Piano Roll Transcriptions

[gigiranalli]

Dear Frank,
thanks for the kind words and I'm very glad that you enjoyed the transcription
I couldn't have written it without your help!
There's one "suspicious" chord at the end of the first strain, in measure no.21: a chord in the left hand part that cannot be played, but my suspect is that it has been "melted" due to issues with the recording piano used by Copeland and they must have been two separate chords played one after another.
Do you think it's possible?
I'll soon prepare another piano roll transcription.
Best
Luigi

[fhimpsl]

Dear Luigi,

I think what probably happened at measure 21 in the roll is that one of the roll editors at the Aeolian Company (which made all the Universal, Uni-Record, Metro-Art and Themodist-Metrostyle rolls) decided to "flesh out" the ending chord of the first strain. I.e. what Copeland undoubtedly played was a C major octave either in the lower register or even more likely the upper register, which leads naturally into the D# octave and thereafter the 1st theme reprise. It was a common practice for roll arrangers to add extra notes to chords at the end of a strain, so as to add an accentuation. I've ran into that kind of editing in so many of the rolls I transcribed years ago. In fact, I'd say there were about as many rolls which at some point contain non-playable passages as ones which don't. For example think of the JPJ and Fats Waller QRS rolls. Many of them have an unplayable melody line added in the tenor section; usually for the second or third reprise of the chorus. I believe this was done to aid in singing along with the roll. The roll makers wanted to make sure that a well defined melodic line was present throughout the roll...including passages where the pianist improvised and went slightly away from the melody. All rolls were edited before issuance, both hand-played and non-hand-played. Some of the best known roll artists started their professional careers as roll editors for Aeolian. Felix Arndt, Frank Milne and Rudy Erlebach are three examples. I'll bet it was Felix Arndt who added that lower C octave and C major triad in the roll at measure 21, since he started a few years earlier than the others and this is a very early handplayed roll!

All Best,

Frank

[gigiranalli]

Dear Frank,
thank you very much for the information!
By the way I'm glad that the editor only added that chord to the piano roll, leaving the rest of the piece as Copeland played it.
In a week or so I think I'll start transcribing another piano roll.
Best
Luigi

[Dannen]

A few years ago, when I began posting my own transcriptions on this forum, a member complained about the typography. I have always used Sibelius software for notation, and I still consider it the best of all notation programs known to me. But I must admit that GNU LilyPond, the free open-source program, produces far more beautiful scores. With that in mind, I have begun creating LilyPond versions of my transcriptions, and will use it for all future projects. In the coming year, I plan to transcribe Frank Milne's complete four-hands version of Gershwin's "An American In Paris," unless someone here knows of an existing transcription.

Here is my previously posted four-hands transcription of Gershwin's "Fascinating Rhythm," as performed by Freddie Rich, rendered in LilyPond, both in PDF and *.ly format:

Fascinating Rhythm (Lilypond).zip

The recording should be playable from this link:

http://www.moltoallegro.com/Freddie_Ric ... Rhythm.mp3

[gigiranalli]

Dear all,
here's my brand new piano roll transcription: the unpublished "Cheese & Crackers" as played on a QRS piano roll by Egbert Van Alstyne.
I first heard this piano roll in a recording that used to circulate on internet in the 1990s, although I'm not sure about its origin (I think I had downloaded it from mp3.com...). Here I also attach the recording of the piano roll.
Of course I needed a midi file to write down this transcription, so I found it on Robert Perry's great website of piano roll scans:
http://www.pianola.co.nz/
I hope you'll enjoy this ragtime transcription. The piece is a first class rag from 1915!
Luigi

Egbert Van Alstyne (roll) - Cheese And Crackers (Van Alstyne).mp3

[fhimpsl]

Dear Luigi,

Your transcription of Egbert VanAlstyne's wonderful QRS roll "Cheese And Crackers" is absolutely wonderful!!! This is an extremely catchy rag, and very much fun to play as well. It is an extremely rare roll. I know of only one original copy, which was recut in the 90s by Rob Deland who circulated about 20-30 copies of it. This is presumably the source of Robert Perry's midi file.

All of your many vast contributions are so very much appreciated by us all, please keep them coming!

All Best,

Frank

[jellyroll]

Luigi,
Many thanks for posting "Cheese and Crackers." A great tune and fun to play and an absolutely pristine score! A real treat, real toe-tapping ragtime!
Barry

[Dannen]

"Night and Day" à la Adam Carroll

Adam Carroll made two piano rolls of Cole Porter's "Night and Day" -- an uptempo version (Duo-Art 900), and a slower version as part of a medley called Dinner Music #14 (Duo-Art 1022). Both versions were in the key of E flat.

I recently combined the two versions and transposed the result to C major, as a song accompaniment for a friend. Here is that version, with the vocal line, and a piano solo version in Carroll's original key of E flat.

Porter (arr. Adam Carroll) - Night and Day (in C).pdf

Porter (arr. Adam Carroll) - Night and Day (in Eb).pdf

Here's an MP3 of the solo in E flat, a bit crudely spliced together from Carroll's two different performances.

Porter (arr. Adam Carroll) - Night and Day.mp3

[Tinou]

I transcribed this piano roll a few weeks ago and wanted to be the first to play it on youtube, but it may take more time to master it than I expected, so here it is

Gershwin - That Certain Feeling (piano roll version).pdf

You can hear it played by Gershwin himself here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiW1lBsHnRE
Happy holidays everyone !

[Dannen]

This is very impressive, Tinou. The published George Litterst / Artis Wodehouse transcription of this performance is for two pianos, but you've somehow reduced it to one. I'm going to try playing it, but I think it's above my pay grade. By any chance, could you post the LilyPond file for download?