Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
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A Suggestion and an Idea That Should Bear Fruit-How the Record Roll
Has Served to Revolutionize the Player World—The Roll and Its Effect on
the Popularity of the Player—Informative Discussion of Important Subject.
At the present moment it is safe to say that the
music roll occupies in the player world an alto-
gether peculiar situation. There is no doubt what-
ever that with the coming of the so-called "hand-
played" roll, or, in better terminology, the record
roll, the position occupied by this necessary
accessory, in relation to the player, has changed.
Another situation has arisen which deserves our
consideration, especially in view of some of the
things that are now being said and done, and some
of the statements that are now being made. Not
only so, but from the welter of contrary opinion
there arises an entirely new notion, one fraught
with serious and possibly very advantageous con-
sequences for the future of the player-piano. Let
us, then, consider the state of affairs.
At the beginning of things in the player game
the principal idea of everybody was to get on to
the market with something that could be sold. It
was supposed that anything would take, however
bad it might really be, if it were sufficiently pushed.
And for a time this seemed to be so. But it was
not very long before we all began to perceive that
there was something wrong, and when we came to
analyze the situation we found where the wrong
lay. It lay exactly in the one place where we
should not have expected to find it.
The wrong lay in the fact that the player-piano
broke down at the vital point of its playing powers.
The public, led to suppose that satisfactory musical
results could be had simply by sitting down and
"pumping," awoke to find that this was by no
means true and that, in point of fact, the only
people who played the player-piano well were the
demonstrators. This condition was recognized by
some as long ago as twelve years, while within the
last decade it has not only been generally under-
stood to exist, but its solution has been seen to be
vitally important to the future of the player-piano.
The blame can be laid primarily upon the fact
that the vast majority of Americans are totally
unmusical. It is one thing to be fond of a tune
and quite another thing to care for music. And
Americans do not care for music, in the proper
sense of the term. They have no musical sense,
that is to say (of course, we are speaking gener-
ally), and consequently they are as helpless as
new-born babes when left to a player-piano and
their own devices.
Not unnaturally the result lias been a distinct
falling-off in public interest—a falling-off that the
trade in general has attempted to account for by
tales of hard times, depression, bad business, but
which is much more to be accounted for by the
simple fact that the player-piano, as ordinarily
equipped, does not give musical satisfaction to the
ordinary user. And the fault, we are now begin-
ning to see, is basically in the roll.
The provision of expressive devices, and of
nothing else, be these ever ?o ingenious, will do
next to nothing to solve the problem. There is no
sense in giving a child a calculating machine in tne
expectation that thereby he will become a mathe-
matician. There must be some preliminary train-
ing and knowledge. So it is with the player-piano
owner. The mere possession of ever so many
expression devices will not, of itself, make anybody
a music lover or a musically intelligent person.
Everybody knows someone of the thousands of
American homes now supplied with expensive
player-pianos, equipped with every last word in
expression devices, but which are no better than
the cheapest box that can be marketed, so far as
concerns the music their owners get out of them.
The fault, we may say, lies in the roll basically.
Suppose that the player-piano had begun with
record-rolls and thus the public had become accus-
tomed from the start to hearing, produced by their
own efforts, music in which at least the phrasing
and speed were right, and thus had had solved for
them from the start the most difficult of all the
difficulties which surround the extraction of good
music from player-pianos by unmusical persons, is
it not certain that by this time the tide would have
turned and that the demand would now be for the
non-phrased, rolls, which player-pianists could in-
terpret entirely by themselves? Is it not certain
that if, in other words, this primary difficulty had
been solved there would never have grown up the
general belief that the player-piano cannot be
played except by a person who has studied its oper-
ation extensively? And is it not plain that such a
condition would have been much to the advantage
of all concerned? Surely there is no doubt of the
answer we must give to this.
Seeing, however, that the reverse has actually
been the case, what does this lead us all to? To
the idea that the record-roll is, therefore, the solu-
tion to the whole player .problem. By no means.
The record-roll is not a solution to the player-
playing problem. It is an evasion of that problem
and cannot in any sense be regarded as perma-
nently settling any disputed question. No, the an-
swer must be sought and found in something
deeper.
If we had begun with the record-roll—if we
could have begun with it, that is—by this time
there would be a demand for a non-phrased roll.
Why? Simply because the record-roll has the
fatal weakness of involving a fixed interpretation
which can only be changed at much pains, and then
not effectively. And the demand of a public edu-
cated on a roll which would give them a fixed
but correct phrasing interpretation would be for a
roll musically satisfactory in every respect but free
from the fundamental weakness aforesaid. What
would this be? What sort of rolj would fulfil these
conditions?
It is fairly obvious that this roll would be what
we might call an "arranged" roll—that is to say, a
roll neither mathematically cut nor merely record-
ed from a personal interpretation. It would be a
roll specially edited by skilled arrangers in such a
way as to preserve above all things the peculiar
character which we associate with piano playing
and which can only be called "pianistic." It would,
for example, be free from the defects of the math-
ematically cut roll in that it would avoid the blunt,
hard brutality of attack which we hear whenever
extended chords are played. It would realize al-
ways the peculiar character of finger action and
would preserve the beauty which arises from the
limitations of a ten-fingered hand. It would give
us lifelike chords and lifelike accompaniments. It
would treat melodies in the cantabile manner in-
stinctively felt out by pianists. In fact, it would
be a roll cut in strict tempo, leaving all phrasing
to the imagination of the performer, but so ar-
ranged as to take advantage of the peculiarities of
hand-playing which the record-roll shows to such
advantage, without the defect implied in a fixed,
unchangeable phrasing.
Everybody knows that certain results in accen-
tuation and touch-effect can be had with the record-
roll which are missing in the ordinary mathemat-
ically cut arrangement. This is due to the manner
in which the human pianist necessarily spreads his
finger work, making skips where the extension of
a chord is too wide, arpeggiating chords where this
is the only convenient way of handling them and
doing a thousand and one things which he does
because he has to, but which add to the beauty of
his performance and take away the pounding ef-
fect noticeable in player music. The piano's limita-
tions are recognized by composers, who write in
the knowledge that their arrangements cannot be
reproduced by the human hand with exactitude and
therefore take liberties in their notation, under-
standing that these are rather indications of de-
sired effect than precise directions.
When, therefore, the roll arranger reproduces
these mathematically, he does that which the com-
poser never expected to have done, and he simply
spoils what would otherwise be legitimate pianistic
effects. This is especially the case in extended
chordal passages and in places where a series of
intervals is sounded, of which one member in each
actually carries the melody. A general example of
the peculiarities of piano playing is to be found in
the opening adagio of Beethoven's C sharp minor
sonata, commonly called the "Moonlight Sonata."
The upper voice melody in this cannot satisfac-
torily be sounded, either by hand or pneumatically,
when played, as written, simultaneously with the
accompanying arpeggios. No pianist does so play
it. All slightly advance the melody notes. And the
roll arranger should do this, or something like it.
It will be said that this is all done already. We
reply that examination of any standard roll, and
especially playing of it, will convince the impartially-
minded reader that this is by no means so. Some
roll arrangers have made praiseworthy efforts in
the right direction, it is true, and there is one New
York-made roll that is unusually good in this re-
spect—but much is yet to be done.
To sum the whole matter up, we do not believe
that the record-roll is the solution fundamentally
of the music problem in connection with the player-
piano. We believe the record roll to be both neces-
sary and in its place indispensable, but we do not
believe it to be the one fundamental solution. In
fact, we well know that it is not. Hut we do be-
lieve that the 'arranged" roll, arranged as we have
suggested, the roll that is not only correct but
pianistically playable, is the roll that carries with it
the solution of player-pianism as a commercial fac-
tor in the trade.
EVERY PART INTERCHANGEABLE.
High Tribute to Workmanship of the Angelus
from Western Dealer—"Every Screw Fits."
MERIUEN,
(Special to The Review. 1
CONN., August J4.—The
Wilcox &
White Co. recently received a most interesting
letter from one of their prominent dealers in the
Middle West, in which he said in part:
"During a recent experiment in our workroom
we had occasion to change the secondary valve
board from one Angelus to another, and wish to
comment upon the fact that we found the work-
manship was so perfect the same screw holes and
every part of packing, etc., matched perfectly.
"We do not believe there is another player-piano
in the market to-day wherein the same perfection
in detail is attained.
"Furthermore, the last car received came through
in very excellent condition."
Certainly a high tribute to Angelus quality.
DECORATES FOR LABOR CONVENTION.
The Hext Music Co., of Pueblo, Colo., has pre-
pared novel decorations for its part in the city's
tribute to the convention of the State Federation
of Labor, which is to be held in Pueblo this
week.