Global Piano Roll Meeting Prelude 13

The next online Prelude covers roll recordings of music by Frédéric Chopin and Joachim Raff. Yannis Rammos, Severin Kolb and Aaron Chow will present their findings.

Music rolls and pneumatic instruments are a vital part of the history of recording and mechanical music. They provide a rich window into the technological, musical, cultural and economic history of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Recent projects to preserve rolls by scanning and digitization have sparked wider interest in the field. This work has allowed for technical studies of rolls, which are an early digital record of music making. Archival documents are also yielding insights into the business and technology of roll manufacturing.

GRPM is an initiative supported by Stanford University, University of Sydney, Faszinationpianola and Hochschule der Künste Bern HKB.