The arrangement of CLEOPATRA RAG was based upon an audio recording by P. Hersch and D. Montgomery — duo-pianists — and at the time of the roll's debut in 1988, at a San Francisco player club convention, there was a Cassette tape which paired the Ampico expression roll of this arrangement with the actual 33 1/3 phonograph recording. Few listeners could tell the difference when hearing the audio versus the perforated arrangement from The ARTCRAFT Studio in Maine.

    The reason was INTERPRETIVE ARRANGING ... a mathematical linear score with graduated perforations ... ending with a distinctive "overlap". The arranger, Douglas Henderson, had total control over the perforation length, which controls the "key depression time" — an effective method of simulating an artist's "attack" on the keyboard, by manipulating the increments that each note will be sustained (even in staccato passages!). This control of the Master Roll gives the musician the opportunity to play the keys down to a 128th of a note, something never done before!  By allowing the arranger to make incremental 'striking decisions', the concept of a keyboard artist is maintained even when no fingers ever touched the piano. This is the main reason for the international artistic success of ARTCRAFT Rolls over all other brands, old and new. The initial cutting is based on the arranger's concept and/or an audio recording, something never attempted by the factories of the past.

    Here's a view of CLEOPATRA RAG on the motorized editing table:

The graduated striking isn't particularly visible at this distance, which shows the entire music sheet, including the "live" sustaining pedal on the left (with a few pencil lines faintly visible from the 'marking' process). The pedal taps which simulate a keyboard pianist, are integrated into the perforations, so the damper lifting by the pneumatic mechansm — scored on the left margin of the Master Roll — is marked as the completed arrangement is playing on the Studio's electric player grand, a Steinway Duo-Art 'AR'. Mr. Henderson, with great effort, taught himself to "use the foot pedal" as the pneumatic does, not the keyboard artist. Thus, the sustaining pedal operation is slower than the human pianist and represents the full travel of the damper lifting. Decoded by the Pianola's mechanism, the effect is that of a spritely pedal performance, one which complements the artistic striking of the graduated perforations, seen next in a close-up view:

    Look carefully at the ends (or "tails") of each perforation, and you'll see that they are GRADUATED in striking time by the ELONGATION of the final perforation, usually an 'overlap' cutting.

    You won't see these effects on the 2nd-generation copies, bearing the ARTCRAFT name, since the duplicating perforators "nibble" as the Master and blank paper sheets advance together. The modified Acme perforators create 'new' cross-bridges and while the perforation is practically the same ... the overlap cutting is not apparent to the eye. [Note: the 1:1 perforating for ARTCRAFT Rolls involves the loss of 1 single perforation every 3-4 feet, on the average ... a level of precision which says much about the benefits of pneumatic reading methods!]

    Let us know if you'd like to see more Master Roll samples ... views that aren't seen by anyone outside of the Studio in Maine.

    We are trying to make this periodic newsletter something which educates and informs those interested in the player roll medium, beyond the obvious purpose of letting the readers know about the latest ARTCRAFT player roll releases.