NEW PIANO ROLLS from JULIAN DYER

For Duo-Art and 88-note player pianos

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New rolls let you choose the music for your player piano and buy it when you want it, not just make do with what turns up. New rolls don't have the damage and decay that old rolls suffer from. Buy your new rolls here!

Below are the catalogues of rolls for standard 88-note player pianos and automatic Duo-Art instruments. Not sure what rolls your player piano can use? Have a look at the page on compatibility. If you know what you want, you can order directly.

Duo-Art rolls

These are special rolls needed to operate Duo-Art pianos that automatically reproduce the performance of the pianist. The copies here are exact replicas of original rolls, containing each and every punch in the original roll, all in the right place and of the right size, so the new rolls perform exactly the same as the original rolls. This is quite unlike the majority of roll copies, where the new perforations only approximate the originals, to the detriment of the music. For the specification of these new rolls, see The Anatomy of a Piano Roll.

A brief description about how the Aeolian Company made the original Duo-Art rolls can be found in the page about the Duo-Art recording process. If you want to know more about how Duo-Art pianos work, have a look at Understanding and Regulating the Pedal-Electric Duo-Art.

Standard 88-note rolls

Most player pianos use 88-note rolls, with the operator (or 'Pianolist') adding all timing and expression. Some instruments have an extra accenting mechanism to highlight certain notes, and the rolls here have accenting when this is appropriate. They will play perfectly on any standard 88-note player piano. The catalogue has a mixture of replica and new rolls, including titles newly arranged by Adam Ramet to play in a way that only the player piano can!

Special recut orders

I can only offer a fairly limited list of rolls off-the-shelf, but there are huge numbers of other rolls that could be recut. Ask for the titles you want: you may well not have to find an original because there are libraries of electronic scans that can be perforated to order! Anything obtainable can be cut for bulk purchase, where the buyer takes the entire perforator run of four copies. I don't copy rolls less than 50 years old, or older recuts.

Custom-cut new rolls

I can cut new rolls from MIDI files, as long as the MIDI file is provided in a form ready for cutting - I can check a file to assess how suitable it is for making into a roll. New rolls are supplied only in batches of four copies; it's not practical to supply single rolls or proof rolls, although I can provide examples of how the MIDI will sound once it's been cut into a roll. I cannot create MIDI files for you, so if there is something you want you'll have to find somebody to create it for you, and I'll then happily cut it for you.

What's new?

April 2012

• All three rolls of Liszt's Sonata in B minor, played for Duo-Art by Ernest Schelling.

March 2012

• The Duo-Art two-roll set of American in Paris, 'played' by Leith & Milne - actually a masterclass in roll arranging by Frank Milne, remastered to preserve the timing accuracy of all the rhythmic passages. Available only as a set.
• Vladimir Horowitz's epic performance of Tchaikovsky's Doumka, the composer's 'rustic Russian scene' based on a traditional ballad style that's unique in his output and, sadly, rarely heard these days.

December 2011 

• Eight new arrangements from Adam Ramet, ranging from Edwardian music hall to Star Wars.
• Jelly Roll Morton's Finger Buster, transcribed by Mike Meddings from the composer's 1938 disc recording.
• Manuel De Fall's Ritual Fire Dance played by Artur Rubinstein.
• Two Chopin Duo-Art rolls, Tarantelle Op 43 and Nocturne Op 37 No 1.
• Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin concert paraphrase by Pabst, played by Tina Lerner - a shortened version based around the famous waltz. 

July 2011 - new arrangements by Adam Ramet

• Yet more light music: Barwick Green, better known as the theme music from The Archers on BBC radio.
• Shostakovich's Waltz No. 2 from Suite for variety orchestra (sometimes called Jazz Suite No. 2)
• Chopinata by Clement Doucet
• Mischa Spoliansky's Alles Schwindel - familiar these days from Ute Lemper's recording. 
• Some 1920s and 1930s hits: A selection from Blackbirds of 1926, and Slap that Bass from Astaire & Rogers' Follow the Fleet.

August 2010 - new arrangements from Adam Ramet and more Duo-Arts

• British light music standards from the early 1950s, famous as signature tunes: Coronation Scot, Puffing Billy, In a party mood.
• British music hall standards: Don't Dilly Dally; I do like to be beside the seaside.
• European greats: the closing music from Fellini's film 8 1/2, and the Russian standard Katyusha.
• Classics: Shostakovich's Festive Overture, Wilhelm Ganz's Allons Vite.
• Adam's own composition, Ashkenazi Dances No 1 (the Great Round Dance of Simchas Torah), based on traditional melodies.
• A transcription of a Carroll Gibbons record, Carroll Calls the Tunes, from 1937. This perfectly catches his unique laid-back and precise style perfected at the Savoy Hotel in London.
• Some 1920s/30s pop tunes that never made it to roll: Lydia the tattooed lady and Cole Porter's Let's Misbehave.
• A couple of jazzy versions of novelty piano pieces: Zez Confrey's Nickel in the slot and Frank Froeba's Church mouse on a spree.
• A jazz standard as you've probably never heard it before, King Chanticleer.
• An British two-step from 1912, Happy Hippos, given a lively reworking.
• Four of Frank Milne's wonderful Fox-trot dance medley Duo-Art rolls, plus Adam Carroll's selection from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess and Robert Armbruster's selection from White Lilacs, a 1920s show that really suits his style.
• Two sets of Ralph Leopold's transcriptions of Wagner operas: Siegfried and Die Walküre. Very effective, and very hard to find originals!
• A few choice dance rolls: An Arden & Carroll four-hander, The King's Horses; Strange Interlude, the only Duo-Art by Angelico Valerio (better known as an Ampico roll editor); Why?, a lively Frank Milne arrangement.

November 2009 - new 88-note titles specially arranged for the Pianola by Adam Ramet

• Devil's Galop - better known as the signature tune from BBC Radio's "Dick Barton", as exciting now as it was in the 1940s!
• Cole Porter's Let's Misbehave, a title little recorded on roll when it was new. Here it's in a lively new arrangement that pays homage to the great rolls of the 1920s.
• Scott Joplin's Leola and Rose Leaf Rag.
• Sometimes I feel like a motherless child, a famous spiritual beautifully arranged by Samuel Coleridge Taylor.

August 2009 - Duo-Art rolls

• A Duo-Art test roll. This is based on the standard British test roll, with the arpeggios used to test playing at level zero extended to cover a wider range of notes. This is very similar to the American test roll #3, but lacks the musical excerpts at the end. Offered with the original printed descriptions of the tests on a separate sheet.
• Two superb Duo-Art dance rolls, George Gershwin playing That Certain Feeling and Freddie Rich's version of the Charleston - an interesting alternative to the well-known QRS version played by its composer, James P. Johnson.
• A Duo-Art roll of a famous piece of British 'novelty piano', Billy Mayerl's Eskimo Shivers.
• Two Etudes from Sergei Bortkiewicz, played by Carol Robinson. Superb Russian music, with echoes of Rachmaninoff and Medtner, that should be a lot better known than it is!
• Percy Grainger playing his own Colonial Song.
• Bach's Preludes & Fugue number 3, from the Well Tempered Clavichord, played by Ethel Leginska.
• Vincent d'Indy's Pleine Air, No. 3 from his Poème des montagnes, a gloriously-flowing movement from a symphonic poem for the piano. Played by Robert Lortat.
• Charles Griffes' Scherzo, Op 6 No 3, played by Rudolph Reuter. A virtuoso composition from 1915 embracing impressionism and avant-garde influences.
• Completing the release of the series of rolls issued for the Daily Express piano-playing competition, William Murdoch playing Serenata and Bal Poudre.

August 2009 - 88-note rolls

• No fewer than 10 new pianola arrangements from Adam Ramet. These are all a little beyond anything you could play by hand... just as rolls were arranged back in the glory days of the player piano! Jaroslav Ježek's Bugatti Step, a Czech novelty-piano masterpiece from 1931. Scott Joplin's Peacherine Rag, Rose Leaf Rag, Solace, The Entertainer, Sycamore Rag and Eugenia, and a couple of classic rags, Abe Olman's Wintergarden Rag and Paul Pratt's Hot House Rag. To finish, Eubie Blake's Troublesome Ivories.
• The first of a series of reissues of Mike Medding's "Monrovia" rolls, direct-to-roll transcriptions of Jelly Roll Morton's recordings. This starts with Frog-I-More Rag.
• Arcadi Volodos's nearly-impossible concert arrangement of Rachmaninoff's Italian Polka - a great workout for your pianola.

 

Replica Duo-Art rolls - list updated 30 April 2012

Bulk orders: take 20% off the listed prices if you order 10 or more rolls, or 10% off for more than 5 rolls.

Replica 88-note rolls

New 88-note rolls

Ordering information

Ordering is simple: just email the list of the rolls you want, your details including delivery addess, whether you want fast (expensive) or economical (slower) delivery, and if you want additional postal insurance. You will be sent a payment request for the total, no payment is needed with the order.

All prices are in UK pounds sterling. There are discounts for larger orders: 10% for 5 to 9 rolls, 20% for 10 or more rolls. Alternatively, order a bespoke perforator batch of any title (5 rolls) and deduct 20% for that particular title.

All orders are posted from the UK, or may be picked up from Wokingham. Postage is charged at cost, packing is free. To give some idea of postage costs at November 2010 prices:

• Within the UK, a 10-roll order typically fits the £7.06 Royal Mail Standard Parcels range (4 to 6kg), and 2 rolls can normally go second class for under £3. For larger orders other parcel delivery services are cheaper and the best price will be used.
• For non-UK orders, Royal Mail rates up to 5kg (about 10 rolls) are about 20% of list price airmail to Europe or surface mail anywhere else, 40% for airmail outside Europe. Larger orders are normally cheaper via courier services such as DHL or FedEx and prices for these will be quoted when you order.

Exact postage costs will be confirmed when the packed weight of your order is known and a postal service chosen. UK buyers should pay with a cheque in Pounds Sterling drawn on a UK bank or arrange a bank transfer. Non-UK buyers can use PayPal - a payment request will be sent.

Julian Dyer, 5 Richmond Rise, Wokingham RG41 3XH, United Kingdom

email: enquiries <at> pianorolls.co.uk (using @ instead of <at>)