There are approximately 100 members. viable group. We have lost a couple of members over the past The treasurer is moving to Colorado year but have gained one with more on the horizon. and a replacement will be appointed. During the past year we have held four meetings in chapter member’s homes with side trips to a Frank Lloyd Wright N. Texas summer cottage and a short tour of an historic Buffalo cemetery with an organ concert in the cemetery chapel. February 2004: Sal & Elaine Mele - dinner meeting followed Financially the chapter is solvent with $1,186.39 in a savings by organ/choral concert at St. Rita’s Catholic Church account and $3,376.02 in a CD account. May 2004: Olden Year Musical Museum in Duncanville - In an effort to promote local awareness and interest in Owner Homer DeFord and his sons hosted our organization, the S.O.W.N.Y. chapter offered a one-year October 2004: Bill & Sharron Boruff - home tour and membership to International AMICA and our chapter at the local meeting in Dallas P.B.S. television auction. Also included with the membership December 2004: Michael & Maureen Barisonek - Christmas was a dinner for two at a local five star restaurant, accompanied dinner meeting & home tour by Bob Berkman, manager of Q.R.S. Music Rolls in Buffalo. February 2005 Walter, Jessie & Charlie Moore - home tour Due to privacy regulations, we have not been able to establish with demonstration of Charlie’s cob making process how many bidders there were, but we do know that there April 2005 : Art Eltzroth hosted a dinner meeting Friday was more than one bidder. Hopefully we will soon be able to night and Saturday Band Organ Rally in Cleburne with the help welcome our new member, and other prospective members who of Heart of America Chapter members: Galen & Linda Bird, saw our organization advertised on the auction. Ron & Mary Jo Bopp, Gerold Koehler, Tom & Kay Bode, Respectfully submitted, Leonard & Billie Railsback, Rick McDowell and Texas Chapter Mike Walter members Larry Kern, Walter, Jessie & Charlie Moore, Dwayne President, S.O.W.N.Y. Chapter & Beverly Steck and Bill & Sharron Boruff. There were 70+ Audrey Cannizzaro people at the catered dinner at Art’s home. S.O.W.N.Y. Board Rep Our membership is fairly stable at around 65-70 - (losing a Three meetings scheduled this summer in couple each year and adding a couple new ones). Rochester, Canada, and Hanberg. We continue to try to have interesting meetings, encourage membership attendance and increase membership. Meeting M.Southern California attendance averages 20-25 per meeting. In September we had a meeting at the Griffith Park The Chapter is hanging in there but it seems to be a struggle. Merry-go-round and we also had a monkey organ rally in front Dick Merchant of the Historical homes in Windsor Square. Texas Chapter Representative. October found us having another organ rally in Costa Mesa for their sidewalk art festival. 4. Old Business The December meeting/Christmas party was at the home of A. Membership concerns Frank and Shirley Nix. As usual, we invited the local chapter of Will announce at tomorrows breakfast a brainstorming MBSI to this one, and it was a lot of fun. session open meeting at 7pm that evening, before the pumper Our first meeting in 2005 started at Bob McCord’s restaurant contest. Have people write their ideas down and collect to go The Sagebrush Cantina for a wonderful brunch and then on through later. to his home for the actual meeting and viewing his wonderful John Motto-Ros suggested a serious advertising campaign collection. Bob’s a unique individual and we had a ball! with professional help. Dianne asked about hiring a paid a April 17 will find us at the home of a new “Bruder Owner”, dministrator. Since this is a volunteer organization, it was felt Jerry Pell in Wrightwood and from there to the home of Richard this was not appropriate. It was recommended that we solicit 327 continued. . . help from the membership with advertising experience. cautioning Dave pneumatic restoration must be much tighter. Dave is known by other band organ collectors as a competent B. Technicalities restorer and willing to learn. Discussion about putting on CD, Mike will discuss with Terry At our meeting it seemed apparent that the Commission was amenable to having work done by Dave and possibly others (i.e. C. AV-no further discussion Mills Violano, etc). They were also amenable to putting some instruments throughout Virginia City for better public exposure D. Adopt-a-Piano and to enhance revenue. Adopt-a-Piano Meeting We discussed a couple of possibilities for initial restoration Saturday, June 25, 2005 projects i.e. the Wurlitzer Model DX with automatic roll changer Nevada City Music Hail and/or the Wurlitzer 180 band organ. Jim Carpita felt that the “blanket” State insurance policy would cover instruments being Present: transported for restoration and that they (Commission) could Jim Carpita, Site Manager~ Montana Heritage Commission provide transport to Art’s shop. I volunteered to check out John Ellingsen, Curator of History Larry Emmont’s proposal of transport as an alternative. I also Janna Hermanson, Acting Curator of Collections volunteered to check with Art about the current estimate of costs Dave Calendine, Performer at Opera House Virginia City to restore either of the Wurlitzers. I feel if we could get one and Organ Restorer instrument into the process, there might be more interest from Richard D. Reutlinger, AMICA representative AMICA chapters to pledge contributions, I will also check with Dick Kroeckle as to the availability of the correct Spencer We met to discuss progress of our campaign with the blower to power the Cremona Photoplayer (it is currently Montana Heritage Commission. Jim Carpita is in charge of this powered by an inadequate Root blower), area for MHC reporting to Jeff Tiberi, Executive Director. In I reiterated AMICA’s interest in this restoration project only 2004 a grant request was prepared to the Tourism Infrastructure for those instruments that will remain on display to be played by Investment Program of Montana for $26,000 to augment our the public; also that we wished to pay directly to the restorer for Adopt-a-Piano program to restore mechanical instruments in the services and supplies (we do not want to contribute to “state Nevada City Music Hall. In October 2004 the grant request was bureaucracy). turned down due to lack of funds. Late in 2004 and early 2005 After the Board meeting I was able to talk with Art Reblitz a number of people left the Montana Heritage Commission and Dick Kroeckle. Art is checking into the costs of restoring the resulting in delays toward our campaign. In March I contacted Wurlitzer DX and is fairly optimistic that it could be done for Jeff Tiberi for an update and learned that Jim Carpita had the amount currently pledged by the Founding and Midwest been assigned responsibility for our program. We have been in chapters. Dick; Kroeckle will be happy to donate the Spencer contact via e-mail and 1 asked Carl Dodrill to contact Jim blower to the Virginia City Opera House but needs to check into directly about the restoration of the Wurlitzer Theater Organ via some repairs to be done on it. the Pipe Organ Foundation in the Pacific Northwest. Carl has Frank Nix asked if there in an on-site person to maintain the done so and Jim is meeting with his people about the feasibility machines once they have been restored. John Ellingsen lives of letting units from the organ leave the premises for restoration. in Nevada City and has nursed the machines along for over I also had asked Larry Emmons, AMICA member in Wyoming, 20 years; he has full-time responsibilities with the Heritage to contact the MHC about transport of smaller instruments to Art Commission but would be able to monitor maintenance on the Reblitz’ shop for restoration. Larry has done so. instruments. He has worked with the entire historic site first for In the meantime Dave Calendine, a theater organist and the Bovey family who created this site and then with the State of technician from Detroit, was hired as pianist/organist to play Montana since the state bought the site. the Cremona Photoplayer for the Virginia City Players at the Respectfully submitted to the Board Virginia City Opera House for the summer season. The Cremona Richard D. Reutlinger, Founding Chapter has been neglected for decades and barely limped along (I attend the Opera House every year). Dave immediately began to work $4,200 pledged from 2 chapters on the instrument restoring pipe chests, xylophone and percussion to working condition—the Cremona; sounds 200% E. Audit better this season. Dave intends to continue work on the instru- Bylaws require an annual review each fiscal year and at the end ment in September when the season ends and also next March of the incumbent’s term. Ron Connor moved that the Board when he returns for next summer. He was able to purchase approve the Treasurer’s report as submitted thereby fulfilling the materials for this restoration from a personal donation for the review required by the by-laws. The motion was seconded and Cremona exclusively. He would be interested in doing some passed. work on the instruments in the Music Hall providing funds for 5. New Business materials would be available. Dave acknowledges his primary A. Reimbursement requests experience has been with pipe organ work rather than pneumatic John Motto-Ros requests reimbursement of $55 to Jack instruments. He has contacted Art Reblitz for advice about the Edwards for purchase of Bowers Encyclopedia to help him correct type of materials for such work and Art had complied, with on-line questions from the web site. Motion made, 328 continued. . . seconded and passed. J. Banking suggestion- Don Barton requests reimbursement for wine and cheese Karl Ellison suggested that chapters look for higher paying refreshments for a public open house in the Hospitality Suite interest accounts than present such as ING. Marv Polan stated specifically for the press on Wednesday pm. The motion was that most chapters don’t have large enough accounts to make it made, seconded and passed to reimburse $300. worthwhile. Mike Walter brought up the possibility of reimbursing Frank Nix and Liz Barnhart for some of the expenses they incurred K. Sandy Libman bequest in planning the 2007 Convention. They both refused any Sandy passed away one month ago and bequeathed two compensation. keyboard instruments to AMICA. John Motto-Ros stated that it was decided at the Sacramento meeting that since we have no B. Convention Fund Record museum, that the instrument would be looked at by someone Wes has set this up as required by the by-laws. reputable in the local chapter and would be sold and the money would go to AMICA International. C. Affiliated Organizations Liz Barnhart recommended an affiliation with COAA L. Dues Increase (Carousel Organ). The by-laws section on affiliation was read. John Motto-Ros requests a dues increase to allow more The motion was made, seconded and passed. It was also activities, such as advertisement, and stay solvent. He moved recommended that we explore ad swapping in the publications that we increase dues to $49.50. Dianne Polan seconded. of all our affiliates. Discussion ensued. Wes brought up that if we print a new directory, we will need the extra funds. Bill Chapman suggested D. Test Roll Project we put a message in the Bulletin telling members what they Mike Walter discussed the possibility of re-cutting test rolls will get for their dues. He also expressed concern about foreign for members. They would be sold at cost to the members. and overseas members because they already pay more. John Certain members will make available original factory Ampico Motto-Ros then changed his motion to a $47 increase. The A& B test rolls, Nickelodeon-G, Recordo, Welte and Artuno test second agreed to the change. The motion was tabled until a rolls. There are several members who have reputable perforators count of overseas and Canadian members could be taken. Upon who are willing to participate in the project. Any printing on returning to the subject, Bill reported that there are 59 overseas the rolls would also be reproduced. Other rolls will be done if members ($68 for airmail), 30 receive by surface mail, and 34 available. A single run of 10 copies of each roll would be done Canadian ($48). He also said we lost foreign members the last initially. He is looking for funding to get the project started. The time dues were increased. The motion was repeated to raise US sale of the rolls would reimburse the organization. A motion was dues only to $47 effective 2006. The motion passed made to authorize $1,000 this year to fund the Test Roll Project. The motion was seconded and passed. M.New Directory printing Bill Chapman said would have to be 2006 to allow for E. Web Page Inclusion- resolved processing changes in the information which is received with the dues payment. F. Web Page Construction Assistance Discussion ensued on the possibility of making the directory Chapters could increase activity on the web site using electronic to allow corrections and changes as needed, with Microsoft Front Page and Microsoft Access. Karl is looking controls so information could not be transferred. Dorothy said for help to do this if chapter members are not able to do this there are still many members who do not have computers. There themselves. John Motto-Ros discussed the problem of the host are also concerns about security. Frank Nix moved that we print of the site providing enough space. Terry Smythe stated that our a paper directory in 2006. The motion was seconded and passed. current site is hosted by the Manitoba Telephone System, is very reasonably priced, and has lots of space (50 Megabytes), but the N. Mason & Hamlin request ISP can not provide for interactive use. Terry said he can assist Mike Walter reported on a letter received from a preservation a chapter as long as someone in the chapter is willing to do work society that keeps track of Mason & Hamlin pianos requesting and provide the material for the web site. information on who has these pianos. John Motto-Ros said he told them to join AMICA and look in the directory for the G. Modification of Treasurers duties- taken care of information. It was suggested that Mike tell them to place an ad in the Bulletin with their request. H. Roll of Honor Nominees Tabled until the committee establishes the rules and O. Jeanne Malone of Playwright Rolls guidelines. Frank Nix read a special commendation presented by AMICA, in the form of a plaque, to Jeanne in recognition of her I. Honorary Membership Chair Resignation work. Jeanne, who is 93, recently fell and was hospitalized with The Hall of Fame/Roll of Honor committee can carry out a broken wrist and other injuries. She is back home now. She has those duties for the present. An Honorary can contact the been correcting rolls for over 50 years. The information will be President as a liason. placed in the Hospitality Room. 329 continued. . .

P. Notify Mike Kukral in writing of decision to print needs more to be printed. It could be printed by Engler, the Directory printer of the Bulletin.

O. Incentives to increase articles submitted to the Bulletin S. Email Response Mike Walter discussed some ideas, specifically to increase a Mike said he does not always get a response to his emails and subscription by one issue if a full-page article is printed. If you is not sure if they are received. He would like a response even if submitted more articles, you would get more free issues. Bill you have nothing to say. Marv suggested he use the “response said he could generate special renewal bills for those individu- required” box when sending. als. The Board generally agreed with this idea. 6. Adjournment R. AMICA Stationary Mike needs stationary. Several members said they could give him some. The Board decided to let the President decide if he

By Florie Hirsch MICA ANNUAL BUSINESS MEETING SUNDAY JULY 2, 2005

The AMICA banner was passed to Mel Septon, the President Mike Walter called the meeting to order. Convention coordinator for next years meeting in Chicago. Frank Nix thanked Don Barton for his job as Coordinator this Reports: year. Brief reports were given by Mike Walter (president), Dan Mel then gave a brief presentation on next years meeting to Brown (past president), John Motto-Ros(vice president), Florie be held in Schaumberg, Illinois. Attendance will be limited to Hirsch(secretary), and Wes Neff(treasurer). Wes stated the 300 and invitations will go out in February. Board voted a $5 increase in dues to avoid a deficit situation. This increase will also be used to pay for the printing of a new Old Business: Directory in 2006. Bill Chapman, membership secretary, Membership: A brain-storming session was held Thursday stressed the importance of keeping the database up to date and evening. Seventy written suggestions were received. Mike read members should notify him with any changes. Nominating some of them, he will print all of them in the Bulletin. committee , Memorial fund, Audio-Visual reports were given. Adopt-a-Piano: Richard Reutlinger gave his report Mike discussed the transfer of the VHS and U-matic tapes to Other: Mike Barnhardt asked about getting copies of the DVD and the cost of $1,000 per hour. Any member able to AMICA pamphlet. Mike Walter said Robin Pratt is storing them help investigate a lower cost for this project is urged to email and can be contacted for copies. Mike. Terry Smythe reported on Technicalities, stressing the problem of incorrect older material. He is investigating putting New Business: the technicalities on DVD as well as on paper. Mike Walter Reimbursements, Convention Fund record, Affiliated orga- recommended that any submissions to the Bulletin be done nization, Test Roll Project and AMICA Hall of Fame/Roll of electronically. He then discussed the Archives situation, where Honor were reported. due to storage problems it was decided to disburse most of the The meeting was adjourned. paper to members, which has been accomplished. Frank Nix All of the reports given are printed in their entirety in the reported on the future meetings planned and Liz Barnhart gave minutes of the Board meeting. details on the upcoming Convention trip to Germany and Holland July 5-20, 2007. One hundred members can be accommodated at an estimated cost of $3,000 per person plus airfare. Each of the chapters gave their reports.

330 MICA 2006 CHICAGO JULY 26TH THRU JULY 30TH, 2006

As mentioned in the previous AMICA breakfast followed by optional collection the usual Sunday morning slot that Bulletin, the 2006 AMICA Convention tours. Thursday will again be allocated to AMICA membership meetings usually will be held at the Hyatt Regency optional collection tours during the day occupy. Following the membership Woodfield Hotel in Schaumburg, Illinois, and the annual Pumper Contest Thursday meeting, we will depart for a full day a northwestern suburb of Chicago. Our night. On Friday morning we will have at the home of Marian and Jasper room rate will be $85.00 plus tax per many diverse workshops and a large Sanfilippo. Back at the hotel, Saturday night for single, double, triple or quad. and varied mart is scheduled for Friday evening we will have our banquet with Directly across the street from our hotel afternoon. Friday evening, Dr. Ron Bopp entertainment by the West End Jazz is the 2.3 million square foot Woodfield will present a program on patriotic music Band. Sunday morning you may sleep shopping mall that contains many top as found on fairground organs and band late or rise for a continental breakfast end stores as well as fine dining and organs. Ron’s many presentations at both before departing for the many open inexpensive restaurants. Musical Box Society and AMICA houses in the area. The following is a The annual board meeting will be held conventions have always been a big hit. partial schedule of events: on Tuesday July 25. On Wednesday the Saturday we will start with the annual 26th we will start with a welcoming membership meeting, a departure from

AMICA CONVENTION 2006 SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Tuesday: Board Meeting (A.M.) Wednesday: Welcoming Breakfast (A.M.) Collection Tours (all day) (optional) Thursday: Collection Tours (all day) (optional) Pumper Contest (evening) Friday: Workshops (A.M.) Mart (P.M.) Ron Bopp Presentation (evening) Saturday: Membership Meeting (A.M. with breakfast) Tour of Sanfilippo Collection Grand Staircase at Sanfilippos’ with huge w/lunch (all day) Imhoff & Mukle Orchestrion Banquet w/Entertainment (evening) Italian Renaisance Mason & Hamlin Ampico Sunday: Farewell Continental Breakfast (early A.M.) Open Houses (various times)

COLLECTION TOUR NOTES: We are scheduled for tours of the Krughoff collection on Wednesday (150 limit) and Thursday (150 limit), the Choffnes collection on Thursday (150) and the Sanfilippo collection on Saturday. In addition, we are currently putting together several other optional tours as this goes to press. Attendance to this convention will be limited to 300 registrants. This is nearly twice the number that usually attends an AMICA convention and is the maximum number that we can take to the collections. We will be sending the registration applications out via first class mail in early March 2006 and we will stagger the mailings to hopefully arrive around the same time worldwide. We expect the 300 limit to fill up very quickly. In 1992 we reached the limit in just six weeks. In 2006 it may happen much faster.

Mel Septon Convention Chairman

331 continued. . .

Sanfilippo Residence (44,000 Sq. Ft.)

Façade in front of the carousel in The Sanfilippos’ carousel building

Welte Cottage Orchestrion and Double Phonolist Violina

Krughoffs’ home 2006 Convention Hotel

Woodfield Mall 2.3 million sq. ft.

Choffnes’s Home

Organ Console at Krughoffs’ Choffnes’s Music Room

332 Advertise in the 2006 AMICA Directory Full Page $150 1/2 Page $75 1/4 Page $45 Business Card $30

Display Ads should be camera-ready and received before March 1st, 2006

For more Information please contact: Mike Kukral, Publisher Telephone: 812-238-9656 E-mail: [email protected]

333 From Player Piano Group Bulletin 176 September 2005 OAD ’S PLEASURES OF THE PIANOLA C. E. M. Joad’s name will be familiar to many readers as having accomplishment. I am not interested in been a member of the radio programme “The brains trust” from 1941 pianists and the technique of piano to 1948. Cyril Joad (1891-1953) was a Philosopher, popular writer and playing. I don’t rush to occupy the front head of the department at Birkbeck College in London. He was also, as seats in the concert room so that I may will be quite obvious from some of the writing below, a professional see the movements of the pianist’s controversialist—for instance, as proposer and winner of the infamous Oxford Union motion, “This House would not fight for King and hands… Country”. To set against these disabilities I Below is reproduced “The pleasures of the Pianola”, chapter 9 of have nothing to show save a passionate his book “The pleasure of being oneself”. This is a fascinating and pleasure in and addiction to music, a eloquent dissertation showing just how seriously the instrument was pleasure so intense that when I was taken by some during its heyday. It was written in November 1951, young it led me into all kinds of extravagances. Brought up to many years later than most of the British writing about the player, hear no music save the overtures patronized by Mr. Haddock, which peaked around the time of WWI. Joad is also unusual in and the four Dances from Henry VIII, the selections from presenting an amateur’s view, rather than professional music-writer’s Gilbert and Sullivan and the Peer Gynt suite retailed in the one. Because it is apparently not well-known, the chapter is presented whole and unedited, digressions and all. JRD. Bournemouth Winter Gardens (Mr. Dan Godfrey) and on the piers of Brighton and Llandudno, when my scaled senses were at last burst open (incidentally, by an undergraduate of Balliol The Pleasures of the Pianola practicing the last movement of Beethoven’s Pathetique ) I developed a voracious musical appetite which stuck at nothing for its satisfaction. I wanted, above all things, to hear great Normality of Taste music played so that I might know what music there was, and I I have pointed out on another page that even the oddest of didn’t mind very much who played it or how badly. My first us is in respect of nine tenths of himself normal; which, wife could play a little—a study or two by a composer called of course, is why the remaining tenth of us is such an Stephen Heller, some of the easier Chopin Nocturnes, Grieg’s embarrassment to the rest. Most of the pleasures of the self Butterfly and Watchman, and a piano of the described in this book have been embarrassment. It is, therefore, inevitable Peer Gynt suite—and I bullied her into playing in and with some considerable satisfaction that I come at last to a field out of season. of activity and enjoyment in respect of which I am a hundred per In those days I was all for Beethoven—during the years cent normal. In music my taste, albeit reactionary, is dead centre, 1916-1926, I used to go about saying that Beethoven had a bull’s-eye taste! I like the great men, Bach and Handel and achieved in music a supremacy unequalled not only by any other Haydn and Mozart and Beethoven and Schubert, and I don’t like composer, but by any other practitioner of any other art in that anybody else a hundredth part as much. art—and I was agog to hear his . I can remember in But though the music I admire is the same as that of other particular my addiction to the last movement of Opus 31, No. 2 men—or, let me be candid, the same as that which men of taste (Sonata 17), with its lovely, recurrent broken chord pattern, and admire—and though the pleasure I derive from it is, I imagine, to the second movement of Opus 2, No. 3, in which the left hand very much like theirs, there is, nevertheless, one peculiarity crosses the right to embroider a little figure in the treble. which distinguishes my musical life, a peculiarity of approach. But what nearly broke up an, at that time, happy marriage As this has affected my attitude to music as a whole, and as it was that unfortunate Presto at the end of the first sonata, Opus 2, has been responsible for a large proportion of the pleasure I have No. 1. The gracious minuet my wife could play fairly well, but derived from it, this peculiarity may relevantly find a place in a the Presto was too much for her. Yet the Presto, which I had just work devoted to the distinctive pleasures of the self. heard at a concert, excited me beyond measures and I longed My approach to music is through the pianola. In this chapter I to re-hear it as the hind, or whatever the animal is, longs for shall not, then, except incidentally, speak of my pleasure in cooling streams. As my wife’s fingers stumbled haltingly over Mozart or Bach or Beethoven, about whom I have nothing to say the notes, fumbled and broke down over those long running that has not been said a hundred times; I shall confine myself to passages where the right hand trips all the way down from the the distinctive pleasures conferred by the pianola. treble to the bass, I used to dance about the room beside myself with impatience. “Hit the notes, woman, hit them! Hit them Early Musical History hard!” I cried. “Hit any notes.” Nothing mattered that I should I am confirmed in this resolve by the reflection that I have no hear the music somehow. In the end my poor wife would retire qualifications for writing about music proper. I can’t play any in tears. The first time I heard the Kreutzer Sonata (Adela Verne instrument and I can’t read a score. I can point to the note C on and Ysaye, of all unlikely combinations) and the fiery rhythms the piano and I can play from memory one or two pieces that of that fierce first movement came tearing at my soul, I was so Mr. Haddock taught me, but this is the extent of my executive moved that I couldn’t restrain myself. I fidgeted in my seat and 334 continued. . . beat time to the music. The tears rolled down my cheeks. The Pianola Introduced Ultimately I made such a nuisance of myself to my neighbours I go back to my prancings behind my wife’s back which that I had to go out into the corridor. proceeded, I insist, from nothing more reprehensible than a I mention these matters, not because they are noteworthy passionate desire to hear great music played, played anyhow otherwise perhaps than as a young man’s follies—and who shall as long as it was played. Hence, when about 1921, I was first say how much of my extravagant behaviour was not, at least introduced by my friend Bernard Gilbert, at that time Secretary in part, histrionic, a dodge to impose upon others and perhaps of the Manor House Hospital, to the pianola, I realized at once upon myself a recognition of the passionate intensity of my that it might do for me just what I wanted done. In 1921 the experiences? –but merely to show how important was the place pianola, though no longer in its heyday, was still an instrument which music came to occupy in my life. It was as if all my to be reckoned with. The 1914 catalogue of rolls available in the aesthetic sensibilities had been canalized along a single channel. library established by the Orchestrelle Company of the Aeolian I cannot remember a time when I did not include at least two Hall had run to some 620 pages. The rolls were listed and composers in my list of the world’s five greatest men—I was classified under the names of the composers, and although there given to the compiling of such lists—although it must be was a regrettable Miscellaneous Section which included some confessed that they were not always the same two. I have monstrosities known as Classical Mosaics—juicy bits of already spoken of the extravagance of the claim that I made in Beethoven and Brahms which somebody had selected and strung the early ‘twenties for Beethoven. It is humiliating to remind together on the same roll—the great bulk of the music covered myself that from the middle ‘twenties onwards I was making an by the rolls was set in a sufficiently musicianly manner under its exactly similar claim for Bach who I asserted, had achieved a appropriate opus number, its K number, or whatever the relevant supremacy in music unparalleled by the practitioner of any other mode of designation might be. And the mount of music available art. was substantial. Here, for example, were all the sonatas of Mozart and Beethoven and the first twenty-four preludes and Limitations of Taste fugues from The Well-tempered . The list of Bach My taste in music has always been limited. If someone rolls occupied four pages, of Chopin rolls thirteen, and so on. were to point out that the limits look very like prejudices, You paid your subscription, ordered your rolls, twelve at a time, I should admit the fact and proceed to glory in the being and in due course they were set down at your door. You changed prejudiced. For of what avail is it to be an amateur in art and them as often as you liked. what advantage has he over the professional, if he can’t ever It was during the first world war that the gramophone began entertain and indulge his prejudices? It is only the expert and to rank as a musical instrument. The rise of the gramophone the critic who must make a show of being open-minded. began to rank as a musical instrument. The rise of the (I should not, I hope, permit myself to parade my prejudices in gramophone corresponded with the decline of the pianola. The my own subject.) Besides, it is an open question whether the next catalogue, issued in 1922, was a visible and melancholy whole corpus of what passes for musical criticism is at bottom witness of the decline. It ran to 160 pages only, and the music, any more than a rationalizing of our prejudices and preferences, no longer arranged under its composers, was designated an elaborately disguised way of saying “I don’t like this. I do alphabetically under the titles of the “pieces” played, so that like that.” The smoker likes to persuade you that tobacco ash Somewhere a Voice is Calling (Accompaniment in F, Medium is good for the carpet, but we know that his argumentative voice) immediately preceded Sonata, and the list of sonatas blandishments mean no more than that he doesn’t want to was succeeded in its turn by Songs My Mother Taught Me put himself to the trouble of finding and using as ash tray. (Accompaniment in C, Low voice). Similarly, the contemporary critic will try to persuade you that There was an extensive gardening section featuring In A the idioms of eighteenth century music are played out, when Monastery Garden (Characteristic Intermezzo) Ketelbey, In A all that he means is that he is tired of hearing them. The Chinese Temple Garden (Oriental Fantasy), also Ketelbey, In a ability to throw out a smoke screen of technicalities, the better Persian Garden, In My Neighbours Garden, In the Garden of to pass off his dogmatisms as judgments is one of the chief Memory or In My Garden (tout court). The Mosaics now accomplishments of a critic. occupied two closely printed pages. More than seventy per cent For my part, having no pretensions to being either a critic of the so-called “Classical” music listed in the 1914 catalogue or an expert, I can parade my prejudices. The music, then, had disappeared and been replaced by popular song hits or dance that I wish to hear has a narrow chronological limitation. tunes. Titles, as I have said, were now the order of the day and If all the music written after 1828 were abolished, I should the works of the great composers appeared wherever possible not care a row of semi-quavers. It is also limited in space, under names allegedly expressive of their contents. It was being pretty well confined to a comparatively small area of inevitable in the circumstances that Beethoven’s Op. 27, No. 2, Germany and Austria. The century and a half of central should appear as The Moonlight, Op. 13 as The Pathetique and European music which was composed between 1685, when Op 28 as The Pastoral. The standard of musicianship observed J. S. Bach, Handel and were born, and in the presentation of music for the pianola had, it was obvious, 1827 and 1828 when Beethoven and Schubert died, is my declined with its volume, yet it was still possible as late as 1922 musical floruit. for a pianola recital or, more precisely, a pianola and piano recital of a four-movement Beethoven Sonata, Op. 106, to be

335 continued. . . given at the Aeolian Hall, two movements being played on the any fool could play it, it could have been enlarged in respect of piano and two (by myself) on the pianola. The players sat behind range and refined in respect of delicacy of response. And this a curtain and the audience, who had been told that a pianola was result, it was equally obvious, would be achieved not by putting at work, were asked to say which movements were played by more mechanism into it, but by taking out some of the which instrument. A respectable number got the answer wrong. mechanism that was already there, so that there would, for By 1924 wireless was already well under way, and it was the example, be a direct contact between the pressure of the foot of radio that finally killed the pianola as a musical instrument. A the player upon the pedal and the impact of the hammers upon number of rather desperate devices were designed to arrest the the wires of the instrument. It was precisely in this direction decline that they could not prevent. There were “Hand-played” that a few of us did, in fact, develop it. We limited the rolls, that is to say, rolls cut, not to the music as the composer mechanism of control to the lever which varied the rate of had scored it, but to the music as a particular pianist had played rotation of the cylinder which supported the rolls and to the it. Rhapsodies were announced as played by Myra Hess, Angels’ levers which, as in a piano, softened or sustained the sound of Serenade as played by Henry Bergman, and Chopin Ballades as the hammers on the wires; while for the rest, and in particular played by Pachmann. But let the Company describe these things for the phrasing and such nuances of expression as we were able in its own words. to contrive, we relied upon variations in the pressure of our feet “Hand-played rolls” says its Catalogue, “differ from the upon the pedals. ordinary roll in that whereas the latter is cut in strict time, the former are produced by a pianist whose actual playing, with all The Mechanical Piano its slight variations from strict tempo, is transmitted to a cutting I now propose to deliver myself of some remarks respecting machine. Even in the hands of a not very expert player they are the mechanism involved in playing and listening to a piano. This extremely pleasing to listen to, while those who study their is formidable and complex. (a) The player sees a score and instrument and give attention to arriving at artistic renditions reacts to what he sees. (b) He wills to play it. (c) His will [sic] will find them very interesting and enjoyable to play as transmits—by what means we don’t know—a message to his they do not interfere in any way with perfect personal control.” brain. (d) His brain transmits the message through the nervous This, of course, was nonsense. If the roll renders the music as system to his finger tips. (e) The finger tips press upon pieces of interpreted by pianist XY, it certainly cannot render it as ivory. (f) The impulses initiated by the declension of the pieces interpreted by C.E.M.J., and the narrow but appreciable limits of ivory are transmitted mechanically through several jointed within which individual interpretation was possible—and it was pieces of wood to hammers. (g) The hammers hit wires. (h) The precisely in the possibility of individual interpretation that, as wires vibrate. (i) Waves of sound travel through the atmosphere I shall in a moment try to show, the attraction of the pianola for reaching in due course the place where our ear-drums are. (j) me consisted—were still further restricted. Passing through the outer-ear they impinge upon the ear-drum From another development, known as the “duo-art” roll, the situated in the middle ear and transmit currents through the element of personal interpretation had disappeared altogether. enormously complicated machinery of the middle ear to the You pressed a button and the electricity did the rest, causing the inner ear. (k) The resultant disturbances in the inner ear (which spool supporting the roll to rotate and the instrument to play the take the form of ripples imparted to a fluid contained in the notes as the slits in the paper came over the holes punched in cochlea which, in their turn, impart a swaying motion to long what is knows as the tracker bar. The pianola, it was obvious, hair-like threads, the cilia, ranged along the inside of the couldn’t survive on these terms as a musical instrument. As cochlea) are ultimately conveyed to the brain. When the brain mechanical as the gramophone and much more restricted in has been suitably stimulated, we hear—again we don’t know its range, the pianola rapidly subsided into a machine for the how—the sound of the note which has been played. rendering of dance music. It is from this last phase that the I have mentioned only a few of the enormously complicated common notion of the pianola ‘as an utterly soulless instrument processes involved in playing and hearing a piece played upon derives.’And utterly soulless it was. the piano, but I have said enough, I hope, to show how elaborate Today no company sponsors a library, issues catalogues or the machinery is. In the case of the pianola the machinery distributes rolls to its subscribers. Rolls can, however, still be involved is the same with the exception that the impact of the bought from a company known as the Artona. The Artona issues hammers on the wires is caused to occur by currents of air which monthly bulletins of new rolls. The current issue for the month pass through holes in a bar of metal, the currents being initiated in which I am writing, March, 1950, is mainly devoted not by the pressure of fingers on keys but by the pressure of feet to popular song and dance hits. There are also Paul Jones’s, on pedals. In the piano case an act of will initiates the working Christmas carols and, inevitably, the Warsaw Concerto. There is of the machinery of brain, nervous system and fingers; in a long list of waltzes, and I am glad to see that the Merry Widow the pianola, that of brain, nervous system and feet. I have and the Blue Danube are still going strong. “” deliberately phrased this account in such a way that the [sic] is represented by Liebestraum and Chanson Triste. Good difference between the two sets of events is reduced to a old Liszt! Good old Tchaikowsky! minimum; and so reduced it looks very small indeed. In practice, of course, it is very great, but it is, I venture to assert, a Development of the Pianola: Some General Principles difference of degree and not of kind. There are a vastly greater But the pianola could, it is obvious, have developed in the subtlety and sensitivity, there is much wider scope for variety in contrary direction. Instead of being rendered so foolproof that the varying pressures exerted by ten finger and thumb tips, than 336 continued. . . there are in the pressures of the soles of two feet. But pianola less sharply or lingeringly. There are three questions, then and playing affords some scope for all these things, for subtlety, for only three to be asked about touch: (a) How hard does the sensitivity and for variety in the way in which the soles press pianist’s finger hit the note? (b) How long does he deep the note upon the pedals. Cut out as much as possible of the mechanism pressed down? (c) How fast or how slowly does he withdraw the that separates the pedals from the hammers, play in slippers, finger? All the so-called mystery of touch can, I suggest, be as I do, practice assiduously and you will enjoy not, of course, reduced to the different answers to be given in the case of the pleasure of the interpretative pianist, but a soupcon of a different pianists to these three questions. nuance of a ghost of an aroma of an adumbration of a tincture— When we transfer our consideration from the fingers touching I will put it no lower, lest I mix by implication even more the keys to the hammers hitting the wires as a result of their metaphors—of the pleasure of the pianist. doing so, I am not sure that the facts which we have to take into account aren’t simpler still, being reducible to two, namely, the The “Mystery” of Touch greater or less degree of force with which the hammer hits the I wish, secondly, to say something on the question of touch. It wire and the length of time during which it remains in contact seems to me that a great deal of needless mystery which is at with it. once the prop and the reflection of musical snobbery invests the In the case of the pianola player, the touch questions which subject of the pianist’s touch. Concert addicts pride themselves can be relevantly asked appear to be two only—how hard does on being able to recognize a pianist by his touch; they profess, his foot press upon the pedal and for how long does it press? for example, to be able to distinguish the touch of Schnabel from The effects of his foot pressure are the same as the effects of the that of Cortot and that of Cortot from that of Horowitz. They pressure of the pianist’s fingers and thumbs, namely the impact indulge in refinements and subtleties of perceptiveness, alleging, of hammers on wires and the variables which are involved, are for example, that the style and touch of Schnabel, peculiarly the same, being the degree of force with which the hammer appropriate to Beethoven, are suitable for Mozart and so on. hits the wire and the length of time during which it remains in For my part, I would like to try the experiment of leading contact with it. these experts blindfold into a concert hall in which one of these There is, of course, a difference between the piano and the so easily recognized pianists was playing, and then to ask them pianola in respect of the origin of the stimulus which causes the which pianist it was. I wouldn’t mind laying twenty to one that instruments to make their respective sounds. In the one case the nineteen of them out of twenty, especially if they be gushing origin is the pressure of the pianist’s finger tips plus that of his women, would be unable to tell me; or that, if they did get feet; in the other the pressure of the pianola player’s feet. And it right, they would do so only be guesswork. So, too, with the ten finger and thumb tips are, I have already admitted, conductors. With what intimate expertise people discuss the capable of very much more subtle graduations of pressure than respective merits and demerits of the different conductors. “My the feet of the pianola player. But the difference is, I repeat, one dear,” they rhapsodise, “he was just too wonderful,” “he” being, of degree and not of kind. of course, not Beethoven but Furtwangler. “Yes, he is absolutely The object of this lecture is to demonstrate that though the blissful. But, you know, I prefer Toscanini in the Sixth. His pianola is a more mechanical and less subtle instrument than the playing of the last movement !!” How they scream and gush piano, the difference between them is not adequately expressed about tempo, vitality, tone colour, harmonic values, sensitivity, by saying that the one is, while the other is not, a mechanical vibrato, crescendo, sforzando and bombinando… as the stream instrument. Moreover, there is an art in pianola playing. You can of silly words comes pouring out of the silly lips. Drop me one get better at it and by constant practice you can make your of these rhapsodizing snobs down through the roof of the Albert instrument a more sensitive medium for the expression of your Hall with her back to the conductor mercifully, though perhaps intentions. To a very large extent, of course, you are bound by inadvisedly, breaking her fall a conductor, moreover, who we the conformation of the pattern of the slits in the roll and by the will suppose to be conducting some musical “chestnut”, the size and shape of the slits, but you are not wholly bound. Jupiter let us say, or the Schubert C Major, and ask her who he I hope that I have said enough to show that, though from the is. How often, do you suppose, will you get a correct answer? point of view of the listener, a good gramophone may be greatly For my part, having listened to music for nearly forty years, the superior to a pianola, from the point of view of the player the most that I would assert is that I might on occasion correctly pianola has a certain advantage, the advantage, namely, of guess that the Mozart was being conducted by Beecham and the giving scope for self-expression which the gramophone lacks. Beethoven concerto or sonata being played by Schnabel and Over the last thirty-five years, one of the most dependable even so, I should be as often wrong as right. and continuing pleasures of myself has been the pleasure of Nothing in the foregoing should be taken to suggest (a) that expressing the self in the rendering of music on the pianola. there are not good performances and bad one, (b) that the difference between them is not enormously important and (c) Frederick Evans that I can never tell one from the other. I have spoken above of “we” and “us” and there were in fact I suggest that there are three, and only three, factors to be three or four of us who “developed” the pianola, if I may repeat taken into account as determinants of variations of touch. For my rather grandiose phrase, on what we considered to be what, after all, can a pianist do with a note? He can hit it with musical lines. We visited one another’s houses and heard one more or less strength; he can leave his finger upon it for a another play. A disconcerting characteristic of the “developed” greater or less period of time and he can withdraw it more or pianola was that the instrument turned out to be so individual, so 337 continued. . . personal and so apparently capricious that none of us could play that accorded by Shaw to most other mortals. Shaw treated him another’s instrument—not, at least, without a substantial spell of with his usual generosity and sent him copies of all his books preliminary practice. This rather unexpected characteristic gave as they came out. These, too, were inscribed “To my friend, us pleasure since it placed a further and, it appeared to us, a final Frederick Evans.” When Evans retired he had just enough damper upon the exploitation of the pianola as a commercial money to make ends meet in decent comfort, but not enough instrument. Rolls were, of course, our difficulty. I have told how to pay the debts of a relative who had failed in business in, I the rolls available in the libraries first of the Orchestrelle and think, the United States. Wondering how to lay his hands on the later of the Aeolian Companies showed, as the years passed, necessary amount, Evans thought of his first edition Shaws and a marked decline in quality. “Classical” rolls went out of with some trepidation wrote to Shaw telling him of his difficulty commission and were replaced, in so far as they were replaced at and asking whether Shaw had any objection to his realizing what all, by song-hits, selections, jazz and, later, swing. he could on the books. Shaw replied “of course not my dear By dint of careful selection and collection I ultimately chap, that is just what they are there for” or words to that effect, accumulated a library of some three hundred respectworthy and Evans, who knew the first edition market inside out, sold the rolls, but there was a great deal of music that I wanted to hear lot to the tune of some three thousand pounds. for which no rolls had been cut. It was about this time that When I came to know him, Evans was in the eighties, a Frederick Evans wrote to me. I had included a brief account small, square-cut, stocky man with a red face and bushy of the pianola and its pleasures in one of my early books; I had eyebrows, wearing a little tuft of beard on his chin. He reminded also dilated upon its defects, none of which have I yet got my me of Samuel Butler, except that the blue reefer double-breasted heart high enough to mention. (One of the chief, by the way, was jackets that he affected gave him a nautical air. He was and is the difficulty of emphasizing a particular note or notes as, extraordinarily vigorous and vital and talked nineteen to the for example, when one is trying to bring out the entry of one of dozen from the moment I arrived to the moment when he sat the voices in a fugue, while soft pedaling the rest, the pianola down to the pianola. When his talk excited him, which it tending to play all simultaneous notes equally loudly. The frequently did, he would get out of his chair and bounce about manufacturers had sought to overcome this difficulty by a device the room like a garrulous balloon. He would come across some known as “the Themodist”, whereby the note or notes which phrase in a leader in The Times or the Daily Worker—he took it was desired to emphasise were played a fraction of a second both papers—ask me what I thought of it and before I had time earlier than those with which they should properly have to open my mouth, would tell me what he thought of it, tell me synchronized. As might be expected, this device was far from with a great wealth of emphasis and detail. satisfactory and when clumsily executed, as it often was, ruined When I first got to know him he was just coming to the music. There was also a method of soft-pedaling Spiritualism and had a way of bringing all topics, however accompanying notes which depended on substituting a series of remote, round to the question of our survival of bodily death, of perforations for a single slit.) which he was convinced. On this subject, indeed, he developed a Evans wrote that he had given some thought to the kind of fanaticism and became rather a . For my part, I improvement of the pianola in general and of the Themodist in loved to hear him discourse on music, his tastes, though wider, particular. He had one or two things, he said, to show me, and being not dissimilar from mine. He taught me a great deal, invited me to come and have tea with him. “I am an old man” taught me, for example, the worth of Schubert. He was also for his letter concluded, “but I think I can still show you how some inscrutable reason an admirer of Rachmaninoff. the pianola ought to be played.” I couldn’t resist this and one afternoon made the journey from Hampstead to Acton by the Evans and the Composers North London Railway. Schubert was, for him, one of the four great composers, Evans was one of the most remarkable men I have ever met. and one of the four great composers ever since he has been He had been a famous bookseller in, I think, Ludgate Circus, for me. At that time I had still to hear the great posthumous where his shop was frequented by the leading literary men of his sonatas, the A Major, the B flat and the C Minor. Evans day, particularly by the pre-Raphaelites, most of whom he had played them to me, discoursing the while on their points and included among his acquaintances. His house was still furnished virtues. “Listen to that melody,” he would say. “No, not that in pre-Raphaelite style—curtains, wallpaper and carpet one, stupid, the one that’s just coming. Straight out of Heaven, by William Morris and on the walls prints of pictures by isn’t it? “For Schumann, on the other hand, he had little Brune-Jones and Rossetti. Evans also possessed a book of plates respect: “How the fellow does pound away with that thick left of Rossetti’s pictures and another book of his poems in the most hand of his!” But Bach was his great love as, indeed, he has gorgeous of pre-Raphaelite bindings, all inscribed “to my friend, been mine ever since. Frederick Evans” in the handwriting of the artist. There was a Evans would send a postcard, “Just played a new fugue of Holman Hunt original, and there were books inscribed by Ford J.S.B.’s—a beauty. Come to tea next week and hear it.” The Madox Brown. There were letters from all the lot. The house discovery would be, let us say, the rarely played Toccata and was, in fact, a pre-Raphaelite museum. Fugue for the Clavier in D Major—just as good, by the way, as Evans had lived through several strata of literary men and the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, that good old “chestnut” Shaw had been a frequent visitor to his shop. Evans had for which has lost its bloom through overplaying. The D Major Shaw an admiration verging on hero worship and seemed at one nobody knows, though I believe Rudolph Dolmetsch once used time to have been admitted to a degree of intimacy greater than to play it on the , where it sounded thin and stringy. 338 continued. . .

(What an overrated instrument, by the way!) The piece as a warped…For most of them, poor dears, never learn any whole is rendered memorable by some lovely bits of recitative better. The man’s a corrupter of youth, sir! He leads it which link together the two movements of the toccata and also up the musical garden path. He ought to be made to drink the its second movement and the fugue. “Now keep still and listen,” hemlock.” Evans would say as he played the thing; “He is going to say something. There you are. He’s said it. As you see, it’s a The Photographer question. He is asking something of the universe, or perhaps One other characteristic of Evans remains to be mentioned, it’s of God. Are you all right underneath, all right really, he is one that I should perhaps have introduced first, since it is for asking? Through all this bit of recitative he is waiting for an this, if for anything, that his name will remembered—he was a answer. He still, you see, doesn’t know.” And then the answer first-rate photographer. I don’t mean merely that he was a man came, came in the form of a relaxation of a passage of prolonged who took good photographs. I mean that he was one of the tension—I don’t know the technical musical name for this. pioneers of photography who, I was told, had played a greater “There now,” Evans would say, “you can see, it’s going to be all part in the development of photography as “an art-form” than right. Be comforted. You see now or, rather, John Sebastian sees, any other man. It seems that there was some quality about these or I see—I think I’m getting a bit mixed up about who it is that early “art” photographs that has subsequently been lost and sees and who is being comforted—that it is all right. But what has proved impossible to recapture. I have heard Evan’s name comfort! What tenderness of comfort! “—and then came that mentioned by leading professional photographers with lovely lilting fugue at the end, springing up so suddenly and something like awe. They speak of “an early Evans” or “a late sweetly out of the solemnities of Bach’s assurance of comfort— period Evans.” Certainly those of his photographs which he “Just like a blackbird piping up in a bush in the garden.” showed me—and he had large albums full of them—seemed to Whenever he was moved by a piece of music—and it was me lovely. They were mostly of outdoor scenes, reeds by a river, rarely that he was not, for I never knew a man with a greater Great Gable under a stormy sky or an old barn. One or two gusto of appreciation—Evans would punctuate his rendering of which I have in my possession do indeed possess some of the it with comments. One of the advantages of the pianola, by qualities of a picture, in that you can look at them every day as the way, is that you aren’t so overwhelmed with the technical they hang on the wall and still notice them. difficulties involved in hitting the right notes at the right And so to the pianola which was the occasion of my meeting intervals as to be unable to spare time and attention to notice this remarkable man. His claim that he had introduced a number what it is that you are playing and, if so minded, to descant upon of improvements was justified. In the case of the ordinary its outstanding characteristics. pianola the feet perform a double function: (a) they provide the Evans called Bach his “bread and butter music”, meaning that energy which causes the motor to work; in other words they it was suitable for all times of the day and for every mood. So I, make the thing go; and (b) they are responsible, as I have too, have found it. In general, it is of all music that of which you explained, for the phrasing, for the intervals between notes and least quickly get tired; even on the Air on the G String, of the for variations in the volume of sound. Evans had hit upon a Fugue at the end of the Fifth French Suite, of the first movement device whereby the first of these two functions was performed of the Italian Concerto, of the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, or by electricity—you switched on the main by a plug—leaving the of “Jesu, joy of Man’s Desiring”—yes, even of these you don’t feet wholly free for the performance of the second. He had a get tired, though from the last perhaps you are every now and nice little baby grand and he got some very good effects, though then glad of a little relief. no better, I considered, than those which I produced myself. Evan’s comments on performers, singers and conductors Moreover, his mechanism was always breaking down, whether were as pregnant as his comments upon the composers; as through some inherent defect or because Evans was getting pregnant and far more caustic. As most of the subjects of his too old adequately to execute his own conceptions, I never raillery are still alive, I omit them here. But I give one—on Sir discovered. —which I include, unjust as I consider it to be, in order to show Evan’s style. We disagreed violently about Tea with Evans Wood for whom I had and have a profound admiration, more I would go over to Acton about four o’clock in the afternoon. particularly in that it was through him that many of us young Tea was administered to us by Mrs. Evans, a pleasant, placid people got our chance of hearing for the first time the world’s woman who clearly regarded Evans as a genius who couldn’t be great orchestral music. Evans, however, would have none of it. judged by ordinary rules or held accountable for his actions like Mention of Sir Henry Wood’s name would rouse him to a fury other men. During tea Evans talked. In the early years of our of disapproval and denunciation. “The man’s a beast! The man’s acquaintance his talk was mainly of music; he spoke of the rolls a beast!” he cried, jumping about the room in his excitement. he had cut, of the concerts he had listened to over the wireless “He gets young people to come and hear Beethoven’s and so on, but as the years passed his conversation came, as symphonies and then proceeds to murder them—the symphonies I have told, to concern itself increasingly with Spiritualism. I mean. Those aren’t Beethoven’s symphonies and concertos I deplored this tendency and tried to laugh him out of it. As that they hear! They are distorted and mutilated so that we grow older, I told him, our minds become matted with their own mother wouldn’t know them. And the young “Godwebs”; but this was not the sort of joke that amused him. people, not knowing any better, go away thinking that this After tea he settles down to play and I to listen to a programme is what Beethoven is. With their tastes permanently 339 continued. . . of rolls which had been carefully planned in advance. is a curious experience to pick out an unknown roll—a late I wish I could convey the atmosphere of these occasions Haydn , let us say—wonder what it holds in store beginning with the journey by the North London Railway from and proceed to play it in order to find out. One has the sensation Hampstead Heath Station to Acton Central, they seemed to lie of an explorer faring forth over an unknown musical sea. outside the main stream of London life in the ‘thirties which, for And so at last I come to the advantages accruing to the the space of an afternoon, was suspended. In spite of its pianola player, the enjoyment of which has constituted one of electrification this railway seems like a survival from the the most continuing and distinctive pleasures of myself. Victorian age, so decayed are its stations, so forgotten the area which it serves—Canonbury and Highbury and Barnsbury and Advantages of the Pianola: 1. Absence of Difficulty Kensal Rise. The atmosphere of survival was intensified First, for the pianola player there are not technical by Evans’s house. After a walk through one of those totally difficulties. He can tackle anything. He can play the last impersonal twentieth century suburbs, utterly undistinguished movement of the Apassionata without turning a musical hair; and indistinguishable from a score of other, one came to a row he can play any fugue, however complicated; he can play the of square, solid-looking semi-detached houses of yellow brick, Goldberg Variations, even No. 29, in regard to which I have which stood like surviving rocks of Victorian solidity among the heard Donald Tovey say that there were only two men alive oncoming waves of twentieth century pink. At the back a factory who had the technique to play it properly, that one of them was had recently been erected and its smoke came blowing across himself and that he couldn’t play it properly. For many years the little garden where a lawn led down to a small statue which I was in the habit of playing one of the forty-eight preludes presided over a pool of depressed goldfish. One got the and fugues every morning before settling down to work. impression of something belonging to a vanished age that had (I mentioned this once in an article or lecture and was astonished strayed by mistake into the twentieth century, sorry that it had to read a few days later in some musical paper the following: done so, but putting up a gallant rearguard action against this “Professor Joad’s worship of Bach is extreme, to say the least, trivial, flimsy world that knew it not. for he tells us that every morning after breakfast he rarely fails to play through the whole of the forty-eight preludes and fugues The Rolls on his pianola! I am reminded by this of Compton Mackenzie’s The furnishings of the drawing and dining rooms were, as I prodigious feat of hearing through without a break on have said, largely pre-Raphaelite. The rest of the building was several occasions the seven symphonies of Sibelius.” I have a little more than a warehouse for pianola rolls. For the last thirty considerable appetite for Bach but there are limits.) years of his life Evans had been cutting rolls steadily at the rate Bach is the music for the morning and the morning is for of about one every two days. He used to work a little machine Bach, when one brings to him a palate unsullied by emotion and rather like a printing press which punched holes in a roll of unscored by events. After many years’ practice, I have perfected parchment paper direct from the score. The rolls spawned and a morning routine. I normally wake at eight and ring for tea sprawled all over the house to the scandal of Mrs. Evans. They which comes with the Manchester Guardian and letters. (If I were stacked on shelves in attics, they were ranged along the haven’t rung by 8:45, it comes uncalled for.) I read the paper and wainscoting of the floor and were piled in the lavatory and the letters in bed, dress—no shaving, thank goodness—omit bathroom. Great mounds of rolls half-blocked the passages. breakfast and go straight to the pianola, reaching it about 9:15 On Evans’s computation there were between three and four and play Bach. I have been through all the “Forty-eight” several thousand of them. times, taking them as they come. I can play the ones that pianists One day I proposed to him that he should cut rolls for the always play, like Nos. 8 and 22 in the first book and 31 and 45 four or five of us who were interested in the pianola. He agreed, in the second, and the ones like No. 34 in the second book that and for the last five years of his life he supplied us with a fairly pianists always avoid. (What a fugue No. 34 is, by the way; it is continuous stream of rolls which we circulated among ourselves. the one that has two endings; it used to end with a major close, When he died in 1943, nobody seemed to want his collection of but the major close was later replaced by a minor half-close rolls—one of the drawbacks to pianola rolls is the amount followed by a new ending of the most prodigious strength. of room-space they occupy and Mrs. Evans, who thought of I have never heard a pianist play it—I expect that it is fiendishly moving to a smaller house, was anxious to be rid of them. I difficult—but I must have played it a score of times.) After half bought them for a song. I now possess nearly four thousand an hour on the pianola I go straight to my desk and write—write pianola rolls almost entirely devoted to the music of the great without difficulty or strain, write, in fact, like an angel or as classical composers. There are, for example, all the clavier and nearly like an angel as I can contrive. organ works of Bach, all the piano sonatas and concertos of Beethoven, all the piano sonatas and concertos of Mozart. The On Not Playing too Fast collection includes all the piano sonatas of Haydn. The fact that I can play anything, and play it at any rate, The rolls lie about in bags in attics and spare bedrooms renders me immune from the greatest temptation of the pianist, waiting to be played, but there is far more music here than I the temptation of showing off, and in particular of showing off shall ever play in my lifetime. This immense mass of music is his speed, as if there were some merit in sheer digital dexterity. I like a great jungle by which I am surrounded in which, every have a number of remarks in pickle for pianists, executants and now and then, I clear a little space, a place of sorted, played and performers, waiting to be taken out for their chastisement some labeled rolls. When I die, I suppose the rolls will be destroyed. It pages later on. But let me point out here, following a hint given, 340 continued. . .

I think, by Neville Cardus, that almost all performers and book”. Yet numbers are, after all, the most convenient and executants, whether pianists, orchestral players or singers, are suitable symbols for the purpose of referring to pieces of music, extremely bad judges of a piece of music and that one of the just as they are the most convenient and suitable symbols for the reasons for this is that they are not impartial, their judgment purpose of referring to anything else. They are clear and distinct; being biased by the difficulty or lack of it which they find in a there is no ambiguity about them comparable to the ambiguity of particular piece. If they play it hardly, with strain and tension, the reference to two different pieces of music which are written they dislike it; if easily, finding in it many opportunities for in the same key, and the layman understands them. showing off the brilliance of their technique, they like it and In order to throw into relief the advantages of numbers, play it again and again. And most of them will insist on playing I bid the reader reflect for a moment upon the welter of much too fast. I once heard an admonition delivered to a brilliant confusion in which musical numerology lies wallowing, the young pianist by that great player, George Enesco. He was welter which was first forced upon my attention by the Pianola delivering what purported to be a lecture on the interpretation Companies’ catalogues. Take Mozart’s sonatas, for example. of Bach; but it was not so much a lecture as a continuing They are listed in one catalogue as numbered in Peter’s Edition; conversation. Enesco’s talk, enriched by a lifetime of musical in another, according to Pauer’s numbering in Augener’s experience, was delivered in broken sentences in several Edition. A third gives the Kochel number; a fourth refers simply languages, and illustrated by constant recourse to the piano. As to Mozart’s sonata in A as if there weren’t two or three sonatas his mind rambled over the map of music, one thing reminded in A—as to which I don’t know whether there are or not, but I him of another, and as he called a thing to mind he played it. He do know that there are five piano concertos in B Flat and three at seemed to be able to play almost anything from memory but one least in C Major, and how disconcerting it is, when you are of his hands was, I think, crippled by rheumatism and he expecting to hear one of them, to be surprised by the strains of a grew tired and wanted help. He had intended to play the second totally different one. The consequence is, of course, that you can Partita throughout and, feeling it to be beyond him, called upon never be sure what sonata it is that you are selecting to play. The the young pianist to come to his assistance. She was one of the Beethoven situation is a little better owing to the arrangement of outstanding performers of the contemporary concert platform, his music under opus numbers, but even here confusion arises admired, adulated, even worshipped—two young men that very from the fact that several works may be listed under the same morning had nearly come to blows about which of them should opus number, the six quartets of op. 18, for example, or the two take her breakfast up to her in bed. She sat down and began to ‘ and piano sonatas of op. 102, and when we come to rattle away at a great pace. Almost at once Enesco stopped her. the ragbag of the posthumous works with their simple “Not so fast, not so fast young lady,” he said. “Yes, we all know denomination of Op. Post., there is at present practically no that, you can do it. No need to assure us of that. That technique mode of identification except by reference to the key. of yours! But of course, we take it for granted. But this was The Bach position is quite hopeless. As there are no Bach not written in order to display you to the audience; it is a numbers, there is no standard of reference and I have known conversation between Bach and his Maker and you should a piece of Bach referred to in the pianola catalogues in four respect it as such. Just stop thinking for a moment of your piano different ways. And what are we to make of the all too common playing and stop trying to impress us. We are impressed catalogue designation, “Organ Chorale Prelude” (without key or already—by Bach. So be a little kind and unselfish and give him number) “Part 11 arranged by Busoni”? And if you say, what a chance.” I have never seen a young woman so taken aback. else can you expect from those engaged in cataloguing music for Now I, who can play faster than any pianist, have no so unscholarly and so unmusical an instrument as the pianola, I temptations in this direction, and I find that I habitually play would ask you, what are you going to do by way of referring to Bach more slowly than most of the professionals. Also I am the two Toccatas and Fugues in D Minor, the famous one and impartial in my judgments, having no technical axe to grind and the other which is just as good as the famous one, and if you not, therefore, being biased either for or against a piece of music can’t answer, let me tell you that in the absence of numbers you by any opportunities for personal triumph that it may offer, any would be equally graveled by the necessity of designating any technical difficulties that is may present or frustrations that it one of a score of Bach’s clavier and organ works. (I am told may have occasioned. (November, 1950) that a standardized list and numbering of Bach’s works has recently been compiled and published in Musical Numerology Leipzig and that the first copies are just trickling through to this At this point I propose to break into my tale of the advantages country.) of the pianola with an interlude on the subject of musical What is wanted are a general cleaning up and standardization numerology, by which I mean the various methods which exist of musical numerology. The obvious method is to list all the for referring to pieces of music and to defend the system in works of a composer in chronological order and give to each accordance with which, when referring above to one of the work its appropriate opus number with a list of additional “Forty-eight” I used the expression “No. 34 in the second book” separate numbers in the case of works falling within the same instead of “the Prelude and Fugue in E Minor”, and referred to category; in other words, to apply to music as a whole the same “the second Partita” instead of “the Partita in C minor”, thereby system as that which is used for Beethoven’s music, care being declaring myself a musical ignoramus from the outset. For taken to eliminate the confusion arising from sub-opus numbers. musicians know these pieces by their keys, and stare at me One could then refer to an Organ Prelude and Fugue of Bach’s uncomprehendingly when I speak of “Number 34 in the second as Op.-, Prelude and Fugue (Organ)-while Preludes and Fugues 341 continued. . . for the clavier would be listed as Op.-, Prelude and Fugue to it, linger over it. A time came when one would find oneself (Clavier)-and so on. The job should be undertaken by an actually looking forward to it, while No. 3, for the sake of which international committee, preferably sponsored by U.N.E.S.C.O., the roll was originally played, began to seem superficial—or on the model of that set up by the League of Nations Committee rather, for I am writing of Bach and superficial is a word hardly for Intellectual Co-operation before the war for the applicable to any work composed by him—began to wear a little establishment of a standard numbering and grading of the thin, assuming that rubbed and faded aspect of music which has different colours. Short of an international committee, the job been grossly overheard. (And in the case of other composers should be delegated to one of those painstaking committees of how trivial, how vulgar, how even meretricious have often beaver-like American scholars. seemed one’s early loves). In the end one didn’t even bother to finish the roll. Thus, whereas one had begun with a ranking of Advantages of the Pianola; 2.Formation of Taste Nos. 3, 1 and 2 in order of favouritism, one ended up with the To return to the advantages conferred by the pianola, I ranking, 2, 1, 3. propose to include the formation of musical taste. Let us, As examples, I city my changes of attitude to Bach’s Toccata assume, first, that some music really is better than other music; in G Major—at least that is what Evans called it, but it may be, secondly, that few of us can comprehend and appreciate first rate for all I know, a series of pieces strung together by himself—in music the first time we hear it. (In case this sounds dogmatic, let which the lovely adagio which constitutes the third movement me defend myself once again with the authority of Sir Joshua came gradually to oust in favour the sparkling merriment of Reynolds: “Taste does not come by chance or nature; it is a long Allegro with which the Toccata begins, and the Toccata and and labourious business to acquire it. It is the lowest style only Fugue in D Minor (the other one) in which the originally of arts, whether of painting, poetry or music, that may be said in despised Adagio again caught up with and finally outstripped the the vulgar sense to be naturally pleasing.”) rest of the roll. Let us assume, thirdly, and in consequence that you require to The pleasure of learning to like new music in this way is very hear a piece of music a considerable number of times before you great; but the pleasure is not all; one is taught—if it isn’t can tell whether you really like it or not since, if you like it the conceited to say so—humility. One learns (a) how unworthy first time you hear it, the betting is that it will be second-rate. are one’s initial and untutored likes and dislikes, how almost Now the advantage of the pianola is that it enables you to do a infallibly one begins by liking the wrong things, and (b) how piece of music justice through hearing it many times, hearing it, very wrong one can be at all times. It is, I suggest, a sound in fact, sufficiently often to enable you to establish to your own principle of musical listening, a principle which holds good at satisfaction whether you really do like it or only thought that any rate for most of us, that no first-rate music should ever you did. be heard for the first time, for the first time it will bore and The changes in his taste that the pianola player records are bewilder you. many and curious. They mortify pride and give food for thought. I have already quoted Sir Joshua Reynolds to the effect that it I have already referred to the habit of the composers of pianola is only the lowest style of the arts “that may be said in the vulgar rolls of stringing together on a roll a number of juicy bits by the sense to be naturally pleasing.” Let me reinforce with Walter same composer and calling them “Classical Mosaics.” Less Pater’s “The way to perfect taste lies through a series of reprehensible is a tendency to select three or four movements disgusts.” These truths are not understood in the age of the from a suite, say a Prelude, a Courante and a Gigue, and include common man who has been brought up to think that there is them on one roll, omitting the intermediate movements which nothing that he can’t understand, nothing that he can’t appreciate are deemed to have no immediate appeal. Or a roll may contain at first hearing—are not his understanding and his taste as good a Toccata from one Suite and conclude with a Gigue introduced as anybody else’s?—and that he has only to approach the best as a fill-up from another. Common to all these cases is the that has been thought, read, said, written, painted and composed inclusion on the same roll of several more or less unrelated for it to fall into his mouth like a ripe plum. “The ripe plum” pieces of music. Of these the first may on first hearing appear to fallacy is reinforced by the weakness of one’s own musical you to have a moderate degree of attraction, while the second flesh which will not permit one willingly and wittingly to inflict strikes you as dull and boring as only Bach can seem dull and Walter Pater’s “disgusts” upon oneself. Hence my gratitude to boring; the third, we will suppose, ravishes you. Let the third, the pianola which imposes them upon me, as it were, by force, then, be a Gigue, for example, with which the first Partita compelling me to listen to and ultimately to be conquered by the concludes. I defy anybody to hear this and not be ravished and initially unpopular but intrinsically superior work which insists ravished at once. Now the limitations of the pianola roll are such upon being played through before one comes to the initially that the player cannot have access to the third without playing popular but intrinsically inferior work for the sake of which the through the first and second. roll was originally chosen. It is significant to observe how with repeated playings the relative positions in one’s favour of the three movements would Advantages of the Pianola; 3. The Range of Music gradually change. Instead of hurrying through movement No. 2, On Musical Chestnuts. It was only after Evans had been which we will suppose to be an Adagio, in order to reach No. 3 cutting rolls for me for some years that I realized how extremely as quickly as possible, one would find oneself becoming restricted in range is the music that is played upon the concert interested in No. 2. Presently, one began to linger over it. A time platform. Again and again the same old pieces recur. Taking into came when one would find oneself actually looking forward account only the orchestral or concerted works of the “great 342 continued. . . four”, we hear again and again the Beethoven symphonies, the the College or the Academy, to make her way upon the concert G Minor and the Jupiter, the Brandenburgs, the Bach Double platform; inevitable, in the circumstances that she should play Violin Concerto, the Italian Concerto, the Schubert Unfinished for safety. But why, when she does voyage out upon an and (less frequently) the Schubert C Major, Mozart’s Violin uncharted sea, should she inflict on us some contemporary Concerto in E flat Major, and most everlastingly recurrent of all monstrosity, some chromatic horror by Hindemith or Stravinsky, the Beethoven Violin Concerto in D and the Emperor. or an outpouring by one of these frenzied Russians, As for the pianists, they serve and re-serve interminably the Shostakovitch or Kachaturian? Why not some uncharted Bach? more brilliant Preludes, Etudes and Nocturnes of Chopin, In my time I have played uncharted Bach to three young the Beethoven sonatas, particularly the earlier ones, but women professionals, begging them to introduce at least one scrupulously avoiding Op. 101, most, but not all, of the first novelty to their audiences. One refused; one, to whom I had volume of The Well-tempered Clavichord and precious little played the Bach Clavier sonata in D minor—the one with the of the second. When one thinks of the enormous corpus of lovely last movement in which for once Bach unbuttons himself music that is in fact available for playing, neither better nor and lies sprawling after a metaphorical drink or two under a hot worse, neither harder nor easier of approach and appreciation sun on the river bank—played it and was complimented by than this time-honoured array of well-worn chestnuts, one is the critics. The third, to whom I played two problem pieces— astonished at the arbitrariness of the pianist’s selection. one by Bach, rather broody and entitled (presumably by Evans) Why is not more heard? Why, for example, Bach’s Fantasia Fragment for Clavier, and the other, that extraordinary Fantasia and Fugue in A Minor but not the Fantasia (no Fugue) in A and Fugue of Mozart’s in C Major (K.394)—(I don’t mean the Minor. Why the Prelude and Fugue for the Organ in A Minor but Fantasia and Fugue in C Minor (K.475) which quite a number of not the Prelude and Fugue for the Organ in A Major? Why do we people know)—which begins by sounding like Mendelssohn and hear over and over again the Organ Prelude and Fugue in G goes on through Cesar Franck to Beethoven, while the fugue is Minor but never the Fantasia and Fugue for Organ in A Minor apparently pure Bach—I have again to thank Evans for this (This is not any of the A Minors just referred to but a different musical curiosity—tried them out on an audience, announcing one and constitutes a good example of the appositeness of my them on the programme according to my recommendation with remarks on musical numerology)—a terrific ending to the fugue a note of interrogation instead of the composer’s name, and of this last which is as impressive (in fact the whole fugue is just circulating slips among the audience asking them to insert the as impressive) as the everlastingly played Prelude and Fugue in names if they could. She came, I am sorry to say, a most awful A Minor, as to which, in the old Hand-played Rolls days, “flop”. The critics denounced the whole proceeding, perhaps I possessed “renditions” by no less than three famous pianists. because there were not prizes for the correct answers, while the Why are the Air and Variations in A Minor so persistently public, a certain small number of whom had turned up at this neglected? Think for a moment of music as an ocean! Then the pianist’s previous concerts, dwindled after this one practically to contemporary platform performer lets down his thimble—nay, nothing. I suppose people didn’t like being shown up. let me be just, his bucket—brings it up and pours its contents A Successful Novelty. But I have had my successes as well as upon his audience, pours not once but over and over again. Or my failures. My first writing about the pianola hooked not think of a Stilton cheese. What is played is a little cave in the only Evans but that admirable Bach player James Ching. In this cheese which has been hollowed out by a spoon and served up writing I denounced most Bach players because of their flagrant for our sampling. Nor would we complain, for after all one’s disregard of my “clean pane” theory—I shall come to this in a aptitude for sea water and Stilton cheese is limited, were it not moment, but briefly what it means is that the pianist should seek always the same bucketful, the same spoonful—or pretty nearly. to turn himself into a transparent window pane, transparency When one does complain to performers, they lay the blame involving in this connection the maximum suppression of on the public. The only way to attract a good audience to a personality. Ching wrote to tell me that I didn’t know what I was concert of good music, as opposed, of course, to a concert by a talking about. “If you want to hear Bach as he ought to be star performer, is, they say, to serve up musical “chestnuts”, the played,” he said in effect, “come and hear me.” I went and he Emperor, the Fifth, a Little Night Music, and so on. Depart from was abundantly justified. Excepting only Claud Biggs and, at the accepted repertoire which the public knows and you will one time, Harold Samuel, Ching was the only pianist I had play to half empty seats. heard who played Bach just as I considered he ought to be I have known in my time many societies which were formed played; that is to say, Ching’s Bach came out crisp, bright and for the express purpose of performing the lesser known works of dry when it ought to be crisp, bright and dry, and grew the great composers, but none of them lasted long. Mr. Jay—or meditative and contemplative when Bach is contemplating the was it Mr. Pemeroy?—lasted longest, giving Sunday evening universe, meditating upon what he finds and recording his concerts of “non-chestnut” Mozart and Schubert-the Schubert meditations. The thing was all Bach and no Ching and since, Piano Trio Op.100 for example, and not the Piano Trio Op. 99— if music could write itself, it would, I imagine, sound pretty which lasted through the whole of one winter. But Mr. much like Bach, I might almost say that it was all music and Pomeroy—or was it Mr. Jay?—was a rich man and he was much neither Bach nor Ching. poorer by the end of the season. I came to know Ching well and listening to his playing All this is true, yet, even so, I wonder whether the performers became one of my greatest musical pleasures. He was a good couldn’t sometimes be a little more adventurous than they cook and would ask me to lunch, when we would have an are. It is hard enough, God knows, for Miss XY, straight from omelette and a bottle of Moselle prior to a Partita. One day, 343 continued. . . exploring in the Evans jungle, I came across the Prelude, Fugue his love to his audience. He seems to be able to play almost and Allegro in E flat. I was enthralled by it, the prelude so anything from memory and his illustrations on the piano, divinely calm, with a tranquility matched only by the Prelude of showing the entry of the various themes and subjects, their No. 38, Volume II, of the Well-tempered Clavichord, the fugue development and the modulations from key to key, are a so decisive and bold and the variations on the fugue’s theme so constant delight. One lecture was illustrated throughout by exciting. I disapproved at first of the Allegro, thinking it bright particular reference to the C Major Concerto. I don’t know how and rather empty, but later became reconciled, though it never many C Majors there are. I was fairly well acquainted with two, occupied in my heart more than its third place on the roll. I but this one was new to me, being, in fact, K.504. When he played the thing to Ching—as a matter of fact he says that it was came to the last movement he mentioned, as it were in passing, a his discovery and that he played it first; but I don’t believe a particular subject, the second—or was it the third?—one of word of it. He was as pleased with it as I was and played it with those heavenly little bits of Mozart scatters so generously great success on the concert platform and also in the broadcast all over his work, a something over, given to you out of his programme. Later Ching started a piano school and caused his abundance. “This” said Glock “is one of my favourite tunes in pupils to practice it. The school was a success, the pupils Mozart.” He played it. “Well, there you are,” he commented, prospered and presently the Prelude, Fugue and Allegro were “It’s lovely, isn’t it?” “And so it was, lovely. I hoped to hear it outcropping all over the concert platforms of London. again, but Mozart had, it appeared, mentioned it only in passing But I have wandered from the “advantage” of range. Let me, and passed quickly on to discourse of something else. I couldn’t then, say that there is no door anywhere in the piano, chamber rest musically until I had heard it again. When I got home, and concerted music of Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, I began to search in the Evans jungle, found the Concerto, took Beethoven and Schubert that is closed to me. Even Haydn’s it out and played it, played it, indeed, again and again so that Sonatas, most of which nobody knows and which are I did violence to it and cursed myself afterwards for my unaccountably many-even Haydn’s Sonatas are accessible to me. intemperate, musical habits. I have played all the piano and violin sonatas of Mozart in arrangements for the piano and, though lacking the violin these Advantages of the Pianola: 5. That You are Active, That You are but halt and maimed, yet they are in themselves so lovely Can Turn Back and That You Can Repeat that they repay even a pianola rendering. (They are much better When you are ill or convalescing from illness there comes a than the Mozart piano sonatas, and Mozart himself cared more time when you tire of both wireless and gramophone. Listening about them. Why, then, don’t the stilly performers play them, to good music is, God knows, a good thing, but it is a passive and why don’t they play the piano and violin sonatas of thing. The effect of most great music on me is to engender a Handel?—first rate stuff as Handel always is, though not in the wish actively to participate, and if I can’t actually participate in same class as the Mozart.) the music at least to “go and do something” about it, remove mountains, lead lost causes, enter a monastery, become Prime Advantages of the Pianola:4. That You Can Hear What You Minister or walk twenty-five miles. There are times when I Want to Hear Both Before and After. would sooner take a part in singing songs at the piano, sooner (a) Before. As I have already pointed out, no good music join in a round, than listen to the greatest music that was ever should be heard for the first time. But if you have a pianola it written played by the most celebrated performer that ever there needn’t be for the first time. For you can overhear it unofficially, was, which is, perhaps why Mr. Britten’s famous device of before you hear it officially. One of Evans’s few lapses of taste, dividing choruses of his Let’s Make an Opera, contributed so as I considered, was his willingness to tolerate chamber music, greatly to the justifiable popularity of this pleasing work. One trios, quartets, quintets and so on and even symphonies on the wants, then, to be active and take part and, save for turning the pianola, whereas I hold the pianola to be in general intolerable knob, save for choosing the record and putting it on, the wireless save for piano music. When I taxed Evans with this, he defended or gramophone listener takes no part. Now the pianola is an himself by saying that he had found it helpful before hearing a instrument that you play yourself and, as I have already tried to new work or one with which he was imperfectly acquainted, to explain, you can put something of yourself into the playing; you play it through before going to the concert at which it was to be express yourself, therefore, and you are active. performed. One visualizes its outline, he said, and sees its Again and again I have come back from a concert, gone proportions; sees it, as it were, in perspective. As a non-score straight to the pianola and had more pleasure from the playing of reader I, too, have found this a great advantage. the instrument, putting my foot down hard to bring out this note, (b) After. I will confine myself to one example of “hearing gently caressing the pedal for that one, bringing out the theme after”. At the musical summer school at Bryanston in the with the most delicate pressures and agitations of the sole, than summer of 1948, I heard William Glock lecture on Mozart’s ever I had from the concert. Again, one’s pleasure in music is apt piano concertos. I knew the concertos pretty well, but had never to be capricious and uneven. Admired pieces bore you—many of heard them expounded. Glock is the almost perfect lecturer on the slow movements, the sentimental ones, of Mozart’s piano Mozart. He is a professional musician who knows what he is sonatas and concertos bore me; so does the Hammerclavier, so talking about; yet he succeeds in remaining non-technical, and does the last movement of the Ninth Symphony and the slow he is sufficiently master of his subject to be at play with it. Also movement of the Eroica. Others delight you past all measure and he loves the music on which he lectures and can communicate reason—for example, in my own case the slow movements of

344 continued. . .

Nos. 2 and 3 of Mozart’s violin and piano sonatas, the Larghetto the wireless; to stop the gramophone and find the right place on of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, the whole of Beethoven’s the record makes a horrid noise and is bad for the record; but Op. 96 piano and so pastoral, so meditative, so nothing is easier than to stop the pianola, re-roll, find the place sheerly beautiful, or the last movement of Schubert’s at which you began to be thrilled—you can even mark it in posthumous B flat sonata. pencil—and play again. You can recognise the place on the In a word, one has one’s individual preferences and dislikes pianola roll by the visual pattern of the holes and slits. And here in music as in anything else. Some music is one’s particular accrues another advantage. With many of us—I am one—the “cup of tea”, other music most emphatically is not. Even within eye is quicker at picking out a pattern than the ear. You the same movement some things are better than others. The recognise a visual pattern of holes and slits when you wouldn’t great composers strike one at times as being singularly recognize a subtle and much embedded theme. By following the un-self-critical. They will toss off something so inexpressibly visual pattern and turning back to it, I have taught myself, I will lovely that physical frissons of pleasure run up and down your not say to understand, but to find my way about in difficult spine. Expectantly you look forward to the return of this pieces of music which otherwise had baffled me. Were it not for loveliness but, alas, it doesn’t return; what does return is the the pattern of the slits, I should never, for example, have learned everyday, bread and buttery main theme of the movement. The that there were three separate subjects in the fourth fugue of the great composers, in short, often don’t seem to know when they Well tempered Clavichord, Book I, or learned to pick them out. are “on to a good thing” or how infinitely better are some of the In all these ways playing the pianola is analogous to reading; things that they dash off and dwell on for a moment only, than and its advantage over wireless and gramophone is the others in which they apparently take a vast pride. Examples advantage of reading a play to yourself as compared with the could be given by the dozen. I have already referred to one of best performance of the same play in the theatre or over the air. those fleeting, unrepeated little tunes that has embedded itself almost by accident halfway through the last movement of Advantages of the Pianola: 6. That It Provides You with a Ready Mozart’s C Major Concerto, K.504. There is the no less lovely Made Test of Music theme, so fresh is it, so lyrical, so spring-like, that occurs in the Defects of the Pianola. The ability to turn back, coupled first movement of the C Major concerto, K.467, though this is with the ability to play anything that you want to play and, admittedly vouchsafed to us twice. such being the weakness of one’s musical flesh, the failure to Or consider the bunch of lovely little tunes that come resist the temptation to over-play it, put music to a severe test. jumping out at you in the last movement of Mozart’s Piano And—let me be frank about it—the pianola itself puts music to a Quartet in D, so many, so sunny and so dancy that you might severe test. For when all is said that can be said in its favour, the swear a fountain was at work spraying them all over the room, pianola remains a sadly unresponsive instrument. It can give no one, so much sunnier and dancier than the rest that you would satisfactory account of any music except piano music and, give your ears to hear it again. But you don’t. I scarcely ever except in the hands of an expert, its rendering even of that is hear a Minuet of Mozart’s without thinking how much better is tolerable. It is in any event tolerable only when you can bring the Trio than the main Minuet theme—so, too, in those edgy a fresh mind to it, which means that it is best played in the Scherzos of Schubert, there are some heavenly Trios—but the morning. It is also most suited to what I have called “morning main Minuet theme is repeated sometimes, as it seems, to music”, the music of Bach, Handel and Scarlatti. eternity and takes up, at the least, three or four times as much Nor are these the only limitations. I have hitherto praised the time as the Trio. But the most outstanding and familiar example pianola, as though it were an almost flawless thing. Let me of this lack of self-criticism occurs in the last movement of the now confess some of its defects. All the devices that I have Beethoven Violin Concerto. The main subject, so rude and mentioned to bring out important notes while softening coarse—Falstaff guffawing as he straddles in his armchair with others which are being played simultaneously are more or less his pint beside him, his fly-buttons undone and a belch or two inadequate. A skilled performer like myself can, by varying the among the guffaws—comes again and again. This is Beethoven pressure of his foot, do something to emphasise a particular note in his unbuttoned mood, poking you in the ribs until you long to or a particular theme, but not very much. There are constant tell him to have done. And then quite suddenly without any “tracking” difficulties, caused by the failure of the slits in the warning comes the exquisitely lovely second subject. Appearing roll exactly to correspond with the holes in the metal tracker as it does in the midst of the jollity, its eloquent beauty bar through which the air passes. There are various devices thrills while it saddens you, saddens you but with how delicious for overcoming these, but, once again, none is completely a woefulness. The theme, comparatively short, is repeated; you satisfactory. The margin of error in the case of the eighty-eight hold your breath, it is so lovely, and then before you have time note rolls is so tiny that the least maladjustment, the fraction to recover it, Beethoven is back again at the guffawing and of a fraction of an inch, results in the note not being played or the belching. Beethoven, more than any other of the great being only half-played. Indeed, the hair-breadth accuracy with composers, save perhaps Schubert, seems to me to lack which the slits in the roll are required to adjust themselves self-criticism. to the holes in the bar reminds one of nothing so much as Now the purpose of these examples is partly to enable me to the refinements of the dentist in adjusting what he calls one’s enjoy the pleasure which recalling these lovely things brings “artificial dentures”. As you never know when the roll may not but, more relevantly, to include among the advantages of the be going to “get out of the true”, you play in a state of constant pianola the ability to turn back and to play back. You can’t stop 345 continued. . . apprehension—at any moment, you feel, the thing may “go the rest. The number of admired pieces of music that fail off”—and the mood of apprehensive expectancy militates to stand the test is great. Let a piece of music be showy and against the establishment of the state of mind, clear, tranquil and superficial; let its appeal depend upon a tune whose vulgarity is unsullied by emotion which is necessary to the full appreciation disguised by its complexity; let the theme be too slight for the of the music. In the sixty-five note rolls the margin of error is degree of ornament that it is made to carry; let the surface graces wider, but so, too, are the slots in the rolls. In the case of long, and beauties overlay without wholly concealing the fundamental sustained chords they are too wide, the roll is apt to crumple and jejuneness of the subject, and the pianola will show it up not only are the intended notes played but the two immediately unpityingly, picking out its defects and weaknesses and neighbouring notes, with effects of such novel discordance that throwing them into high relief. they are justly envied by many contemporary composers. A Bas les Executants. And so I come at last to the exposition But more important than these technical difficulties is the of my view of what music is and does, a view which the pianola relative failure of the pianola to render with even approximate has done so much to foster. And lest the prospect dismay the adequacy certain kinds of music. I have spoken above of the reader and provoke him to complaint on the score of irrelevance, happy impartiality of the pianola player. I have represented asking what all this has to do with the pleasures of the self, let him as being not biased by the frustration of difficult pieces or me appease him by the assurances (a) that the dissertation will tempted by the brilliance of “showing off” pieces. But as usual be brief, (b) that the exposition of views and theories is one of I have exaggerated. He is biased against the kind of music that the pleasures of my self, private in its nature though public in its the pianola renders with a more than average inadequacy. effects, and (c) that I propose first to divert him and to lead up to This is the kind of music which relies predominantly for its the theory by some preliminary remarks about executants effect upon harmonic colour and tone values. Brahm’s overladen and performers, among whom I include singers, pianists, and highly chromatic chords sound horrible on the pianola conductors and interpreters generally, which are neither which is, no doubt, one of the reasons why I dislike him: so, too, academic nor agreeable. does the noisier Chopin, the Scherzos, for example, and the The pianola teaches the comparative unimportance of the bravura passages of the Ballades. role of the executant. Indeed, it contrives to suggest that the Structure in Music. In general, the pianola is hard upon music executant is something of an intruder. For me, the music is that lacks structure. It tends to throw up into high relief what the thing. Hence what I want is the music communicated with as might be called the bare bones of the music and, just as in the little interference or distortion as possible. It is Bach that I desire case of the human figure, it is the underlying structure, the shape to hear and not Bach as interpreted by Miss XY with her and proportions of the bones in their relations, that confers light-boiled “ego” swimming about in a saucepan of grace, and just as, where grace is lacking, no amount of surface temperament to be cracked by the piano and swallowed by the beauties, of texture of skin, of colouring or complexion can public. All too often the main function of Miss XY is to interfere make up for its lack, so in the case of music structure, I have with the processes of communicating and receiving the musical come to think, is the root of the matter. It is not so much how “thing in itself”. Her inflated temperament is like the crackling music sounds, the pianola has taught me—for on the pianola no noise that interferes with the reception of the music that I hear music sounds very well—but how it is arranged that counts, so on the radio. Out, therefore, upon Miss XY, down with her, that its affinities are less with literature and the arts that have and give me for the rendering of Bach some little dried-up meaning and express emotion, than with chess and mathematics schoolmaster with spectacles and no temperament worth which, like it, depend upon order and arrangement. Now, it is speaking of to obscure the pane of glass through which the precisely on the counts of order and arrangement that the pianola music comes to me. The highest praise that can be given to the scores, since it plays the right notes in the right order and at the interpreter is Pericles’s praise of women in the speech which he right intervals; and of how many pianists can that be said? And delivered at the end of the first year of the Peloponnesian war, that is why contrapuntal music in general and the music of Bach that they should be least spoken of for good or ill among the and Handel in particular are pre-eminently suitable for the men. For my part, I don’t want to think about interpreters, pianola. Which is, no doubt, partly why I like them so much. I don’t want to talk about them or to hear talk about them, and When you come to think of it, it is first rather than second I don’t want to be able to distinguish one of them from another. rate music that can stand up to playing which is below the best. Technique? But adequate technique is something that one If Bach’s Inventions are played haltingly, without flourish or ought to be able to take for granted. A competent pianist ought, brilliance and with occasional wrong notes, no great harm is that is to say, to be able to play well enough not to arouse done. They are still very well worth listening to. But imagine comment or attract attention. We are justified in asking for no Saint-Saens’s Piano Concerto or Cesar Franck’s Prelude, less; we are entitled to ask for no more—in a general way, of Chorale and Fugue badly or hesitantly played. Whatever little course. appeal these things have would be totally destroyed, their The Exceptions. For when one comes to particular cases, one beauty, such as it is, would wholly evaporate. And even if they must admit that there are exceptions to the generalization. There be played to perfection, I, for my part, would sooner hear first are cases in which the art of the executant is so outstanding rate music botched than second rate music done to a turn. that it enhances the music, enabling you to hear more in it than And so, among the other advantages of the pianola I would you have heard before, to discern in the pattern of the sounds include one that springs from its very shortcomings; it serves as more passion and more beauty and to find more scope for your an automatic test for the distinguishing of first rate music from understanding, sympathy and appreciative delight. Schnabel 346 continued. . . playing Beethoven is one such case. He invests the sonatas with own day. And, for the most part, sorry affairs they are, a wholly new authority—there is really no alternative to this excrescences imposed upon the music rather than growths almost meaningless word—almost, one would say, he adds developing naturally out of it, as an architect may deliberately something. (But “adds” isn’t after all the right word, since construct a decoration instead of being moved to decorate a what he brings out is something that was present potentially, construction. The cadenza lowers the tension, holds up the there, as it were, all the time, waiting to be actualized by the development and breaks the continuity of the piece. Since, after insight of the great executant.) So, too, Casals can ravish your all, they are by Mozart and Beethoven these bravura senses by the sheer beauty of sound. Hear him, for example, passages can’t help on occasion being glorious, for example, the playing the Beethoven “, Op. 69. The sound of the cadenza to Beethoven’s first Piano Concerto or that wonderful ‘cello is laden with such beauty that it tears at the vitals of your blending of violin and viola in the cadenza to the first movement being, so that you are almost driven to cry for respite, like the of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante. (And is there not a cadenza man driven beside himself by the delicious torture of sexual which Beethoven wrote to one of Mozart’s piano Concertos— refinements. But these cases are so rare as hardly to necessitate the D Minor is it, or perhaps the C Minor?—whose contrast the withdrawal of the generalisation that the virtue of the of style invests it with the greatest musical interest? I shouldn’t executant is the virtue of the Victorian child, that he should be have had the wit to notice it myself, but when somebody had seen but not heard. told me of it, I flattered myself that I could detect the work of The Actor. The actor, in my view, is in the same case. Acting another hand.) is the lowest of the arts and should not be allowed to intrude the But taking them by and large, the cadenzas even of the personality of the player between the audience and the play. masters are poor affairs and when, as all too often, the pianist Competent acting which adequately fulfils the author’s intention insists on introducing a cadenza by one of the moderns or, worse in regard to his play is something that we should be entitled to still, one of his own, the thing becomes an outrage. One doesn’t, take for granted. Actors should be seen and heard only so much after all, go to a Mozart concert to hear music by Liszt or Max as is necessary for this purpose; beyond that they should not Reger. draw attention to themselves. Now the pianola player is at least free from the temptation of Cult of Personality. These views are, of course, very far personality-mongering. His concern is to render the music from being shared by my contemporaries. If the concert as scored by the composer and to render it with as little advertisements are any guide, most people appear to go to a interference as possible. Just as excellence in the cooking of concert to hear not a piece of music but its executant. For the good meat consists in preserving and bringing out its natural current notice, while printing in the largest letters the name of juices so that it may be served without condiments or sauce, the the star performer, bestows the humblest of lettering upon the function of the cook being confined to letting the meat speak, as music which he is to perform. Sometimes it leaves out the music it were, for itself, so the best music requires no interpretation; it altogether, so that you are bidden to attend a concert by Miss X, requires simply to be played and this precisely is what the “the celebrated soprano”, or Mr. Y, “the famous pianist who will pianola does. How disconcerted Bach would have been by an perform ‘a number of well-known works’” without being told “interpretation” of music, which he left to speak for itself, by a what it is they are to perform. “I’ve been to hear Toscanini” or performer too showy, an orchestra too numerous, in a concert Beecham or even Malcolm Sargent “conduct” says the lady, and hall too large, as part of a concert too long—four Brandenburgs proceeds to gush over his exquisite tempo or whatever it for example, as I have heard them, one on top of the other! may be, without deigning to mention, if, indeed, she knows, Most of his clavier music should be played in the conditions what it was that was being conducted. Over pianists and some appropriate to chamber music, that is to say, in a large room or a fiddlers the spate of customary gush is worse. So, too, she will small hall by unobtrusive, un-limelighted performers, and it is to tell you that she is going to the theatre to see Gielgud or these conditions that the pianola rendering approximates. Nor do Richardson or “Larry”, not The Importance of Being Earnest, or I think that he would have minded the transcribing for piano or Henry IV, Part II. even for orchestra of some of his organ preludes and fugues, and This cult of personality is fundamentally unmusicianly. I am eternally grateful to Evans that he should have bequeathed Knowing that it is for them and not for the music that the to me no less than thirty-five organ pieces in the shape of rolls audiences attend, pianists deliberately cultivate mannerisms and cut for the pianola. eccentricities of interpretation so that audiences shall have something to know and remember them by. Pachman used The Pleasures of a Piece of One’s Mind. to chatter, Mr. X mops and mows, while Miss Y marks her I am conscious that this chapter is already over-long. Much composers by the colour of her frocks. There is the lady rebuked of it, I fear, may have been wearisome to the reader, more by Enesco for playing the music too fast in order to show off the particularly the description of the anatomy of the pianola, but it virtuosity of her technique; and the scarcely less familiar lady has been delightful to the writer, and if it again occurs to you to who plays the music too slowly in order to indicate the depth of wonder what all this talk about executants has to do with the her feeling. pleasures of the self, I retort that this is my book and not Cadenza. The apogee of the executant’s importance, the yours—at any rate, it is written for my pleasure and the writing summit of his inflation, is reached in the cadenza. I suppose that of this chapter has been one of the keenest pleasures of the self I Beethoven and Mozart wrote their cadenzas to pander to the have long wanted to put down upon paper what, over the years, I personality-hunting, sensation-demanding audiences of their 347 continued. . . have come to think about music and the interpretation of music. relief and given exaggerated emphasis by way of reaction from But though my pleasure in writing these things has been the undue importance which is today attributed to the role of the great, it is as nothing to the pleasure of saying them. There is no executant. I hope that this reaction of mine is salutary. At any less of pomp and pretentiousness and pedantry among the rate it does no more than justice to a grossly neglected aspect of professors of music than among the professors of anything else. the truth. What marks the pianists give themselves, what airs they assume But you can’t expect executants to like it; hence, the subtle because they have acquired a little digital dexterity! They forget pleasure which I derive from pricking the bubble of their that most piano playing is, after all, only a specialized form inflated opinion of themselves and their function. I don’t know of gymnastics and that compared with the gym instructor, the of anyone else who indulges in just this pleasure—though average pianists is quite well paid. Certainly gym instructors I deduce from his writings that Neville Cardus shares many of aren’t taught or permitted to think so highly of themselves the views here expressed. Hence I am relevantly including because by dint of constant practice they have brought certain this baiting of the pianists among the pleasures, the purely parts of their body to a certain pliability and nimbleness and personal and private pleasures of the self. are skilled in displaying their tricks. The better pianists are comparatively immune from this posturing. “Mr. Sarnuel,” I Theory of Music once heard a lady say to Harold Samuel at the end of a concert, I have set this out at length elsewhere and am concerned here “you play so divinely that I think the very soul of John Sebastian only to make such a brief statement as will, I hope, afford some must have entered into you.” “That, madam,” replied Samuel, justification for the otherwise dogmatic-seeming utterances to “is no doubt what makes me so fat.” “Madam,” I say in the same which in the previous pages I have committed myself. I propose, vein, “you performed that piece very well. But you should come then, to make two points. and hear my rendering of it on the pianola.” And then, if she be Affinity with Chess and Mathematics. First, as I have already very crass, I regale her with my dubious and detestable pun, said, what matters in regard to music is not so much how it “What sensitivity of sole!” I exclaim. “Compared with this, how sounds but the way in which it is arranged. Let us suppose that crude are the extremities of the finger tips.” you put down with your finger eight notes at random on the And of course she doesn’t like it. She thinks I am making piano. Of the impact of the hammers on the wires, of the irreverent gestures at the holy shrine of music, or poking fun at vibration of the wires, of the traveling of waves in the the great masters in whose steps she so perspiringly follows. But atmosphere, of the impinging of these waves upon the the best of the fun comes when I deliver a lecture on the lines of membranes of the eardrums in the middle ears, of the ensuing this chapter to some recognized musical body. Layman as I am, I vibrations of the drums, of the complex machinery of the inner have lectured several times to musical audiences, at the Royal ear and of the resultant neural disturbances in the brain, physics College of Music, at the Bryanston Music Summer School and and physiology between them can give a fairly full account. And to gatherings of music students. My lecture has been largely that is all. Strike the same notes in such a way that they form the devoted to emphasizing the comparative unimportance of statement of the theme of a Bach fugue and you can be thrilled the functions for the performance of which the students are so to ecstasy. In other words, in addition to the physical and assiduously preparing themselves. I explain to them about the physiological effects, there is now an aesthetic effect. Wherein pianola. I point out that a really good pianola—the instrument, I does the difference between the two cases lie? Not in the sounds, insist, is capable of almost unlimited development—is better for the sounds are the same, but in their order and arrangement than a moderately good pianist. It is not merely, I tell them, that and in the intervals between them. Now order, arrangement and it can surmount all technical difficulties; of more importance is interval, though they link events in the physical world, are not the fact that it obviates the intrusion of a third personality physical events. The affinity of music is, then, with chess and between the listener and the composer whose work is to be mathematics in that all three depend for their effect and their enjoyed—the intrusion, in fact, of themselves. appeal upon the presence of factors which are not physical but For the music, I explain to them, is the thing and it is at once which are the relations between physical factors. Each in its way their business and their excellence so to soft-pedal their bears witness to the existence of another order of reality and of personalities that they may be absorbed in the general creative its intrusion into the natural order to which our bodies belong process. Soft-pedaling their personalities doesn’t mean wearing and from which most of our experiences derive. a differently coloured dress to fit the music you are proposing to Hence the importance of art; it is not for nothing that Plato play, still less changing your dress between the items. All, I say, says in the Phaedrus that the Form of Beauty is the only one I want of them is to be as unobtrusive and transparent as of the Forms which can be beheld by the soul in this order of possible. As for technique, that I tell them, I take for granted… existence, can, that is to say, be beheld by a soul which is I have derived considerable pleasure from the outraged incorporated in a body. Considerations of this kind afford, I murmurings, rising on occasion to a storm of protest that suggest, evidence for the life of the soul otherwise than in the these very obvious remarks are apt to arouse. Pianists can’t be body. It is a curious fact upon which nobody, so far as I know, expected to welcome the pianola or to tolerate its being taken has commented that music, chess and mathematics are the seriously. For the pianola blacklegs their trade union, and, if the spheres, and the only spheres, of the infant prodigy. It is as if things that I said to them were quite true, would bid fair to when these gifted creatures came into the world, they brought supersede them altogether. But of course they are not true, at any something with them, brought, in fact, what Plato would call a rate not quite true, but are neglected half-truths thrown into high recollected knowledge of the combinations and patterns that 348 continued. . . they had known in the real world in which the soul previously Most of the music that exists is capable of being listened to in dwelt and which is its true home. For this knowledge which they no other way than this—most music and, I suspect, nearly all appear to possess cannot be accounted for by experience of this opera. world, since as yet they have had no experience. What is I have two comments. First music so listened to is not doing more, intercourse with the things of this world usually leads anything for you that literature cannot. Indeed, literature, and to the obliteration of this other-worldly knowledge. It is as if particularly poetry, can do it much better. For if meaning is what some memory gradually became obscured by the events and you want, the meaning that belongs to the things and events experience of ordinary life. Usually, but not always; there of this world and which can, therefore, be expressed, what are cases such as those of Mozart, of Capablanca and of the better medium of expression can there be than words? Even mathematician, Poincare, in whom the recollection seems never the most expressive music in the world is not so precisely wholly to fade. expressive as words, which is why most so-called expressive This leads to my second point that the emotions aroused by music falls hopelessly wide of its mark, and a piece called music are not such as belong to and proceed from this world; or Evening in the Wood might just as well be entitled Blast rather, the emotions which music can distinctively arouse are not Furnace at Middlesbrough. (It is also, by the way, why most of those which so belong and proceed. what passes for musical criticism, with its talk of musical ethics, the philosophy of music, “the world outlook” of the great Literary Music composers which the music may be supposed to be seeking Let me explain. Music can arouse a great variety of emotions to convey and so on, is such utter nonsense. All that really such as are also aroused by life—melancholy and joy and matters about a piece of music is that it should sound well, tenderness and sentimentality and self-pity and an overpowering should, in other words, be beautiful. Who knows or cares what exaltation of the spirit. What is more, music can arouse these it signifies? Music should have wings, dance, give delight. But if emotions in a glorified form so that they appear to be significant this is what it should do, it is obvious that there is nothing very and edifying. As you listen, you drift into a variously coloured much to say about it. For there is no effect that can be put into daydream in which, carried away on the waves of sound, you words.) see yourself in a thousand glorious and ennobling situations, If I am right, one’s delight in music is not literary; it is a leading lost causes, rescuing imprisoned maidens, boldly delight in the contemplation of forms or patterns ordered by art. revenging yourself upon or extending Christian forgiveness to The beauty lies in the ordering and in the patterning rather than those who have wronged you, staging edifying death-bed scenes in the intrinsic quality of the sound. for the express purpose of displaying magnanimity to your Again consider Bach. In Bach’s music there is the minimum repentant enemies gathered about your bedside. Or you may intrusion of the personal, the minimum appeal to the personal. make good resolutions, decide to be a better man, to get up Who has succeeded, who, indeed, could succeed, in putting the earlier in the morning, answer your letters by return of post, pay appeal of Bach’s music into words. For words were invented your bills or be nicer to your wife. Or music may kindle the fires to convey the meaning and images of this world. They cannot of ambition. Nothing seems impossible to you as you pass from readily be adapted to convey the meanings and images of the House of Commons into the Cabinet in order to become another. Which is again why the musical critic who finds Prime Minister, or fight your way through the first three rounds himself at home with and easily evaluates what I have called of the singles at Wimbledon. literary music, and has much to say of Chopin or Tchaikowsky, Some music is especially evocative of the delights of finds very little to say about Bach and Handel and will if he is daydreaming. There are certain Preludes and Nocturnes of wise confine himself to severely technical comments. Chopin for example, which call up in my mind an imaginative And when we come to what is obviously mystical music, to picture whose details are vividly etched. It is a dull and broody the music of the last Quartets of Beethoven, the literary images summer’s evening; twilight is about to fall as, walking through in which musical criticism deals entirely fail us. Even from the the French windows of the dining room that opens on to the beginning I knew there was something “phoney” about the kind park, I leave behind me the girl I have loved or, alternatively, of account which described Beethoven’s music in terms of the still love, who is gently weeping on the couch for, indeed, I struggle of a soul. have just parted from her for ever. The scent of her hair is in my Music, then, if I am right, is the window through which man nostrils as I pass out into the still evening and the gently can gain a vision, brief and intermittent, of the real world. It is dropping rain. I am filled with a delicious woefulness as I make not a mirror to reflect the temperament of artistes, still less to my way over the lawn to the lake. On reaching the ha-ha, I look introduce the listener to the lineaments of the self. back. Somebody has just lighted an oil lamp or, it may be, half a And the emotion we feel for it, that is to say the distinctively dozen candles in the dining room and I can see the girl’s white musical emotion, is the emotion we feel for reality. For the dress gleaming in their light. Shall I go back? No! I summon my soul being here incarcerated in matter, can view the real only reserves of strength and willpower to say “No.” But what in so far as it assumes material form in sound or paint or pleasure, what enormous secret pleasure in this imaginative stone. In music we glimpse reality at the best through a self-denial! But was I perhaps not after all resisting temptation? glass darkly. The excellence of the interpreter is to see that as Perhaps following the mood of the fifteenth Prelude, I was just little of the self as possible is permitted still further to darken bored with the woman? It is so long since I listened to Chopin, the glass. that I can’t remember. 349 continued. . .

Some Qualifications Pleasures of the Musical Self I see that I have put all this with my customary exaggeration, So much for my musical confessions. Now for an attempt giving greater weight to the element of form in music and to relate them to the theme of this book. There is, first, the making less allowance for the glory and colour of pure sound pleasure, private and personal, of making the confessions. As I than a purely objective statement would justify. am not a professional musician, my opportunities for writing and But, as I have already hinted, the exaggeration will do speaking about music are very limited. Hence, I have derived an no harm if it serves to correct in however small a degree the immense enjoyment from putting at last and at length upon common exaggeration on the other side. As for the artistes, paper what after all these years I have come to think. The they can at all times be trusted to look after themselves. pleasure of pianola playing itself it also highly private and Let me, however, do my best to invest my treatment with personal, if only because so few share it. at least an appearance of impartiality by adding two And the pianola brings its subsidiary pleasures. There is the qualifications. pleasure of arranging rolls, which is like the pleasure of First, I have said that the pattern or arrangement of the arranging books, in that it is something that belongs wholly and sounds which constitute a piece of music is more important than completely to yourself, something that only you can do. the sounds themselves; that, in other words, it is form that I suppose that I possess between three and four thousand counts rather than matter. This is, I think, broadly true. But it pianola rolls and they are spread all over the house. About half is not true in detail, since some sounds, it is obvious, are are arranged, catalogued, labeled and put tidily away on shelves intrinsically more agreeable than others. And by the word under the names of their composers. Pianola rolls are unwieldy “intrinsically” I mean that they are more agreeable in themselves things. They get out of place, they collect the dust, their labels irrespective of their relation to other sounds and irrespective, come off, the boxes in which they are housed disintegrate. also, of whether any hearer or body of hearers happens to find They afford, then, in high degree all the pleasures of arranging them so. In view of the contemporary preference for subjectivist and re-arranging, and generally tidying up. Here, for example, modes of thinking in ethics and aesthetics, according to which are four new Schubert rolls which have been dug up in the “this is beautiful” mean “I or most people happen to like this”, Evans jungle and have somehow or other to be fitted into the “this is good”, “I or most people happen to feel an emotion of ground plan of the existing Schubert rolls. This involves altering approval for this”, this statement would require an elaborate the position of some thirty rolls of Schubert’s, and perhaps defence by way of justification, a defence which cannot be given making a new arrangement for his chamber and piano music. here. [See Joad’s book Decadence for this.] Let me, then, put on The alterations may even overlap the works of the next record, without attempting to justify, my beliefs, first, that the composer who, in my library arrangement, is Schumann. Now sounds made by a chorus of cats on the roof are less “beautiful” the pleasures of tidying up are among the distinctive than the sounds of the second movement of Bach’s Double pleasures of old age, and I enjoy arranging and re-arranging Violin Concerto in D Minor, and secondly, that this statement is and generally fussing with my rolls. true in spite of the known divergences of taste not only between Secondly, there is the pleasure of exploration. To sit down to people living in different ages but also between different people a totally unknown piece of music, a Sonata by Haydn or C. P. E. living in the same age. Some sounds, then, are intrinsically Bach, let us say, without the faintest idea of what it is going to more beautiful than others, just as some forms of arrangement sound like, is a curious experience. You have the feeling of the are aesthetically more satisfying. pioneer voyaging alone on to uncharted seas of sound. Secondly, although that which excites and moves us in music There is, finally, the pleasure of selection. For the most part, is, if I am right, unique and cannot, therefore, be described in as I have explained, I play my pianola first thing in the morning, terms of anything else, there is, nevertheless’ one thing that can in lieu of breakfast. I generally allow myself two rolls. The be significantly said which is that the essence of music is first is always a piece of Bach and almost always one of the melody. In melody and, rhythm, which is, part of melody, lie the “Forty-eight”. But the second piece? Shall it be more Bach, origins of music. Men danced to rhythms just as errand boys comparatively unknown Bach, something newly dredged up whistle or used, before the era of jazz and swing and crooning, from the bottom of the Evans ocean, or something familiar, a to whistle melodies. Melody is of the essence of folk music. It is movement, say, from a Mozart Concerto? Or shall I try Cesar melody that catches you, melody that haunts you, melody, then, Franck or Faure or Rachmaninoff or even Berlioz, and put that you remember. And as music originates in melody so it myself for the hundredth time to the test of the question, “am never completely cuts free from its origins. Throughout the I really prejudiced in my comparative indifference to anybody corpus of great music, through the theme of the Bach Fugue, but the great six”—Handel and Haydn must clearly be through the movements of even a Beethoven posthumous admitted—“or are they,” as I should prefer to believe, “in a class Quartet melody runs. Now the outstanding defect in most by themselves?” modern composers is that they simply can’t write melodies. It will perhaps confirm the reader in his conviction that I am, if Where, to cite only our own people, where in Bliss or Bax or I put it on record that I return from these periodic excursions into Tippett or Lambert or Scott or even Vaughan-Williams and the musical territory of those whom I call “the others,” more Britten, will you find a melody which leaps to take possession particularly if they belong to the twentieth century, convinced that of your consciousness? It is the absence of melody which makes I am not. But the pleasure of being prejudiced and the pleasure of their music so essentially unrememberable. knowing that you are prejudiced and then letting your prejudices rip are among the minor pleasures of the ageing self. 350 351 By C. G. Nijsen N INTERNATIONAL VIEW ON THE ADVENT OF SELF-PLAYING INSTRUMENTS the invitation of While in Europe mechanised musical instruments were Steinway, closely known since olden times, it was in the New World that Phono- followed by graphs and Player Pianos were initially introduced. Piano rolls Paderewski - whose andenthusiastic audi- the instruments to play them on, gained popularity during ence particularly the first quarter of the 20th Century, but were then pushed consisted of women aside by Gramophone Records and the Radio, both offering and who finally had easier amusement and requiring less financial investment. his own train to The Reproducing Piano in particular, allowing “live” renditions span the remote by famous pianists in the home, deserved a comeback long parts of the country. Ignace Paderewski ago. But it is modern electronics and digital techniques that He kept coming may really re-open this interesting field. to the States for almost 30 years and reportedly made dozens of millions of dollars, before retiring in his summer home in Switzerland. It was just before the turn of the previous Century (1900) that According to expert Alfred Dolge, as a result of these tours, classical music and an orchestral routine gradually found a place the production of pianos in America increased at the rate of 1.6 - in the bigger cities of America as well as in Europe, where times faster than the population growth, much stimulated when musical life up to then had mainly circled around composers of apart from classical music, ballads, folksongs, dances and other livelier music such as ragtime became popular. Until then, instruments in the middle-class American home had mainly been organs (in Europe called harmoniums or American organs) used for playing religious music.

AUTOMATED MUSIC Piano playing in the USA was always considered rather difficult and had not been very popular, many instruments being placed in the parlour for status reasons. Until ... jazzy and Scott Joplin types of rhythm music was transcribed on perforated paper rolls, with the possibility of playing them back

Concertgebouw building, Amsterdam, around 1900 Gravure van het nieuwgebouwde . fame, and the great palaces of royals and the nobility.

As an example: the Amsterdam Concertgebouw was opened in 1888, but in the beginning it did not even have an orchestra of its own. As a conductor, its Committee tried to get the famous Hans von Bülow and , but they both refused. Willem Mengelberg was engaged in 1895, but for performances he had to rely a great deal on periodic tours of the and the French Orchestra Lamoureux. In America, following the Civil War, audiences grew evermore sophisticated about music, especially when a European celebrity could be found to perform on the stage, such as pianists Anton Rubinstein or Ignaz Paderewski. Mostly, such virtuosi were then sponsored by a piano company, as a promotion for their instruments. The renowned Ferruccio Busoni, for instance, made his first American tour in 1891 at 352 continued. . . on a Pianola (tradename of the Aeolian Company). Aeolian was organ called Salzburger a mighty organisation who had made fortunes out of selling reed Stier, placed on top of organs. As from 1897 they engaged Edwin Votey, inventor of the Hohensalzburg castle in the piano roll playing mechanism. This gave them a chance Austria, with compositions to play a big role in popularising the automatic instrument. programmed by Mozart as It should be noted that up to then the only way to play music early as 1753. in the homes in often vast and remote country areas, was to Organ pipes were used as master an instrument yourself. Radio and phonograph did well in portable street barrel not arrive until the mid 1920’s, at least not with acceptable organs of various forms, and quality. So, among the non playing public, the Pianola became in the Serinette or canary an almost immediate success (around 2 million sold until organ stemming from the the mid-Thirties), be it only among those who could afford it. Vosges in France. Wooden In whatever currency you calculate, it could cost as much as a driveshaft assemblies were house! attached to handcranks For boys and girls who took music lessons to learn to play an pumping the bellows - while instrument, there was a drop~out rate of nine-tenths and after cylinder pins and bridges one or two years of struggle, they mostly could not even play a opened and closed some 10 Affecting pitch by varying recognisable piece on the keyboard. And when they could, it or 12 flute valves. sizes or contents was referred to by their fathers as their 400-dollar piece, Table organ referring to the expensive lessons and all the time devoted to them. In 1907 it was already established that the so-called mechanical piano had “done more for popularising good music the country over than the three great orchestras of Chicago, Boston and New York together”. In Europe, Africa and Asia, music had a longer history than in the New World, because of active early composers and performers such as Vivaldi, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and numerous others. Also they were the territories from which instruments, ranging from the Viola da Gamba to a large Barrel organ in number of wooden and brass instruments developed. the streets of Amsterdam. EARLY MECHANICAL INSTRUMENTS For more than 2000 years man had endeavoured to reproduce music automatically. Already in the earliest days of Greek civilisation, a basic understanding of mechanical laws was translated into self-operating devices, with mechanical keys and levers for creating a variety of tones. The Aeolian harp was placed in the wind, so as to cause vibrations in the strings, Pythagoras produced high and low notes by varying the size of bells. and clocks triggered the sounding of musical melodies, by means of a revolving drum in which metal pins activated the chimes. The Flötenuhr or flute-playing clock contained a revolving cylinder, with pins programmed to activate a set of flute-toned organ pipes connected to bellows with valves for every tone. We are now talking 1750 and in England and the Low Pinned Countries Haydn and Mozart cylinder had composed special programmed to admit “Stücke für die Spieluhr”. A airflow in recently re-inaugurated organpipes Canary organ, playing 8 airs on example of huge proportions small organ pipes is the 17th Century cylinder

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Luxurious Swiss musical box with bells Disc musical box A much wider range of In Germany, the organ tones, of course, mechanical music industry -mainly Interior of Flötenuhr with melodies by Mozart and Haydn did exist in the full- concentrated in Leipzig- decided to go other ways sized street organ, as with the musical box and developed a system to put one tune on still can be seen in the one metal or cardboard disk. This Disk Musical streets of Amsterdam and else- Box was patented in 1886 and manufacturers made small where in table models as well as large-size vertical ones with Holland. These use coin-in-the slot device or even disk-changers. Teeth in the no longer a cylinder or barrel, metal comb were now lifted with a star-wheel, operated by but are operated by zig-zag small projections in the disk, bent out from the holes in the folded cardboard books, surface at the bottom. Great advantage of the flat disk, of achieving a fuller and course, was the easier production by punching from a stronger sound and permitting master and for the customer to be able to change a tune after a more varied repertoire. a few minutes. At present in England, computer-operated Pioneers in the Black Forest, machines are used for punching a first-class aluminium Italy, France and Belgium disk, much to be preferred over the sometimes rusty ones left made Fair organs and Dance over from pre-war times . organs on this principle, using There have been hundreds of forms and sizes of rolls reeds in addition to pipes, and disks for numerous models of musical boxes, little organs, which are small metal tongues automatic and zithers. For collectors, who of different lengths, made have made restoration their pastime, the first problem is often to vibrate by a passing air to find the right software for their instrument or the other current. way round. Barrel piano and street organ in Free reeds also formed the 19th Century principle of the spring driven THE ROLL DRIVE cylindrical Swiss Musical In Europe, the currently still existing firm of Hupfeld was Box, from about 1820. The very early in trying to construct self-playing instruments teeth combined on a metal for cardboard disks, books or paper rolls. Soon after 1900 comb, were plucked by pins on they already made large, so-called Orchestrions - which were a brass cylinder. This form of pianos or organs with additional orchestral effects, such reeds was provided with lead as drums, xylophones, flutes, accordeons, and other contraptions weights soldered to to similate an orchestra. the underside, with tiny These were based on a perforated paper roll and mostly dampers of spring material a keyboard and a set of pneumatics resulting in a loud under each tip. There were several tunes on one cylinder, usually between 4 and 8. The biggest of these boxes had a deep, wonderful sound and are now mainly to be seen in museums. They sometimes have interchangeable cylinders that can hardly be lifted by Roll-playing (Tanzbär) one person. from Germany

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Weber Maesto from Waldkirch was one of the biggest orchestrions Hupfeld’s earliest automatic hand-cranked piano.

Punching small perforated rolls in French atelier of Bernard Pin, Paris.

French push-up with organ books, Famous Hupfeld Phonoliszt Violina Pianista by Thibouville. had 3 violins on top, played by a circular bow Orchestrion Weber Unika. Cover removed to see mandolin and violin pipes

Early coin-operated and electricity (D.C.) Early coin-operated and electricity (D.C.) driven piano (around 1900). driven piano (around 1900).

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Replica of Edison’s tinfoil phonograph.

Mills Double Violano Virtuoso with Orchestra cabinet.

Huge roll organ with pipes and keyboard. Edison Gold Moulded Records for phonograph

an active distributor. Of real American origin are the Mills Violano violin player, the Nickelodeons and the Photoplayer to accompany silent films. All these big instruments could hardly be expected to be foot-blown, so they had to rely on electric current (DC). Attempts were made to electricise piano players as well, but in the light of what we know of electric devices now, this was still a bit early.

FROM PHONOGRAPHS TO TAPE Aeolian Orchestrelle reed organ with foot treadles Before leaving the subject of mechanical music devices and concentrate on the self-playing piano, the development of the phonograph and music-on-tape should be mentioned. Edison came with his tinfoil Phonograph to record the human voice in 1877, followed by a variety of other models functioning with wax and bakelite cylinders, with a very much improved quality and suitable for music. There were spring driven and electric models, for recording and reproduction, and an impressive catalogue of pre-recorded cylinders. The Edison company was very succesful, until Berliner’s Gramophone with flat disks, invented in 1887, got a firm foothold, particularly in the Twenties. Music on the gramophone record was then, according to present standards, still rather

Two automatic pipe organs with electric roll drive. enough sound to fill a dance hall or a large café. The most sensational one has been the Phonoliszt-Violina, where in the top compartment three violins are struck with a circular bow, all triggered by holes in the paper roll in the spoolbox. A class in itself were the roll-driven pneumatic organs, made by Aeolian and Estey in America, but also those of German origin, such as made by Imhof, Mukle and Weber in the Black Emil Berliner Forest. They were (and are) very much favoured by important at work in his collectors and at the time the American firm of Wurlitzer was laboratory

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recording was introduced. Perfection in sound recording was earlier achieved in the Thirties with the Philips Miller method of electro -mechanical recording on film, but this called for heavy-duty equipment and was limited to radio studios. More important for the consumer was the invention by Poulsen of the Magnetic Wire recorder, further developed into the Tape Recording machine by AEG and others. This led to home recorders on spools and later Gramophone shop in the Twenties (1963) to the Philips Compact Cassette, an easy-to-use commodity for everyone. The Compact Disk was launched by the same company and Sony twenty years after.

PLAYER PIANOS AND ORGANS First Berliner gramophone was As mentioned, Aeolian deserves credit made in toy factory for being the great pioneer of the Pianola, though others joined the bandwaggon very soon after it became so succesful. The original push-up Piano Player they introduced, had the entire pneumatic system incorporated in a chest - that had to be placed before a normal piano. When Philips-Miller for sound recording on opaque film (1935) a piano roll was inserted in the spoolbox, the perforated paper could easily be moved from one spool to the other over a trackerbar, whereby felt-lined wooden fingers played the keys: 44 or 58 notes in the beginning, soon to be extended to 65. A normal piano having a tone range of 88 notes, it was not surprising that measures were taken to reach 88, agreed on to be the industry’s standard at the Philips Compact Cassette manufacturers convention in Buffalo in was breakthrough in home recording. 1908 and forthwith called Full-Scale. A deviation was the Hupfeld Phonola Original wire recorder Telegraphon by Poulsen. player with 73, but it was extended soon to 88 as well. The magic word with the robot-like Piano Player, renamed Player Piano when it was built into the normal piano, was “pneu- matic”. This meant that suction or vacuum technique was applied to activate the player mechanism, by thin rubber tubes and corre- sponding valves for each note. Part of the suction was used to drive the air-motor, consisting of a number of bellows AEG Magnetophone for tape, developed connected to a crankshaft and collapsed during WW II Principle of the Philips Compact Disc (1963) sequentially. The valves, membranes and small bellows for each note, were primitive, but this changed remarkably when electrical recording housed together in the pneumatic stack, methods were introduced and amplifiers were used in to which the other feeding tubes of the reproduction. The longplay record with microgrooves, and made suction were connected. of unbreakable moulding material appeared only in 1948, and The suction was pedalled together by was a sensational improvement, especially after stereophonic the piano’s owner and stored in the main reservoir at the

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Steck player mechanism, built in front of piano action.

Heavy-transportmen delivering pianola in the 1920’s Push-up pianola with motor compartment opened.

bottom. When a hole number of their upright and grand pianos, so that a player in the paper music roll mechanism could be incorporated. This contributed to their passed over the track- prestige, though Steinway was clever enough to supply them er bar, it was read, a “empty” after Aeolian had paid for them. valve opened and by Piano roll companies were numerous . Aeolian itself had means of a a music catalogue of more than 8000 titles in 1910 and so small pneumatic a had Hupfeld, who called them Artist Rolls. With good reason, kick was given to the because now it becomes clear that between 1907 and 1910 they piano hammer hitting had quite a few famous pianists to make recordings in their the strings. The self- studio. playing piano was Aeolian employed the Universal label, and various others, born. for its rolls, but there were many other roll producers of Noteworthy for classical, popular and in-between types of music. Typical restorers is that there jazz-rolls were made by QRS, a company that still makes should not be any them. Some had their own arrangers to operate recording leaks in this system. pianos with coupled master punching machines. For classical It can hardly be a surprise that after some 80 years the How pneumatics connect with piano action. rubber tubing in an old instrument has become inflexible (if it can be found back at all) and the same can be said of the airtight cloth around the bellows! Aeolian in America and its European subsidiary in England (where it was called The Orchestrelle Company), believed in massive advertising. They put full-page ads in the illustrated magazines, featuring testimonials of the great artists, and a multitude of dealer ads to convince readers that pianolas were as necessary as life itself. And despite the price of such an instrument they were sold in the Teens and Twenties in ever greater numbers. Piano concertos were featured on the concert stage by playing rolls on a push-up player placed in front of a Weber or Steinway grand piano, accompanied by a fullsize symphony orchestra under the bâton of a wellknown conductor. While Aeolian made giant profits, they opened subsidiaries and appointed dealers everywhere and showrooms at prominent Ad for Aeolian roll catalogue with thousands of rolls, 133 pages Harrods Music Library, London, locations. The Steinway company was persuaded to alter a & free of charge. certainly the greatest.

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pieces, however, the printed musical scores were used to produce a master in which all dynamic and other playing instruc- tions were followed as closely as possible. In principle playing a roll was quite easy, particularly for somebody with musical feeling, because levers and knobs on the instrument permit- ted him or her to follow tempo indi- cations on the roll, by means of the Direct coupling of jazz recording piano to punching machine, QRS, Buffalo. tempo lever. Also one could control Dealer ads taken from Dutch newspapers accentuation of high and low notes and by skilfully pedalling with little or more force the weakest pianissimo up to the strongest fortissimo could be followed, often by observing indications on the roll. Particularly in Great Britain foot-operated pianolas were a great succes, even in the days of the 65-note system. Up to the outbreak of WW2 a considerable pro- duction of rolls was distributed by the Aeolian subsidiary at Hayes, Middlesex (North of London), where also fine Steck and Weber pianos were manufactured. Even at this moment, pianola playing is still popular in Britain, and at social meetings of the Player Piano Group quite a few rolls come to life under the feet of a good pianolist. So, a French ad for piano rolls at 50 francs. musical culture has come to exist, where piano rolls, cut straight from the score, derive a personal interpretation by amateur pianolists, according to where inspiration at that moment leads them. Whilst being creative in this way and giving a musical rendition with a personal flavour, it was clear that subtle nuances of rubato, phrasing and the like, such as heard from the famous Master rolls interpreters, were lacking and a system for faithfully recording prepared by dynamics in the roll would be desirable. hand on long sheets. REPRODUCING PIANOS But such perfection had been round the corner all the way! Since 1904 - when Edwin Welte and Karl Bockisch of Freiburg, Germany, invented the Welte-Mignon Reproducing Piano, an ingenious system able to record not only the notes but all the fine nuances in the playing of famous pianists “true-to-life”.

Recording session in Welte studio at Freiburg, 1905. Eugene d’Albert was the pianist.

Roll perforators in action.

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( ). Thl..ptlo'~.pb 0" '\ O("~t,(ll\frol\lanotiRiul """",,.din;: 01 (;hopi,,'~ r.tu.J~ ,n F' \1 ajo. 'h(),,·~Ilo"''''nyd.l..il r: ;~ephi:~~:·t !~:~:~ "hil.. I,.,.pl.,..... qWilh :~.<.~~.:.\l\;!;;~~~.~.~; -~.....-- ll.!:";de,lkn,,,killJ:,,1 reN),d~ InrW.. 1t .. ;\lj~. non I Ln"-1te) Repro, ,In<';n,,Pi,,''otiJ [..,. rronl "",.,)" "'ulill. 01 I:ll"-<•.-c,,k. :'Iloll>;III;;' ~~I~fl .tld<-J or ."t:.tt' :--- - n,di,utl tl!otte;\p­ pf01inulio-n. bll' 10 ~- uu't ••prod..Mion 0' ...... -hi, "byio.c.. "WlIlt 1"".' ""'~I,::; ru:>~·bec:>lkdthe··.6lm t.. ,,...... "".,' 01 1M trlll\ie ,,"~F:I" .:.:~/,":J'~;~ioi~~h'h~ filll:~riDl: led 1"<".po"d,ngin numb<'r to th~ kfr~ on the pi:>.no. Thf ~11l;' ~' ,'~~-.'::,;" ~r~d line' 011 II\( fl· "Ii Il"frneright:>r"lldlare :':cl:·:~:~~tk~hti~~J~t kate Deeogro.pll thtN('Ord.J I~ 1~,li.cllletttrclhO.ol r-. .0. .". the ~.th. rraphi('llllr ". . 0" '0";'; indi".tc. u.o.("tly If.,' .k~tto'pru,....,.'ilh .-biebth.,,,rlut,uuek E : ::::. :::-: ~'~~cl~ lb(" k~)'I. Ihul raitlt· ~~~ .h:di:,d;rf~!'l lUpN.... lio•• ~.I J recording at the Welte Philharmonic organ. Section ofChopin's F-dur Etude as registered on Welte studio piano.

big mansions in the U.S. surviving both Wars. Aeolian developed even a Duo-Art pipe organ, of which only a few were built. The music of the Reproducing Piano was so astonishingly Max Reger arrives for recording at Welte studio. natural that one really thought the artist was playing in person. This called for the most obvious kind of demonstration: the "blind" one (as later frequently practised in HiFi demo's). With a closed curtain, music critics and other experts were asked to guess which was playing, the artist or the Reproducing Piano. With very convincing results. While the novelty of Welte's invention was feverishly discussed (and adapted) by their European competitors ­ Hupfeld DEA was a system on the market in 1907, Philipps from Frankfurt introduced the Duca-system in 1908, and Hupfeld re-worked their enormous "Artist" back catalogue to fit in the Triphonola system - Aeolian could not stay behind. Around 1913 they went all out to present their Duo-Art system that was to become the most important one, worldwide. Welte factory site around 1900. At the tracker bar, two sets of four elongated holes were could re-create the performance of the great artist in one's located at opposite ends. These were situated a little above living room, even years after his death, so that with Welte the level of the note punchings and were solely for reading rolls we can now still hear Paderewski, Reger, Mahler, out the Duo-Art dynamic codings. A full Duo-Art piano Saint-Saens, Grieg, Landowska, Gieseking, Backhaus, Schnabel, was electrically powered, and contained an expression system Busoni, Scharwenka and Debussy play on a real piano. It to voice the theme in the music roll to sound over the was only a pity, as Saint-Saens once said, that the invention accompaniment in sixteen degrees of force. Melody notes had come too late to be able to hear Beethoven, Liszt or were specially accentuated (theme), and the others formed Chopin play in person. the accompaniment, mainly on the left hand side. The theme A similar system was developed for the Welte Philharmonic mechanism was very fast in overriding the latter, applying Organ, for which Max Reger, Marcel Dupre and others were more air power as the coding required. There were electric, invited to Freiburg to record rolls. These comprised mostly enor­ pedal-electric and pedal-only models (called half-Duo-Arts) mous pipe organs, of which only a few are left in the world. where only the theme accentuation was applied. Aeolian, by-the-way, who had an organ factory in America, The exact working of the recording method, as with Welte building stately 58-note reed organs, quickly followed with their (and Hupfeld), has remained a secret up to the present day. On own system of pipe organ for 116-note rolls. Of these there are the surviving photographs of recording sessions, next to the several more left, because they were mainly installed in the artist behind the piano one man sits behind a special desk to

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Clarence Adler VladimirdePachmann Adriano Ariani .[gnace Friedman Ignaz Paderewski Robert Armbruster Herbert Fryer Manuel Ponce Felix Arndt O..ip Gabrilowitsch John Powell Claudio Arra Serge Prokofieff Camline BaldWin Henrich Gebhard £son PUll F...nk Banta Melville Gideon .Alexander Raab Harold Bauer Aurelio Giorni Emo Rapee Edna Bentz Rosita Renard Erncsto Berumen Kalharine Goodson Emiliano Renaud Moses Boguslaw.ki Rudoleh Reuter Coenraad van 80s Enrique Granados F. V. Rogers M."deleine Brard Arthur De Greefe Arthur Rubinstein Ludwig Breimer Mark Hambourg Beryl Rubinstein Ferruccio Busoni Harold Henry Camille Saint-Saens Winifred Byrd Vlctor Herbert Xaver Scharwenka Duo-Art built into a French Gabriel Charles Cadman Jose! Hofman Ernest Schell ing Steinway Duo-Art grand Tere:sa Carreno Josef Holbrooke Cyril Scott Gaveau-piano. Cecile Chaminade Edwin Hughes A. Sequeira Reproducing piano (1927). Carolyn Cone Ernest Hutcheson Arthur Shattuck Mc Nair IIgenfrilz Frank Sheridan George Coj>e1and Alberto Jonas Franklin Sonnakolb Merrigan Daly Alexander Lambert Enrique Soro ••---;iii."'-1 Ampico Maurice Dambois Frederick Lamond Eleanor Spencer .. dynamic recording Raoul Laporra Charles Spross Max Darewski Ethell..eginska Von C. Sternberg nw.chine with spark Rueben Davies Tila Lerner Rose & Otillie Sutro chronograph device. Oliver Denton Leo Livens John Thom~on Lester Donahue Robert Lortat T3Va!'ez de Storer Jennette Duma Paquita Madriguenl Deseider Vecsei Hans Ebell Josef Martin Adela Verne Paul Eisler Herma Menth Margaret Volavy List ofartists recording Justin Elie William Murdoch Herman Wasserman Richard Epstein Florence Nash Victor Witt~enstein for the Duo-Art. Renee Florigny Ciomar Novaes Michael ladora Carl Friedberg Daisy Nellis Mana Zucca

After approval, they signed the roll (master) for authenticity and this turned out to work wonders for the roll sales. The Duo-Art became exemplary in the completeness of its classical repertoire and the extensive 1927 Duo-Art catalog has become a Ampico grands collectors item. featured drawer, After the crisis in the piano world, Aeolian merged with the opening and closing for American Piano Company (1932), who had also brought out a operation. Reproducing Piano device, developed by Charles Stoddard (Norman Evans, already in 1912. Four years later, AmpicQ as it was called for Kingsway Hall, short, organised the most remarkable concert ever given in London 1973) Carnegie Hall. Five of the greatest pianists of that time, Godowsky, Levitzki, Moiseiwitch, Ornstein and Artur Rubinstein appeared there in a joint recital, with their playing immediately repeated in direct comparison with the recordings for the Ampico piano. It was a complete triumph for the system. Ampico also had exclusive contracts with Sergei Rachmaninov, Lhevinne, Rosenthal, Schmitz, Brailowski and many others. Piano makers who installed Ampico mechanisms included make a registration of the dynamics, simultaneous with the Mason & Hamlin, Chickering, Knabe and Marshall & Wendell playing. There is also Welte's story of key tips dipping into a in the U.S. and Broadwood, Chappell, Hopkinson, container with mercury under the keyboard, so that for each Marshall & Rose and Rogers in England. In Germany, the tone a carbon rod could create a different electrical signal, fed Grotrian-Steinweg, in France the Gaveau and in Austria the to electro-magnets in the recording machine. These were each Bosendorfer were available with Ampico systems. The grands connected to a corresponding rubber ink-roller, to create a total were equipped with a drawer under the piano keyboard to house graphic picture of thinner or wider tracks on a slowly moving the spoolbox and controls. roll of paper, all depending on the depth of the dip. It was The Ampico dynamic recording machine was a purely then read by a recording machine in the adjoining room and scientific accomplishment, especially after Dr. Clarence - supplemented by other data by the recording engineer. Hickman had joined the company in 1924. Until then the notes Aeolian as well knew how to engage the right artists to the artist played had simply been registered on a moving roll make the recordings in their studio: Arrau, Bauer, Carreno, of paper in the form of a marked line. It passed over a drum Chaminade, Cortot, Grainger, Hofmann, Horowitz and Artur covered with carbon paper with the carbonised side outward. Rubinstein to name but a few. Several were recorded in London. When keys were depressed, small stylus points moved over the 361 continued. . .

Ad for Ampico recordings released by Decca on LP and CD.

Ampico piano with functions. the spoolbox and controls. The Ampico dynamic recording machine was a purely scientific accomplishment, especially after Dr. Clarence Hickman had joined the company in 1924. Until then the notes the artist played had simply been registered on a moving roll of paper in the form of a marked line. It passed over a drum covered with carbon paper with the carbonised side outward. When keys were depressed, small stylus points moved over the paper, closing a circuit and activating solenoids to mark lines on the paper. Dynamics were recorded separately by editors and did not always satisfy the artist who had to approve the recording. Now, a machine operating on the principle of a spark Pianocorder system (1982) installed in piano, with chronograph marked very accurately the velocity of the piano solenoids and control unit. hammer during the last half inch of travel toward the strings. Street Stock Market crash. Although it contained important A soft stroke of the key would throw the hammer at a much innovations, it never came fully off the ground for that reason. slower speed than a hard blow. This time difference is essential With less financial possibilities most people, also the former and the measuring (adjustment) must be very accurate. And this wealthy, could no longer afford to buy an instrument in the price is where the spark chronograph came in. range of 1000 to 4000 dollars. Besides, piano tuners, tired of In the beginning, a high voltage spark is shot between two repairing complicated and sometimes worn-out mechanisms, electrodes, piercing the paper and thus marking it. It is followed began to advise clients to strip pianos from the self-playing by a second spark, leaving a similar mark. By measuring the device and bring them back to an ordinary acoustical piano. The distance between the two marks, the time’intervals, and so the age of the Player Piano seemed to have come to an end. hammer velocity, are determined. A special machine took care of After the merger with Aeolian in 1932, the Ampico studio graphically recording the signals which were - after a much moved into Aeolian’s New York quarters on Fifth Avenue. more complicated process than described here - a number It continued mainly with the production of popular music of numerical dynamic values for each note. It then went to a under the new name of Aeolian American Corporation until skilled editor to make any necessary correction, for instance to 1936. Most Ampico rolls were now arranged by Frank Milne compensate for the pianist’s errors. Then to a technician to insert and for making master copies he employed a simplified process the appropriate Ampico perforation codes along the paper until in 1941 World War II had started. After the war, various margins, using the numerical values as a guide. Finally, enthusiasts in America began to use Ampico and Duo-Art perforations were made to prepare a master roll for the stencil masters for small-scale production of rolls, to feed the still machine and the roll perforation plant. available instruments owned by collectors. Apart from the Ampico dynamic recording machine, Dr. Hickman was also responsible for the Ampico-B system COMPUTER OPERATION introduced in a limited number of pianos just before the Wall The ways of preserving piano rolls and re-recording

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Sensor bar of the Bösendorfer 290-SE. Playola, QRS portable rail unit to be placed over keyboard. those of historical value on other media, remain of interest to factory in Vienna presented record producers and their colleagues in sound engineering. its fully computerised nine- “Secretaire Musical” with MIDI- Handplayed rolls have always predominated, forming an and-a-half feet Imperial card, made by Le Ludion of Toulouse. important pianistic legacy. After restoration, the foot-operated recording grand model 290- player is certainly an interesting musical instrument. SE, which appeared to be so expensive that hardly anyone could Classical music as recorded by great pianists on reproducing afford rolls being of eminent value for music scholars and piano it. Nevertheless it was a sensational piano, outfitted with lovers. opto-electronic sensors, allowing a 800times per second control Recently, there was considerable discussion about re-issues of the slightest movements of keys and hammers.The scanning of original Gershwin roll recordings, played by himself and now of each sensor every 1.25ms, computing the pressing and played anew by musicologist Artis Woodhouse on a pianola release of each key (velocity of motion of each hammer) did in push-up connected for re-recording to a Yamaha Disklavier. no way encumber the The controversy even reached Time Magazine and it was normal working of the piano action. Moreover there were sen- maintained that computer techniques employed here are very sors on the sostenuto, sustain and to control each new and that electronic solenoid mechanisms manufactured movement of these as well. In the stack assembly, mounted in mass production have not sufficiently ripened yet to avoid under the piano suffering from limitations as connected with length of attack, at the rear of the action, all electronic and mechanical delay factors and shortcomings due to forces at low volume, etc. components were housed, such as the 97 voltage-controlled Another controversy is raised by Wayne Stahnke’s theories solenoids that can reproduce the digital encoded readings from about the accuracy required in the transfer of music roll to the optical sensors during the original performance. Recording compact disc. As put into practice by a couple of Rachmaninov took place on a Compact Disc. Keys could be seen to move CD’s brought out on the Telarc label, he uses a specially up and down at the exact speed at which they were initially constructed scanning device, in which the piano roll is passing a played. Co-designed by Bösendorfer and Kimball, this sensor array, in which the presence or absence of holes can be innovative marriage between a famous acoustical piano determined. At the same time, it passes a precision measuring and state-of-the-art computer techniques, was a breakthrough, roller for locating the exact position of each perforation hole. As probably to be superceded shortly. production music rolls, made from masters, often would not be Around the same time Yamaha presented its Disklavier, also precisely aligned and hole diameters differ, he claimed to have with a self-playing mechanism already built-in during piano found gross faults in the paper roll, made worse by decades of’ production in Japan and in a somewhat lower price bracket. storage of the rolls under less-than-ideal conditions. By writing a computer program that includes all the information Stahnke has gained from building a series of electronic Reproducing Pianos and borrowing phase-locked-loop technology from his years at NASA he has developed ways and means for the necessary corrections, after which the re-recordings with “Rachmaninov rectified” could be played again on his Bösendorfer Reproducing Piano. The computer has undoubtedly led to the discovery of new How optical opportunities to get as close as possible to playing the originals sensors and solenoid from bygone years on new, flawless functioning instruments. units work in the Disklavier. The piano again reigns supreme, and virtually unplayable musical scores can now be realised, where even the use of Piano duets (four human hands) had to fail. As a major occurrence in 1985, the Bösendorfer piano

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As with the Bösendorfer, it could make recordings via a computer attachment, so that in principle every pianist could make his own. Most remarkable was that Yamaha introduced a volume control on a remote unit, a feature that had never been possible on a pianola or reproducing piano when it played rolls. Then came Pianodisc from California, Pianodisc grands, made in Korea, being wired likewise with for computer operation. a small disc player under the Triphonola grand piano with separate manufacturers of electronic pianos have come a motor cabinet. keybed of a grand or vertical long way in quantifying all decisive factors like piano. Presented as a retro- hammer speed and authentic timbre by measuring and compar- fittable device with a sensor strip ing waveforms of a real grand piano. to be mounted beneath the keys instead of Yamaha’s optical Next to applying the results of this research in their no longer hammer-shank detection, it used a strip of pressure-sensitive bulky instruments, they have added features as play-sequencers, film that converted the allowing multi-recording on a floppy disc, etc. Since Welte, pressure of a pianist’s key stroke into electronic data Duo-Art and Ampico, and the rolls produced by their great and from. there into MIDI velocity information. artists like Paderewski, Horowitz, Hofmann and hundreds of The QRS company in others, have already faded from the pianists’ memory, there has Buffalo, well-known since 1900 for its active role in been a constant desire to record the performances of modern producing jazz rolls and virtuosos as Brendel, Pollini, Richter and the like, and to evergreens, has launched reproduce these on a real piano instead of through loudspeakers. their Pianomation system that can be built in almost every exist- Because piano styles and interpretation have ing piano without great difficulty. Like the others the QRS com- constantly changed and apart from the sheer puter equipment operates with solenoids and electro-magnets necessity of playing them for students in conservatories, future (relays) attached to each key. As could be expected, an enor- generations of music lovers should not be denied the pleasure of mous music library is available on disk, ranging from their own hearing this later generation of famous artists perform today. So, Eubie Blake, Jelly Roll Morton to Fats Waller and other jazz also for collectors and other admirers of the classic reproducing greats from the past. Also George Gershwin (Rhapsody in Blue piano it is possible that in a few years time, the silicon chip will and a diskful of other compositions) and the more recent Liber- take their breath away! ace, are available, all transferred into MIDI-signals to drive the In Toulouse recently, we heard a fantastic sound from small system in the piano. There are also live solo piano recordings organ pipes in a “musical writing desk”operated by just putting a and orchestrated recordings to play from either CD or floppy as MIDI card in a small drawer. The cabinet further contained all well as other combinations. pressure and vacuum pumps and reservoirs (plus a silent motor) In cases where building such a system into an existing piano in the traditional fashion, but the digital control surely opened is less desirable, the QRS Portable Playola is a solution up new vistas for the mechanical music’s future. It was undoubt- that works better than many similar attempts in the past. edly an interesting improvement on the antique weight-driven As can easily be seen, it consists of a compact unit placed on chamber barrel organ secretaire, like it went on sale recently at top of the keyboard (any keyboard with 88 keys) to transfer an Christies, London, for more than £15,000. acoustic piano into a MIDI player. It presses down the keys There are other developments underway to apply computer with the help of solenoids and associated electronics, playing techniques for the recording, duplication and reproduction of a over a range of 128 levels of expression, with an additional heritage that is virtually unknown by a younger generation, sustain control for the right-hand pedal. Only one cable because in the Thirties it came to an untimely end. connects the player rail to the control module housing all MIDI-components. It may be connected to an amplifier / Literature loudspeaker as well. Also this module provides access to a wide CD~library with thousands of titles and over a hundred hours of Q. David Bowers: Encyclopedia of Automatic music. So it looks like the presently most versatile and smallest Musical Instruments imaginable solution to provide “automated” and uninterrupted Alexander Buchner: Mechanical Musical Instruments “real” piano music, for instance in restaurants and other public Alfred Dolge: Pianos and their makers places. J.J. Haspels: Automatic Musical Instruments Though the genuine tones of the traditional acoustic Richard Howe: The Ampico piano cannot easily be imitated synthetically, some modern Herbert Juttemann: Mechanische Musikinstruments

364 From Musical Box Society International Nov/Dec 2005 News Bulletin

In Memory marriage the Malones returned to Yes, it takes more than one person to California and settled in Turlock. While replace that dynamo! Jeanne Holt Malone raising her two boys, John and Bill, A visitor to the Play-Rite shop would be 1912-2005 Jeanne commuted to Stockton, California, surrounded by a maze of machines, wiring, for 25 years to work as a psychiatric electronics, perforators, shelves of master By Matthew Caulfield nurse at the Stockton State Hospital. rolls, drums of blank paper, roll cores, roll Through a close friendship with the boxes, sheets of labels, rack and table for family of her husband’s first wife, Jeanne spooling finished rolls…and Mrs. Malone was introduced to the Adventist faith, at the age of 90 or so, darting around in all which became her faith, into which she this chaos, a cordless phone clipped to was baptized in Turlock—in 1946 or so, her belt for fielding phone calls, while a according to son John’s recollection, when production perforator thundered and shook he was about three years old. Jeanne lived the room as it did its job under her watchful her faith. She was an authentic Christian in eye. At one end of the room was a cage the best sense of the word to all who knew bird, not appearing any more out of place in her or had dealings with her. these surroundings than did Mrs. Malone As a teenager in 1956, son John began herself. collecting reed organs and player pianos, When a break in production allowed, and Jeanne helped him with their repair Mrs. Malone would usher the visitor into and rebuilding. The Malones made the the adjoining parlor of the house where the acquaintance of the eccentric but talented Malone’s Wurlitzer 165 band organ (serial piano/organ man Robert Heilbuth (d. May no. 3358 from 1921) stood. It has been 25, 2002, San Francisco), from whom they equipped with add-on roll frames, so that it The instrument falls silent, learned a great deal about this hobby that can play style 125 and style 150 rolls as but the music plays on… would later become their business. John’s well as 165 rolls, a useful addition when it electronics aptitude and knowledge was a comes to testing the various Wurlitzer rolls Owners of roll-playing instruments are great asset as the hobby progressed, and he to be recut. A band organ concert would familiar with the Play-Rite name, but was helped there by Frank Waldorf and also follow, although Mrs. Malone might have perhaps not with the lady behind that name, by Jeanne, herself, who could read to watch the clock to pickup her grandchild Mrs. Jeanne Malone. From 1960, when schematics and do repairs. from school or fulfill a commitment to her son, John Malone, acquired his first Back in those days long distance visit some old folds in nursing homes. perforating machine and started the music phoning from California to the East Coast It was a family joke that Jeanne used to roll business we know as Play-Rite Music was not cheap, but Jeanne supported her visit nursing home residents in their 80’s, Rolls, Mrs. Malone was heavily involved in son’s quest for knowledge as he made while she was in her 90’s. the production of the specialty rolls that many calls to the Rudolph Wurlitzer Com- Mrs. Malone was strong and active Play-Rite made for customers around the pany in North Tonawanda, N.Y. Finally in almost to the end. The beginning of the end world, until her death August 17, 2005, at 1960 the hobby became a business. They came in March of 2005, when she suffered the age of 93. were the first people in modern times to be a fall at home. She went into convalescence Born Jeanne Holt on June 8, 1912, in able to copy old music rolls fast and accu- and surprised doctors by her will to get Denver, Colorado, she and her family rately. Customers came. More perforators back on her feet and return to work running moved to Nebraska when she was a were added to the stable. Business grew, the roll business, which she did. But early young girl. They were Burlington Northern and Jeanne was right there doing yeoman’s in August she began to decline, not feeling Railroad people of German extraction, and work—doing it full time after her right, not eating, her medication not Jeanne grew up fast, helping to dispatch retirement from nursing. working well. At 9:30 Wednesday morning, trains at the age of 12 and getting her In addition to the specialty-roll August 17, while sitting in her living room driver’s license at that age so that she could operation, which runs out of a small chair, Jeanne Malone finally found rest. drive the family car on business matters. shop attached to the Malone residence in She is survived by her two sons, Bill and Jeanne learned Greek and French from Turlock, where there are at least three John, and two grandchildren, Alina and her father and later Spanish from time spent production perforators of various design John, saddened by the fact that she didn’t in New Mexico and in school. But aside and where Jeanne Malone held sway, quite get to see young John graduate from from high school and community college, Play-Rite used to have a plant at 401 S. high school. she was largely self-educated, an education Broadway in Turlock to produce 88-note Jim Blanco, a family friend, wrote: in life gained from a solid work ethic, player piano rolls. That plant burned down “The joy of the music she created, copied, from being an avid reader, and later from Feb. 2, 1997. One of the irrecoverable and preserved will echo for many more extensive foreign travel. losses from the fire was the stencil machine years than you and I have left combined, Jeanne married young. In 1930, at the for printing lyrics onto word rolls. The and that is how it should be.” age of 18 she married John Malone Sr., Broadway plant is gone, and now so is a 52-year-old Californian who has come to Jeanne Malone, but son John intends Nebraska to find work in those hard times. to continue specialty-roll production, He met his future wife while helping contingent on the tiring and training of the Holts to remodel their home. After capable people to replace Mrs. Malone.

365 w 0\ 0\ Reroll/Repeat Tubing Diagram for Late 1920's AMP/CO Uprights

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CAUTION! Variations of this scheme exist, but will present no problems for the skilled restorer. ~ o Repeat Sw. in ON Position .--11- (X-Ray View from Lever End)

7/32" -7 i ~ ~ 5/32" 7/32"

~ 5/32" *R To Pouch of Universal Vent Block 5/32"--7

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New from Tim Baxter - Meliora Music Rolls www.members.aol.com/meliorarol/index.htm ¥ [email protected] Duo-Art Rolls (Recuts) Ten New Pop Rolls for 2005 713450 Together We Two. Composer: Berlin. Roll Performance by: Freddie Rich. 0475 Wherever You Are. Composer: Dowling & Hanley. Roll Performance by: Alan Moran 0506 When. Composer: Johnson. Roll Performance by: Newell Chase 0508 American (Paso Doble Flamenco)-Spanish March, Four-Hand Arrangement. Composer: Cimaglia. Roll Performance by: Garcia & Villa 0569 Out of the Dawn. Composer: Donaldson. Roll Performance by: Harvey Maddon 0589 Moonlight Madness. Composer: Davis & Coots. Roll Performance by: Newell Chase 0700 Why Do You Suppose? Composer: Rodgers. Roll Performance by: Ernest Leith 0765 So Beats My Heart For You. Composer: Ballard, Henderson & Waring. Roll Performance by: Frank Milne 0779 My Bluebird Was Caught In The Rain. Composer: Rich. Roll Performance by: Frank Milne 104205 Glad Rag Doll. Composer: Dougherty & Ager. Roll Performance by: Dagmar Nordstrom

Five New Classical Rolls for 2005 7250 Carmen Variations. Composer: Bizet-Horowitz. Roll Performance by: Vladimir Horowitz 7435 Soiree de Vienne No. 6. Composer: Schubert-Liszt. Roll Performance by: Ignace J. Paderewski 6967-4 69680 6981-4 Piano Concerto No 1, Op. 25, g/Mvts. 1-3. Composer: Mendelssohn-Backhaus. Roll Performance by Wilhelm Backhaus

AMPICO Rolls (Recuts) “A” Rolls unless otherwise specified 66713-H Cordoba, from “Chants d’Espagne,” Op. 232, No. 4. Composer: Albeniz. Roll Performance by: Josef Lhevinne “B” Roll 65543-H Sonata in D. Composer: Haydn. Roll Performance by: Helen Norfleet 63311-H Valse Brilliante, Op. 34, No. 3, F Composer: Chopin. Roll Performance by: “B” Roll 69163-H Nocturne: Op. 48, No. 1;c. Composer Chopin. Roll Performance by: Mischa Levitzki “B” Roll 65043-H Prelude and Fugue, a. Composer: Bach-Liszt. Roll Performance by: E. Robert Schmitz 65601-H Preludes, Op 28; Nos. 1, 3, 8. Composer: Chopin. Roll Performance by: Mieczyslaw Munz 65783-G Air de Ballet, Op. 30, No. 1, G. Composer: Chaminade. Roll Performance by: Milton Suskind 67461-G Mazurka, Op. 59, No. 3, f#. Composer: Chopin. Roll Performance by: Julius Louis Chaloff 54954-H Waltz Op. 64, No. 2, c#. Composer: Chopin. Roll Performance by: Leopold Godowsky “B” Roll 68001-H Preludes Op. 10, No. 11; Op. 25, No. 9. Composer: Chopin. Roll Performance by: Josef Lhevinne “B” Roll 57566-H Triana, Book 1, No. 3 from “Iberia”. Composer: Albeniz. Roll Performance by Arthur Rubinstein 63673-G Six Variations on the Air “Nel cor piu mi sento”. Composer: Beethoven Roll Performance by: Dai Buell

367 continued. . . continued. . . AMPICO Rolls (Recuts) 65081-G Rondeau. Composer: Couperin. Roll Performance by: Milton Suskind 65101-G Tango Espagnole. Composer: Albeniz. Roll Performance by: Maurice Dumesnil 66423-H Renaissance Dance Medley. Composers: Byrd, Purcell, Bull. Roll Performance by: Helen Norfleet

Welte-Mignon (Licensee) Rolls WE-1 “Stardust”. Composer: Parish-Carmichael. Roll Performance by: Emse Dawson. (orig. Ampico 213701) WE-2 “April in Paris”. Composer: Duke. Roll Performance by: Edgar Fairchild (orig. Ampico 104945)

Welte Recuts 7824 “” Overture. Composer: . Roll Performance by: George Liebling 6352 Valse Arabesque. Composer: Theodore Lack. Roll Performance by: Julius Koehl 6619 Bohemian Girl Selections. Composer: Michael William Balfe. Roll Performance by: Edna S. Hart 7220 Pas des Amphores. Composer: Chaminade. Roll Performance by: Claude Duret 7195 Prince of Pilsen Selections. Composer: Gustav Luders. Roll Performance by: Edna S. Hart 7894 Memories, Lotus Blossums. Composer: Friml. Roll Performance by: Edna S. Hart 7523 Caprice, Op. 44, No. 14. Composer: Sinding. Roll Performance by: Eva Yeargain 7610 Saudades do Brazil (Nostalgia of Brazil) Composer: Milhaud. Roll Performance by: Darius Milhaud 7728 Etude, c, “Revolutionary” Op. 10, No 12. Composer: Chopin. Roll Performance by: Leonid Kreutzer 7750 Songs My Mother Taught Me. Composer: Dvorak. Roll Performance by: Jean Fabre 7811 Ben Hur Chariot Race-March. Composer: E. T. Paull. Roll Performance by: Don Ricardo 75537 Dancing in The Dark. Composer: Schwartz. Roll Performance by: Frank Milne

New from David Saul - Precision Music Rolls 1043 Eastside Road, El Cajon, CA 92020-1414 ¥ [email protected] Selections for 2005-2006 213001 Bye Bye Blues, Fox Trot-Hamm-Bennett-Lown-Gray, Pl. by Victor Arden & Adam Carroll 11/30 213291 Something to Remember You By, Fox Trot-Dieta-Schwarz, Pl. by Newell Chase 03/31 213541 Oh, Donna Clara, “The Wonder Bar” Tango Recording Petersburski, Pl. by Arden & Carroll 214051 In a Shanty in Old Shanty Town, Waltz Ballad-Young-Little-Siras, Pl. by Ralph Addison-10/32 214171 Please, Fox Trot, Robin-Rainger, Pl. by Victor Arden-12/32 214661 Dinner at Eight, Fox Trot-McHugh, Pl. by Victor Arden-12/33 214691 Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? From Disney Silly Symphony, “The Three Little Pigs” Fox Trot-Churchill-Ronell, Pl. by Frank Milne-12/33 214971 I Wish I Were Twins, Fox Trot-Mayer, Pl. by Arden & Carroll, Summer 1934, GREAT arrangement of a snappy tune once featured by jazz greats incl. “Fats” Waller. 215441 Lovely to Look At, Fox Trot-Kern, Pl. by Adam Carroll-Summer 1935 215593 1. When Love Comes Your Way 2. Me and Marie, “Jubilee” Waltz recording, Cole Porter, Pl. by Adam Carroll 12/35 216203 1. My Cabin of Dreams 2. Don’t Play with Fire 3. Let’s Have Another Cigarette 4. My Secret Love Affair, Fox Trot Recordings (various composers) Pl. by Robert Farquhar-10/37 216303 1. My First Impression of You 2. Thanks for the Memory 3. Everyday’s a Holiday (various composers) Pl. by Bob Edgeworth-01/38 Bob Hope’s famous theme is found among the great tunes on this Fox Trot recording. 216483 1. From Now On, Cole Porter 2. Get Out Of Town, Cole Porter 3. The Shortest Day, Hart-Rodgers 4. This Can’t Be Love, Hart-Rodgers Fox Trot Recording-Pl. by Frank Milne-early 1939 216553 1. Melancholy Mood 2. South of the Border 3. Oh! You Crazy Moon 4. Scatter-Brain (various composers) Pl. by Frank Milne-Summer 1940 368 continued. . . continued. . .Selections for 2005-2006 71183 Noel Coward Medley Dinner Music No. 10-1. Parisian Pierrot; 2. Poor Little Rich Girl; 3. A Room with a View; 4. Dance Little Lady; 5. Some Day I’ll Find You; 6. I Can’t Do Anything at All; 7. I’ll See You Again, Noel Coward-Pl. by Adam Carroll-10/33 71393 Outs. Hits (FTM No. 31) 1. If the Moon Turns Green; 2. The Night Is Young; 3. A Little White Gardenia; 4. Soon; 5. Down by the River (various composers) Pl. by Frank Milne 05/35 71483 Outs. Hits of the Day-(FTM No. 36) 1. Dinner for One, Please, James; 2. If I Should Lose You; 3. I’m Shooting High; 4. I’m Building Up to an Awful Let-Down; 5. Where Am I? (various composers) Pl. by Frank Milne 02/36

New from Don Teach - Shreveport Music Co. Phone: (318) 798-6000 ¥ 1815 E. 70th Street ¥ Shreveport, LA 71105 ¥ [email protected] Here are three of the four “O” rolls I have had recut this year. I am always looking for other “O” rolls to recut that have not been recut before so please let me borrow your rolls to copy. I sell these rolls for 60.00 each including postage in the United States. Roll No. 893 1. Glad Rag Doll 2. I Faw Down and Go Boom 3. I’m in the Jail House Now 4. Carolina Moon 5. Dream Train 6. Marie 7. My Inspiration is You 8. Good Little Bad Little You 9. Four or Five Times 10. Everybody Love You Capitol Roll “O” 798 1. Dizzy fingers 2. At Peace with the World 3. My Pal Joey 4. What a Man 5. Bye Bye Blackbird 6. Tamiami Trail 7. Somebody’s Lonely 8. Talking to the Moon 9. I Found a Round About Way to Heaven 10. Horses

Columbia 0-645 1. I’ve Got the Yes We Have No Bananas Blues 2. Beale Street Mama 3. Keeps on Raining 4. My Sweetie Went Away 5. Papa Better Watch Your Step 6. Pipe Organ Blues 7. Sugar Blues 8. Louisville Lou 9. Tain’t Nobody’s Business 10. Sweet Lovin Mama Send Pictures to me of your Favorite Coinola Piano: [email protected]

PLEASE VISIT THESE SUPPLIERS OF RECUT ROLLS Rob Deland: Blues Tone Rolls Don Teach: Shreveport Music Co. Steve Bentley: Playrite Music Rolls www.bluesrolls.com 1815 E. 70th Street, Shreveport, LA 71105 1536 N. Palm St., [email protected] [email protected] Turlock, CA 95380 U.S.A. Phone: (847) 548-6416 Phone: (318) 798-6000 Phone/Voice: (209) 632-5784 Fax: (318) 797-4572 Fax: (209) 667-8241 David Saul: Precision Music Rolls 1043 Eastside Road Magic Melodies & Keystone QRS Music Technologies, Inc. El Cajon, CA 92020-1414 360 Lawless Road 1026 Niagara Street, Buffalo, NY 14213 [email protected] Jamestown, KY 42629 Phone: 1-800-247-6557 Phone: (270) 343-2061 Fax: 1-716-885-7510 Bob & Ginny Billings: Rock Soup www.qrsmusic.com 14010 Rim Rock Drive, Reno, NV 89521 Robin Pratt: Artist Choice Music Rolls toadhall @sprynet.com www.wiscasset.net/artcraft/pratt.htm Scott Boelman: Lazy Dog Piano Rolls Phone: (775) 853-4659 [email protected] www.lazydogpianorolls.com Phone: (419) 626-1903 [email protected] Leedy Brothers Music Rolls One Olive Street, Ladera Ranch, CA 92694 4660 Hagar Shore Road Tim Baxter: Meliora Music Rolls Phone: (949) 218-0108 Coloma, MI 49038 www.members.aol.com/meliorarol/index.htm www.leedyrolls.com [email protected] David Caldwell Phone: (269) 468-5986 400 Lincoln Lake Ave., N.E. Fax: (269) 468-0019 Joyce Brite: Player Piano Lowell, MI 49331 & Musical Music Exchange Phone: (616) 897-5609 Larry Norman: Rollertunes http://mmd.foxtail.com/Exchange/ DavidWFrom [email protected] www.home.earthlink.net/~rollertunes http://mmd.foxtail.com/Exchange/rollpage.htm www.malli.net/~uni/Caldwell [email protected] Phone: (504) 721-7188

369 evening program. Jason is the curator for this instrument as well as the 9’6” Steinway concert grand which resides in front of the organ screen. It was truly a treat to reach back into the 1920’s and News imagine what life was like 85 years ago. We may be able to sit in front of our computers and other 21st century gadgets and impress ourselves, but we all had an opportunity to hear and From absorb an encompassing sound of a might pipe organ and a thundering piano 85 years old. Of course preservation comes to mind, which is the essence of AMICA in the first place. The Chapters On Saturday AMICAns gathered at the hotel restaurant for a breakfast fall meeting. Discussion of 2005 convention and other matters were brought before the group. The remainder of the day was dedicated to the Winona Heritage Festival located on the levee. A stroll back into the past with crafts, paddle boat, three calliopes, old cars and many entrants dressed in period attire. Included was a tour of a very respectable county history museum. The day ended with a couple of AMICAns dining at Minnesota’s oldest operating hotel in Wabasha. It was perfect ending for a late summer grand weekend.

Our president Phillip Baird “Horsing around!”

NORTHERN LIGHTS CHAPTER Reporter: Phillip L. Baird Ron Olsen “Will this get us President: Phillip Baird back to St. Paul?”

Having fully recovered from the Minneapolis-St. Paul AMICA convention, the Northern Lights Chapter members enjoyed a weekend outing in Winona, Minnesota on September 16 & 17. Winona, MN is a pre Civil War city nestled between the Upper Mississippi River bluffs. In essence, this city is a repository of elegant 19th century architecture and the home of two Universities. The avenues are lined with many large Queen Ann’s and Victorian stately homes. The central business district is complete with some magnificent buildings. One major industry is the J R Watkins Medical Supply Co. Those who attended the 2005 AMICA convention will Calliope of Jason remember the table favors of spices and vanilla from the Beyer. Watkins Co. The crown jewel of Winona homes is the Paul Watkins Manor House, now part of nursing home center operated by the city of Winona. The home is a splendid example of an English Tudor manor house. The house was built in the 1920’s and is home of one of the largest Aeolian residence pipe organs. The organ is four keyboards and 85 ranks playing in a large hall designed with excellent acoustics. AMICAns were treated to a silent movie with organ accompaniment on Friday September 16. AMICA member, Karl Eilers was the organist accompanying the Charlie Our breakfast Chaplin film: THE GOLD RUSH, for the evening. Karl meeting at hotel. actually gave three performances that day. AMICAn’s Jason Beyer and co-host Paul Watkins, grandson of the home builder, gave house and organ tours at the conclusion of the

370 Great Hall Organ at Watkins Manor House.

Great Hall Organ at Watkins Manor House.

Museum Watkins Watkins Wagons Manor House

Docked Winona Paddle Boat

Steam Calliope

Ron Olsen & Tom Wundeman with Tom’s Calliope at Heritage Fest.

SIERRA-NEVADA CHAPTER Reporter: Nadine Motto-Ros President: John Motto-Ros - (209) 267-9252 Steinway 9’6” Concert Grand 10/31/05 also plays from organ. The Sierra-Nevada Chapter met at the home of John and Nadine Motto-Ros in Sutter Creek, CA. In attendance were Fred Deal, Alex Thompson, Doug & Vickie Mahr,

371 George & Sharyn Cunningham, Bob & Sonja Lemon, Kathy & Ray Ray & Kathy Fairfield, plus guests the Dan Lucas Family Fairfield and (Helen, Dan and Marilyn); they are planning to join at our Bob Lemon. Christmas meeting. Alex Thompson, who won the Pumper Contest at the 2005 Minneapolis convention, brought “Footsie” with him and played the Aeolian pumper until we thought it would need rebuilding. He also drove his 1930 Model A Ford from Stockton to Sutter Creek. We had a comparison between the Ampico “B” and the Mason & Hamlin Upright Grand with PianoDisc playing “Melodies in Blue #1. ” I think the Ampico won, but it is great to have an hour or more of tunes on the PianoDisc with- out changing a roll! Fred Deal at the In the music room, the Seeburg “G,” Link 2E, Coinola, Aeolian Pumper Empress Electric, and KT Special were played quite a bit. A short business meeting was held. Alex Thompson was elected new vice president and we voted to support the Adopt a Piano program in the amount of $200 (will send when needed). The most important business was volunteers for future meetings: Dec 4, 2005 – Alex Thompson, Stockton

Feb 18, 2006 – Chip Lusby, Sutter Creek

Apr 15, 2006 – Alex Thompson, Stockton on the boat Guests, the Dan Lucas Family: Jun 17, 2006 – Ray & Betty Stacey, Mom Helen, Serenidad Vineyard, Plymouth Marilyn & Dan.

Aug 19, 2006 – Doug & Vickie Mahr, Orangevale

Oct 21, 2006 – John & Nadine Motto-Ros, Sutter Creek

Dec 16, 2006 – Bob & Sonja Lemon, Sacramento Alex Thompson More music played—Encore Banjo, Seeburg G, and with his 1930 Model A Ford.

Alex Thompson at the 1912 Aeolian Pumper with “Footsie.” Hosts, John & Nadine Motto-Ros

Doug & Vickie Mahr and Nadine Mottoros.

372 when we left everyone was filled up quite nicely. Then on to the home of Mike Argain and Patty Kane. Mike and Patty live in a beautiful neighborhood in Fresno, and their home is a real gem. Of course, the music room is the real heart of the house. Mike has been accumulating instruments quite rapidly lately, and he really had a collection to show us. To me the surprise of the visit, though, had to be the Weber Solea, which Mike had restored inside and out. This has always been a wonderful instrument, but I couldn’t get over the sound this time. I had always thought it had a good, full sound, but this visit it really showed what it could do. The The Business Meeting: Fred Deal, George case and mirrors had all been done, too, and it just shone. Cunningham, Sharyn Cunningham, Sonja Lemon That is really one gorgeous instrument. and Doug Mahr (no, Doug is not sleeping, Of course, the Hupfeld Helios is no slouch, either. That just in deep thought). has always been a favorite of mine, and I think everyone understood why. Put on a good classical roll on either of these machines (or a pop tune for that matter) and you will get a real treat…a full orchestra right in your music room. Mike has the only known original Coinola SO in the world, and that is another great instrument. It really plays up a storm, having more the sound of a 20’s orchestra, at least to me. Mike had purchased a couple of collections recently, and some of the additions to his collection were a Seeburg G, (another super machine), a Coinola Midget, a Seeburg K, a Link 2E, Western Electric Selectric, Mills Violano, a Coinola Cupid, and others. He has also accumulated a nice collection SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CHAPTER of posters. Some of those are real works of art. He also had a Bruder band organ which belongs to Bob Reporter: Shirley Nix McCord and which Mike is restoring. Another beauty was a President: Frank Nix- (818) 884-6849 Welte Philharmonic, which had just been finished and was due to deliver to the Milhous collection. Another restoration was an art case piano owned by Dave and Diane Reidy. October 8th and 9th found the Southern California What a beautiful piece that is. Let’s face it, they are all Chapter off on an “adventure”. beautiful pieces. Our President, Jerry Pell, had come up with the idea of Mike and Patty had set up refreshments on the patio, and hiring a bus and going up to Northern California to visit two we enjoyed ourselves immensely, eating more than we should marvelous collections up there, stopping along the way to have after that large lunch. It was a perfect fall day, with a visit Mike Argain. Well, due to unforeseen circumstances the slight breeze keeping it cool. Northern California trip had to be scrapped for now, but it was We stayed there for the afternoon, and then boarded the decided to go anyhow, but only as far as Fresno. bus for our dinner engagement at a local Basque restaurant. The bus took off Saturday morning at 8:30 with 34 hearty This place starts off the meal with soup in a large pot, from souls on board, mostly AMICANs, but a few MBSI members which you ladle out your own. Then the salad, one a green and a few invited guests were gratefully included. Everyone salad and the other a potato salad with baby shrimp. Next parked their car at the Nix home, and both driveways were came a bowl of beans, followed by spaghetti and meatballs. full, as was the front of both homes. (No wonder the neighbors When you were ready to burst, they brought out the roast think the Nix family must run a used car lot on the side. We chicken in wine sauce and rice, followed by a small chocolate had offers on a few of the cars, and said we’d consider them.) sundae. Everyone left saying they wouldn’t eat again for a It was a nice, clear day…just right for a trip on a bus. week, but you know how that goes. Jerry Lewine, one of the invited guests, brought a movie From the restaurant we again boarded the bus and went to along for us to watch. It made the time fly by, and it’s always the motel to rest up in preparation for Sunday’s trip. fun to have a group together for a trip like this anyhow. The Sunday morning dawned, another gorgeous day, and after only complaint on the way up was from one gentleman who a continental breakfast at the motel, we boarded the bus again wanted to stop at every Starbucks he saw. His name was Bob and drove to the home of Stephen and Kelly Goodman. Half McCord. Either he really likes Starbucks or he owns stock in of us got off there and half were bussed over to an antique the company and saw a real opportunity with such a captive street fair in downtown Clovis, which is a big deal occurring audience. Maybe we need to put him on decaf. once a year with antique dealer’s booths set up in the streets When we reached Fresno, we stopped first at Sal’s (which are closed off to traffic, of course), and all the antique Mexican Restaurant for lunch. They have good food, and stores in town were open, most having discounts for the day. 373 We were really thrilled when Stephen emailed us and Kelly and invited us to stop at their home on our trip, since we really Stephen Kent had no set plans other that to visit Mike’s. Goodman, our Sunday hosts. Stephen and Kelly have a small house, but it’s fairly bursting with wonderful toys. Stephen put together a Seeburg which had never been put into production by Seeburg, but he had found plans, and used all Seeburg parts, and it is an altogether wonderful machine. Stephen also is an arranger, and he played some of his arrangements for us, which really brought out every facet of the machine. There was also a Wurlitzer CX and a piano and various other machines. We toured his workshop, packed full with pianos and other goodies. Kelly had made us lunch, and the whole kitchen was full of great food. All those people who were “never” going to eat Bill Blair, again managed to force themselves to partake. I think we are Jean Hurley, Roy Beltz and probably all on diets after this trip. Frank Nix head After the two groups had exchanged places and visited for the antique fair. both venues we again boarded the bus for the trip home. (There were, as you can imagine, a few “treasures” packed away in the storage compartment of the bus…Lead a group of collectors to an antique fair and you can bet at least some of them will find something they can’t live without.) Herb Mercer had sent along two movies, which we watched on the way home. One was a Sherlock Holmes movie with three music boxes at center stage, and for those of us who collect Mike and Patty, musical instruments, it turned out to be quite hilarious. It was Nadine and John rather an old movie, and the music boxes at auction brought Motto-Ros, Jean Hurley, Bill Blair, two pounds, one pound, and the third sold for 10 schillings. Mary & Richard Those who bought them came to a bad end, but never mind…. Thomas enjoying It was a good trip home, punctuated with a voice in the the Basque dinner. back pointing out every Starbucks again and begging the drive to stop. (I have to mention that at both places we visited somehow Bob ended up finding a Starbucks and getting his coffee somehow.) We didn’t stop this time, either. Bob keeps us all entertained whenever he is around. We got home about 5:30 on Sunday, and those who wanted to stay spent some time with the Nix collection. It was a super weekend, filled with music, laughter, and good fellowship. Many thanks to our hosts for the weekend, and to Jerry Pell for coming up with the good idea.

Bob McCord with, as last, a cup of Starbucks coffee.

Jerry & Suzanne Kaliser, Bob and Shawn Baumbach, President Jerry Pell, Roy Beltz and Frank Nix busy partaking of dinner.

Mike Argain and Patty Kane, our hosts on Saturday, in front of the The start of the Clovis Antique Fair. Hupfeld Helios. 374 explained that he rescued some of the records from the Aeolian Company and donated them to the local historical archives. Our August visit was to the home and gardens of Anne and Garry Lemon. Visitors came from near and far. Anne’s colorful garden was the backdrop for lively conversation and renewal of friendships. The summer barbecue of Canadian bacon and confections of local fruits, vegetables and delicious sweets was accompanied by Mike and Holly recollecting stories from Minneapolis convention. Our wishes S.O.W.N.Y. CHAPTER for a good recovery were given to Stan Aldridge. Stan has always been at our summer get togethers and his enthusiasm Reporter: Garry D. Lemon is always appreciated. President: Mike Walter - (716) 656-9583 A tentative list of dates and events include: Summer 2005 Christmas Sunday, December 11, 2005 Our summer of 2005 field trip was to the George New York - - Walter Collection Eastman House in Rochester, New York State. Original Spring April/May, 2006 Kodak photographs of the mansion were invaluable during Pennsylvania - - Marx Toys the restoration process. The International Museum of Summer July-AMICA Convention Photography has not only one of the largest collections of Illinois - - San Filippo Collection photographs but also one of the great archives of vintage August Ontario motion pictures. His development of dry-plate coating Ottawa Archival Collection resulted in the popularity of the Brownie camera. He shared his wealth and encouraged the arts. His legacy All are welcome to attend!! Check your calendar includes contributions to the music schools of Rochester and encourages students to play on his living room Steinway piano. The New York City firm of McKim, Mead and White designed the living room and Eastman insisted that the legs of the Steinway piano be re-configured to complement. The Eastman Steinway has a highly figured wood case, handsomely turned House-Living Room legs and pedal lyre and a noble and full voice. Students explain the musicality of their performances and the contribu- tions of the Eastman vision to their studies. The palm-filled conservatory has a huge elephant head with all ears listening to the Aeolian Duo Art Organ. The organ has been restored by the local theater-organ society and has a selection of rolls produced by the Play Rite Music Roll Company in Turlock, California. Visitors are now able to listen to some of the same music that Mr. Eastman once enjoyed over his Sunday breakfasts. Organist and music teacher Tim Schram from Rochester generously agreed to accompany our tour and to present a program on the Aeolian. Tim explained that the planter of tropical plants behind the organ was originally placed there so that Mr. Eastman would hear the Sunday morning concerts but not be aware of the theatrics of the organist. Tim ably demonstrated his skills and the majesty of this instrument. Our guide, Mr. Eastman, showed us the library of organ rolls, the mechanics of the Eastman House Organ Loft player, and the second and third story rooms of organ pipes. Seldom are these rooms opened to the tour guides and even rarer to visitors. Our special thank you to the tour guides and to Tim for our visit. After a much enjoyed supper, Bruce Bartholomew invited us back to his home to hear his Knabe B piano. This fine instrument was built in Rochester and still has its renowned warm, rich sweet singing voice. Allan Mueller who worked at the Aeolian Company and has an understanding of the fine pianos of Chickering, Mason and Hamlin and Knabe, Looking at photos from the convention

375 Tim Schram playing the Duo Art Aeolian UPCOMING Ð AMICA EVENTS Ð

April 22 or 29 ...... Midwest Chapter Meeting Cincinnati, Ohio

Visit the AMICA Web Page at Tim Schram www.amica.org

Jan, Anne, Allan and Bruce inspecting George Eastman’s African camp display.

Elephant is all ears in the sunroom

’s Player Piano Ser vi Ben A Complete Restoration Service ce For The Pneumatic Piano Complete pianos and player systems restored using factory original techniques by an experienced professional. Complete or partial systems can be sent to my shop for restorations. I supply special UPS cartons for this unique service. Ben Gottfried 464 Dugan Rd. • Richfield Springs, NY 13439 Summer visit to the Lemon’s-Muriel, Janet, Mike, John, Harrold, 315-858-2164 (6-05) Garry and Daniel 376 ADVERTISING FOR SALE WURLITZER APP ROLLS AND APP MOTION PICTURE GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT ROLLS most in very good condition. Many rolls and many different ALL ADVERTISING IN THE AMICA BULLETIN types of music. Email or call for information 631-261-6799 All advertising should be directed to: [email protected] Bill Maguire 146 Broadway, Greenlawn, NY Mike Kukral 11740. (6-05) 216 Madison Blvd. PLAYER PIANO PUMPS AND MOTORS for sale many types $50 Terre Haute, Indiana 47803 each. Email or call for information 631-261-6799 [email protected] Phone: 812-238-9656 Bill Maguire 146 Broadway, Greenlawn NY 11740 (6-05) e-mail: [email protected] WEBER UNIKA, COINOLA X, SEEBURG E, Contact J. Uhler, Ad copy must contain text directly related to the product/service Box 126, Ingomar, PA 15127. Phone 724-940-4331 (6-05) being offered. Extraneous text will be deleted at the Publisher’s discretion. All advertising must be accompanied by payment in 1935 MARSHALL AND WENDELL upright piano (50 inch) serial U.S. funds. No telephone ads or written ads without payment will No. 111575 with Ampico A/B electric reproducing mechanism. be accepted. This policy was established by a unanimous vote of Refinished and partially rebuilt in 1985, has perfect ivories, bench the AMICA Board at the 1991 Board Meeting and reaffirmed at included. Has several minor scratches; pump and pneumatics need the 1992 meeting. AMICA reserves the right to edit or to work. Has old pneumatic odor. Bargain at $1,000; John Craver, reject any ad deemed inappropriate or not in keeping with 808-395-4491 (6-05) AMICA’s objectives. 1920 MARSHALL & WENDELL UPRIGHT EARLY “A” The BULLETIN accepts advertising without endorsement, AMPICO player mechanism 80% rebuilt. Pnuematic Stack and implied or otherwise, of the products or services being offered. Expression Units bench tested. Bronze Transmission: brass switches, Publication of business advertising in no way implies AMICA’s “B” box valve spring clamps. New strings, new hammers custom bored endorsement of any commercial operation. are yet to be hung. Cabinet refinished brown mahogany. Not much work needed to finish the restoration and have it playing $4500. Vince Ricca AMICA PUBLICATIONS RESERVES THE RIGHT TO Columbus, Ohio 614-488-4208, [email protected] (6-05) ACCEPT, REJECT, OR EDIT ANY AND ALL SUBMITTED ARTICLES AND ADVERTISING. 1919 CHICKERING & SONS Upright Early “A” Ampico player mechanism complete original condition to be restored. Piano acoustically All items for publication must be submitted directly to the rebuilt with new strings, hammers, dampers, action felts. Cabinet is Publisher for consideration. original mahogany painted white with matching bench. $2000. Vince CLASSIFIED AD RATES FOR AMICA MEMBERS: Ricca Columbus, Ohio 614-488-4208, [email protected] (6-05) 1-50 Words ...... $10.00 1928 CHICKERING Model 59 LF Ampico A grand. 5’9” walnut 51-100 Words ...... $20.00 Louis XV artcase with matching bench and 50 Ampico rolls. Ampico 101-150 Words ...... $30.00 restored 10 years ago. Piano action rebuilt, including new hammers, shanks, and flanges 2 years ago. Refinished and restrung by a previous Non-member rates are double for all advertising. owner. $9500. Kenneth Snowden 415-334-3673 or DISPLAY ADVERTISING [email protected] (6-05) Full Page — 71/2 " x 10" ...... $150.00 1929 STEINWAY XR from the Harvey and Marion Roehl collection, Half Page — 71/2 " x 43/4" ...... $ 80.00 a Mike Kitner restoration, excellent player, approximately 200 rolls. Quarter Page —35/8 " x 43/4" ...... $ 45.00 $15,000. Conchon 10 tune 15 inch cylinder music box with six bells, Business Card — 31/2 " x 2" ...... $ 30.00 drum and castanet, with matching table $4,950 Don Scheetz, Special 6 for 5 Ad Offer - Place any ad, with no changes, for a 828-890-8994 [email protected] (6-05) full year (6 issues), and pay for only 5 issues. Payable in advance. MASON AND HAMLIN Red Welte Upright Piano with bench and Photographs or halftones $15.00 each 125 rolls. Pristine original. $7500. Paul Ciancia 201-569-8255 days, Loose Sheet or Insert Advertising: Inquire 201-891-6842 eves (6-05) We recommend that display advertisers supply camera-ready SAVE THESE PIANOS! 88 note uprights—need restoration. copy. Copy that is oversized or undersized will be changed to Clarendon, Milton. Claviola missing stack, matching roll cabinet. 1923 correct size at your cost. We can prepare advertisements from Chickering baby grand, not a player. Christy 330-864-4864 (Ohio) (5-05) your suggested layout at cost. 4’-8” AMPICO GRAND, 1931 HAINES BROS. William and Mary PAYMENT: U.S. funds must accompany ad order. Make check case with matching bench, restored A/B player works beautifully. payable to AMICA INTERNATIONAL. Typesetting and $15,000. offers. Available: 5’-4” Knabe AMPICO “A” mahogany layout size alterations charges will be billed. (1925), 5’-2” MW AMPICO “A” mahogany (1924), MW studio DEADLINES: Submissions must be received no later than the AMPICO A/B (1930), Knabe, large upright AMPICO “A” (1919). first of the odd months (January, March, May, July, September, 404-378-1949 (Georgia) (1-06) November). The Bulletin will be mailed the second week of the PIANOLA “PUSH UP” piano player. Very rare 65-88-note version even months. (Rev. 5-05) (one of two known). Mfg. by The Orchestrelle Co., London, circa 1908. Restored circa 1995. With 80 rolls, including original 65-note test roll. Photos available. $7,500 firm. Dick Howe, 73 Saddlebrook Lane, Houston, TX 77024, 713-680-9945 [email protected] (2-06) HANDMADE BARREL AND PNEUMATIC ORGANS made in “Don’t worry about people stealing your Germany. With moving figurines and a lot of humorous surprises. ideas. If your ideas are any good, See: www.magic-mechanical-music.de Musik & Spiel Automaten Geratebau, Ing. Hansjorg Leible, D-79400 Kandern/Holzen, Kirchstr. 2; you’ll have to ram them down people’s Tel: 07626-7613, Fax 07626-971009 (6-05) throats.” STEINWAY RED WELTE GRAND (T-100), Hamburg Model O, - Howard Aiken with original rolls. Please contact [email protected] for additional information. Alejandro Radchik, Av. Mexico 37-507, Condesa 06100, Mexico, DF. [Mexico City] Tel.: 011- 52-555-419-5374 (6-05)

377 AMPICO, DUO-ART, WELTE, AND 88 NOTE PIANO ROLLS. New Recuts and Originals, including “Jumbo” and Program Rolls. Also N.O.S. QRS 88 Note rolls. Dave Caldwell, 400 Lincoln Lake Ave. N.E. Lowell, MI 49331; Check out my website: www.malli.net/~uni/caldwell email: [email protected]; phone: 616-897-5609. (1-06) 1922 Welte-Mignon “Autograph” grand (plays Licensee rolls). 5’6” brown mahogany Louis XVI artcase with matching bench and 100 Welte rolls. Welte restored 10 years ago. Piano action rebuilt, including new hammers, shanks, and flanges 9 years ago. Serviceable original finish with some wear, not alligatored. $4800. Kenneth Snowden 415-334-3673 or [email protected] (6-05) 1924 STEINWAY OR Duo-Art walnut Art case w/veneer damage from fire on one side, rebuilt player, in crates, w/new Ivory keys $11,500 Condition: D; 1995 BALDWIN 4’7” red polish Mah. W/Pianodisc $8,900 Cond.: A; 1987 YAMAHA G2 Ivory polish s/Pianomation $8,900 Cond.: A; 1920 FRANKLIN 56” Ampico Mah. $3,500 Cond.: B+; MARIONETTE AMPICO GRAND original complete w/matching bench $2,500 Cond.: C-; 1995 STORY & CLARK 42” Wal. $2,500; AMERICAN PLAYER PIANO 48” Studio, $2,900. Contact: Schroeder’s Pianos 562-923-2311 (6-05) WANTED FILMUSIC, PICTUROLLS, AND SUPERTONE PIANO ROLLS wanted. Call Alex at 209-478-0099. (5-05) RED WELTE MIGNON piano rolls (T-100). Paying top dollar. Mike http://www.revealer.com/caldwell/ Kukral 812-238-9656 or [email protected] (6-05) WELTE-MIGNON LICENSEE AND DELUXE REPRODUCING piano rolls. Mike Kukral 812-238-9656, email [email protected] (1-09)

[email protected] (1-06)

(6-05)

378 JOHN WRASSE PIANO MOVING Specializing in: Player Grands, Nickelodeons & Orchestrions Anywhere in Continental US ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ 25 years experience Knowledgeable Rebuilder Well-known - References Available Insured ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ Your instrument is wrapped, padded and secured for transport in an insulated, clean custom-built heavy-duty trailer. Professional and personal service.

John P. Wrasse, Piano Pro 31449 216th St., Bellevue, IA 52031 Office (Korin): 815-398-4861 Cell (John): 563-580-2472 E-mail: [email protected] (6-05) (3-06)

WANTED TO BUY MUSIC BOXES MUSICAL CLOCKS MECHANICAL ORGANS Always in the market for better quality disc and cylinder music boxes, musical clocks, singing birds, band organs, player organs, monkey organs, Wurlitzer 78 rpm jukeboxes, slot machines. Any condition. MARTIN ROENIGK 75 Prospect Avenue Eureka Springs, AR 72632 (800) 671-6333 • (479) 253-0405 www.mechantiques.com • [email protected]

(3-06)

379 OPPORTUNITIES Silver Anniversary Auction Newnan, Georgia Where Rare is Common

March 17 & 18, 2006 By Preston Evans GAL #1287 The Albert Schalfmann Museum of Turtle Lake, North Dakota was closed in 1981. Both Mr. & Mrs. Schalfmann have recently passed away, and now the contents of the museum will be sold. The list of musical items is extraordinary and includes many items that seldom turn up for sale.

An Opportunity to Expand Your Collection! Offering Includes: 1. The ultimate in Phonographs: Opera with Mahogany horn, many Victors with Wooden Horns. Including Victor VI, and most other Victor models, Columbias, Edison and Others (Over 50) 2. Early Specialty Items: Upright Edison with 6” record (huge cylinder) Hexaphone, Reginaphone, Various Degan instruments, and more. 3. Dozens of Musical Boxes: Outstanding Cylinder and Disc Types (27” Changer, etc.) 4. Various Nickelodeons: Seeburg KT, Peerless Piano, etc. 5. Various Band organs: a “uno-fon” circus organ with bells (operated with 8 volt battery), Wurlitzer and other military 1 band organs, German Barrel organ with 133 pipes ranging from 3” to 4 ⁄2 ft. 6. Numerous coin-operated machines including very uncommon arcade machines. 7. Roller organs and Cob organs including Grand with 17 cobs 8. Unique musical devices, unique steroptican collection, and various collections of great collectibles. We are accepting qualified consignments if notified early.

This auction is extensive and a second auction will be necessary. It will be held in Alcester, South Dakota, June 16 and June 17. Examples of items to be sold in June: Seeburg G (oak, original and nice), Peerless Piano, Seeburg Piano nickelodeon, Peerless, Cremona, and more. Over 50 phonographs: Duplex, large and small Nipper trade mark dogs, etc. Lots of musical boxes including Regina Changers, upright Symphonion, and countless others. There are far too many items of significance to name them all. Details of Auctions are on a free one sheet flyer which will become available January 15, 2006. Our color illustrated catalog for both auctions will be available in early February. The cost is $25.00 which will apply to purchases at either auction. Preston Evans 31 Redbud Trail Newnan, GA 30263 or 770-502-0028 All information on our website trumps any written information. www.prestonopportunities.com

380 CONTENTS OF ALBERT SCHLAFMANN MUSEUM TO BE SOLD

The contents of the Albert Schlafmann Museum, originally located at the family farm in rural North Dakota, five miles eat of Turtle Lake, will soon be sold at auction by Pre- ston Evans of Opportunities Auction.

An eclectic array of collectibles gathered over a lifetime makes up the contents of the museum. Albert Schlafmann began collecting Indian hammers, tomahawks, and arrowheads when he was barely nine years old. His collecting continued throughout his adult life, but his interests expanded to include major items in lots of categories. After a number of years, the collection grew to become of museum size. Schlafmann and his wife, Ruth, opened the door of their museum to the public from June 1 through September each year. After closing each fall, the Schlafmanns would make excursions throughout the area to secure additional items for the museum.

The museum continued in operation for nearly twenty years. It was closed in 1981 due to a lack of visitors to this extremely remote location. Mr. and Mrs. Schlafmann passed away recently, and the treasures will now be sold.

There are hoards of antiques and collectibles, and many of them are certainly unique. There are dozens of phonographs with outside horns, including one that is a coin-operated upright Edison that plays a large 4” cylinder. Also, there are a number of the trademark Nipper dogs of various sizes. The list is very long and impressive in the area of phonographs.

There is no lack of musical boxes, nickelodeons, band organs and other rare musical devices that will please anyone who likes things that cannot be found for sale anywhere. There are lots of upright music boxes including a 27” Regina Changer music box, a large disc Symphonion upright music box with a matching stand. In addition, there is a coin-operated Regina as well as other disc boxes. There are even many more old Swiss cylinder music boxes and unique musical instruments.

The band organs include a Military Band organ with lots of brass horns, a Wurlitzer model, and others. There is one KT nickelodeon and one Western Electric nickelodeon among the group of piano type instruments. Of importance is a large German Dance barrel organ with 133 pipes. There are lots more important items as well.

A part of the collection will be sold at the Opportunities Auction in Newnan, Georgia on March 17 and March 18. The balance of the collection will be sold at auction in June, 2006, in Alcester, South Dakota which is located in the south- eastern corner of the state just a few miles from the border of Iowa. Both sales will be conducted by Preston Evans. An opportunity such as this is seldom offered to aficionados of musical instruments. You may find more information at the website www.prestonopportunities.com.

381 Motivated Buyers-please make an offer!

Richard S. Comras Post Office Box 1826 Rancho Mirage, CA 92270

Potential Buyers,

For the past thirty-five years we have lived in Tarzana and have recently moved to Rancho Mirage. We have no room in our new desert home for our wonderful upright Steinway Duo-Art Player Piano. We’ve had this instrument for the last thirty years. It is in excellent condition, has rinky-tink, electric playing, and also has foot pumps. The piano was manufactured in 1925 and carries the serial number 230525. It comes with a beautiful bench and many player rolls.

We are motivated sellers and have placed a reasonable price of $18,500.00 on this wonderful instrument. A friend of ours who owns the Ivy Antiques Shop at 12318 Ventura Blvd, Studio City, CA 91604, has allowed us to leave it with her for viewing and sales. Ms. Dio, the owner, has full authorization to handle the transaction.

While looking at the piano be sure to look through the shop. It is large, beautiful, and has many unusual and fantastic items.

Sincerely, Richard S. Comras

(4-06)

382 MARTY PERSKY Automatic Musical Instrument Specialist Serving Collectors and the Trade Worldwide Instrument Brokering & Locating Collections / Estates / Individual Instruments Appraisals / Inspections / Free Consultation Some Great Instruments Offered – Call for Images & Videos

6’2” RAA Mason&Hamlin AMPICO A Knabe Ampico B Link E with xylophone super piano must sell 12,000 w / Ampichron and torch glass 17,000

Nat’l Dog Race w / Selector 23,000 Big Bruder Playing 165 rolls 18,500 Paillard 31cyls 22,500

Also Regina 27” Changer 23,000, Mills Single Violano unrestored 18,750, Regina Desk 14,500, Wurlitzer 146 A with bells, Polyphon Mikado 16,000, other Music Boxes, Automata, Books, etc.

Website: www.MechMusic.com

Tel. 847-675-6144 6514 N. Trumbull Ave. Fax. 847-675-6160 Lincolnwood, IL 60712 USA E-mail: [email protected] (6-05)

383 REPLACEMENT LEADERS These 11 1/4” x 17” reprints, not trimmed and without tabs, are excellent replicas of the more popular types of reproducing piano roll leaders. While intended for roll repairs, they may also be used for decorative purposes. To splice, overlay new leader on old roll, lay a straightedge on an angle, cut through both papers with a sharp knife, discard scrap, and butt-join with magic mending tape on top surface.

A. Brown on buff B. Black on ivory C. Black on ivory D. Black on ivory (For early red label boxes) (Area for reusable (Most common) (Very late rolls by combined artist photo) Aeolian/American)

Note: Early Welte’s with blue leaders may be repaired with this brown leader. Many of these when reissued had brown leaders.

E. Green on ivory F. Green on ivory G. Welte (Most common) (Favorite Fifty & Brown on buff Selected Roll Service) (Most common)

Please make checks payable to Checks or money Price: $ 1.00 each Style Quantity AMICA INTERNATIONAL, orders from foreign Minimum Order: $10.00 A ______And send to: countries must B ______be drawn on C ______BRIAN K. MEEDER U.S. bank. D ______904A West Victoria Street Postage and Handling $ 5.50 Santa Barbara, CA 93101-4745 E ______Roll Order $ ______F ______e-mail address for orders: G [email protected] Total Amount (U.S. $) $ ______Total Quantity ______

384