“Listen to that old piano roll…”
- April 30, 2006
- By Michael Kaulkin
- Category Shmategory
- 1 comment
This is via a friend of mine (who blogs in the form of an email list). Engineer and music lover Warren Trachtman has developed a way to scan old, deteriorating player piano rolls, and convert them to MIDI files that can be played on any device, or even used to create new paper rolls.
In his words…
There is a tremendous amount of wonderful music from the late 1800′s and early 1900′s that is in danger of being lost as these old paper piano rolls deteriorate with age. I am able to optically scan these piano rolls and convert the scans to MIDI files which can then be used to play the music on modern solonoid pianos, digital pianos, computer soundcards, or any playback system that supports MIDI files.
Mr. Trachtman has converted nearly 2000 rolls so far, among which the ones published before 1923 (and there are many) can be downloaded from his site in MIDI format.
Didn’t Ravel, Debussy, Bartók et al record their own music on piano rolls? I remember hearing that somewhere. If so, I hope those rolls will make their way to preservation in this way. What great use of technology!
For more information, including eye-glazing technical details on how he does it as well as a complete list of songs preserved so far, visit Warren Trachtman’s Roll Scanning Information Page.
Hugh Sung
This is incredible! I have recordings of Debussy playing his own music via piano roll, as well as Gershwin – very, very revealing, hearing the music “fresh” without the accumulation of crusty traditions! The piano roll technology was really tremendous for its time, and so many of the great pianists (Hoffman included) praised its expressive capabilities. It’s so wonderful to hear that these treasures can be preserved in a digital format! Thanks so much for sharing this wonderful news!