James P. Johnson - Harlem Strut

NOTE: Will be re-recorded soon due to bad audio quality.

QRS 101014 (recorded at home while testing a very brittle midi-operated keytop player)

Category:

Music

Tags:

• James
• P.
• Johnson
• Harlem
• Strut
• Piano
• Roll

[clamantuanguyan]

thanks. that was very imformative and answered my question completely. but how would they go about putting this music on cds? would they have to drag a piano into the studio to record the sounds?

[wuloki]

Exactly. Of course not every studio can afford this, but there are companies such as Biograph Records which are specialized in the recording of player piano rolls. On most Biograph LPs you'll find a remark such as "The rolls on this LP were recorded on a 1910 Steinway 65/88 note player on July 8, 1972. [...] Montgomery pumped the rolls and Jim Taylor operated the Ampex recorder." (quote from Eubie Blake 1917-1921, BLP-1011Q-Stereo).

[JamesPriceJohnson]

what is this versoin from?

[wuloki]

This is QRS 101014 played by a midi-operated "Vorsetzer" (a device which sits on the keyboard and presses the appropriate keys).

[clamantuanguyan]

so Johnson didn't actually play what i'm hearing?

[wuloki]

Normally, if you want to record music, you would use a microphone to capture the *sound* the instrument makes. In contrast to this, a piano roll does not capture the sound, but the keys being pressed. As far as I know, QRS 101014 is a "handplayed" roll -> It was created by a special piano which punched a hole in an advancing sheet of paper each time Johnson pressed a key. Therefore you hear a (mostly) perfect reproduction, but not Johnson himself. Does this answer your question?

[KawhackitaRag]

The Mike Montgomery recordings on Biograph are good although he does not add any dynamics. I believe this is because he figured the roll editor monkeyed wih the pianist's performance enough at the factory, and he didn't want to monkey with it further by making it soft where it might have been loud, or loud where it might have been soft.

Certain brands of reproducing and expression rolls have the same problem; the dynamic coding was added by an editor, completely independent of the pianist!

[KawhackitaRag]

Most recordings of player pianos and piano rolls available have one of the following problems: 1. the piano is out-of-tune and/or is out-of-regulation, and in generally poor shape; 2. the person pumping doesn't bother adding any dynamics but instead pumps it bang-bang-bang at all one volume level, resulting in a rather boring mechanical sound, and/or 3. a real piano is not used, but rather some kind of synthesized or sampled piano, which can sound offensive to the ear compared with a real piano.

[KawhackitaRag]

The thing about most piano rolls is there is no expression or dynamics coded in the roll (louds and softs). The great thing about a fully-restored player piano (or push-up piano player) is that you can take an ordinary roll and add all the expression yourself using the pedals and hand levers.

There ARE certain special "reproducing" and "expression" rolls which will play back with dynamics on a special piano designed to play them. However, there is very little jazz and blues on those rolls.