90 Years of Digital Corruption

• Maple Leaf Rag (excerpt; 332KB MP3)

Then it struck me that the performance might have been due to the machine rather than the musician. Like computer sequencers (and CDs themselves), player pianos quantize the rhythms and key velocities, rounding them off to numbers a machine can deal with. According to the fascinating history at Pianola.com,

Most hand-played rolls were intended for use on the reproducing piano and thus it was necessary throughout the recording session to accurately determine all dynamic variations in the music. Some roll manufacturers achieved this by measurement of hammer and key velocity, while others relied upon the presence of an engineer, who interpreted this aspect of the performance by ear and skilfully calculated appropriate dynamic coding for the finished roll.

The majority of music rolls for the pedal operated player piano however were based on transcriptions from sheet music, rather than hand-played performances. These are referred to variously as "metronomic" or "straight cut" rolls. The musical arrangement was carefully marked out by a technician on a paper stencil, from which a master was subsequently produced. Tempo variations and musical phrasing, which add greatly to the realism of any player piano performance, are often absent from this type of roll, but may be achieved if desired by adroit use of the hand controls and pedals.

The parallels to MIDI sequencing are dramatic. Still, I'd rather hear a quantized recording of an original artist than no recording at all. You can hear more excerpts of the Joplin CD on its Amazon page.