Old Player-Piano performances

[Larry G. Alexander]

Y'all,

Here is some great, old music from a long time ago.

This is a digital recording of an actual player-piano performance of many decades ago. The recording was converted to MIDI and then I GPOized the MIDI file, using the Garritan honky-tonk piano.

If you listen closely, you can hear the rusty, creaky, old player-piano mechanism slowing down and speeding up.

Keep in mind that this was played by a living person a hundred years ago and "recorded" on an eleven-inch-wide continuous roll of paper by punching holes in it.

This is "Alamo Rag" and here is "Anoma Rag".

("Alamo Rag" - Words by Ben Deely, music by Percy W. Enrich, publisher Jerome H. Remick and Co.

"Anoma Rag" - Words and music by Ford Dabney, publisher Jerome H. Remick and Co.)

Regards,

Larry A.

[oldbob]

Larry, these are fantastic reproductions, how did you transform the audio to midi? Thanks for sharing these

Roberto

[Larry G. Alexander]

Larry, these are fantastic reproductions, how did you transform the audio to midi? Thanks for sharing these

Roberto

I don't know how the transformation was done. When I received the files, they were in the MIDI format. I took it from there and "Garratinized" them, using the GPO honky-tonk piano.

Thanks for your comments.

Ciao,

Larry A.

[DPDAN]

If the original was an audio recording, someone had to create the midi file by ear, that is the only way it can be done. There have been unsuccesful attempts to make software that can listen to an audio recording and spit out printed music of all the parts, or midi, but "it ain't so, I tell ya"

Dan

[Larry G. Alexander]

If the original was an audio recording, someone had to create the midi file by ear, that is the only way it can be done. There have been unsuccesful attempts to make software that can listen to an audio recording and spit out printed music of all the parts, or midi, but "it ain't so, I tell ya"

Dan

This is true. I don't know how it was done. I do know that I have 330 MIDI files of actual player-piano performances of some very old music. I have had them so long that I forgot where they came from. This is not unusual because I forgot what I had for lunch today.

Who knows? (The Shadow do.) (The Shadow was a radio character from long, long ago.)

Larry A.

[SeanHannifin]

Awesome stuff, Larry!

I'm not sure how the midi conversion was done, but here's my guess: it probably did not involve audio... if you take the piano music rolls and turn them on their sides, they pretty much represent the same thing as midi data right there... it just has to be made digital. So they could have just scanned the rolls into a computer and somehow converted the resulting picture files into midi and... voila!... midi from piano roll!

These are really fun listens!

[Larry G. Alexander]

Awesome stuff, Larry!

I'm not sure how the midi conversion was done, but here's my guess: it probably did not involve audio... if you take the piano music rolls and turn them on their sides, they pretty much represent the same thing as midi data right there... it just has to be made digital. So they could have just scanned the rolls into a computer and somehow converted the resulting picture files into midi and... voila!... midi from piano roll!

These are really fun listens!

Thanks, Sean Patrick and I also appreciate your theory. That may have been the way it was accomplished.

LGA

[Larry G. Alexander]

Sean, you are correct!

Through some research I discovered that old player-piano music rolls are scanned directly into a computer to produce what is called a .CIS file which is then converted to a .MID file. This .MID file can then be loaded into almost any sequencing software and have MIDI data imbedded into it. Voila!

LGA

[jonray]

Very enjoyable, Mr. Larry old boy!
Thanks for posting them
Regards
Jon

[Larry G. Alexander]

Very enjoyable, Mr. Larry old boy!
Thanks for posting them
Regards
Jon

You are welcome, Mr. Jon, old bean.

LGA