European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - June 8, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Daily Magazine new York times photo Rudy who arranges music for player sets to work at the keyboards in his Buffalo clattering hissing air tubes and Nusic by Edward Gargan new York times with razor Blades and scotch 88 Black and White keys and a new Rudy Martin makes music a music that tickles the ivories and sets toes wagging and fingers in his cluttered Balcony workshop in Martins Long fingers stroked the Between each chord his right foot pumped a Long steel Rod that set off a clacking and roofing from a wondrous ancient contraption of air tubes and levers and spinning wheels that spat out a Stream of paper spattered with its Martin because the machine can Only go so and its a slow process Martin arranges music for player those instruments that magically play themselves when fed a Roll of paper dotted with he does this for hrs music Rolls the oldest and one of the last makers of Rolls for player pianos in the United i really believe the player piano has a univer Sal and everlasting said Ramsi the mustachioed president of they Are inherently just because they were big in the 20s Doest mean they should disappear from the from a redbrick building where electricity was once generated for buffaloes trolley tick is doing everything he can to prevent player pianos from receding into Mere in a business that resonates More with nostalgia than june 1985 hrs is nonetheless yielding to computers letting them run some antiquated machines and giving Martin a hand with editing the question do player pianos have an an Appeal despite changing tech tick i dont were not a the player piano is not there to listen to a its there to sing to have fun the Chain of paper Roll with words printed on the keys its All part of the inside the a rhythmic Phat Phat of Iron Frame machines with Fly wheels and ratchets and Anemone like growths of Black rubber pneumatic tubes mingled with sporadic out bursts of fast paced piano renderings of from kiss Kate and take me out to the Bull game workers doing a Little Quality control of new each machine churns out a thin stack of 16 Perfo beige paper sheets 32 sheets if the tune is a particularly big Clare humming several bars of the Blue Dan ube fanned each stack and stamped on every Sheet the title of the its Tempo and the name of the then she attached a Tab allowing the Sheet to be hooked onto the player piano she dipped the Sheet into our secret ingredient cornstarch to remove any excess when the Rolls Are they Are one by by a whirring Belt through a 20footlong apparatus that stencils the words of each tune alongside the punched these songs Are sing said a pedal operated spooler rewinds each Roll before it is boxed for player pianos started to catch on near the end of the 19th especially after they were perfected by Melville who founded hrs in by the sales of piano Rolls were averaging 10 million a with the company operating factories in new York City and san two the crash of the Stock Market in 1929 and the Boom in phonograph Cut into the piano Roll bankrupting player piano companies and Roll makers hrs responded to changing tastes and economic pressures by manufacturing radio tubes and phonographs products that never really succeeded and were soon abandoned in favor of by the end of world War annual Roll sales had dropped to about 1 million and by the Early to Only a by the the company was foundering in its Only remaining in the East one Day a lawyer who said he had been inter ested in player pianos since he bought his first one in the stopped by to see How the Rolls were rss Max died in and tick persuaded his widow to sell the then he decided to move hrs from the East Bronx to his to escape what he considered a terrible the other Martin Bent Over a master Sheet for the newly popular song we Are the which he was arranging for the player holding a ruler with a miniature piano key Board on it in one he counted holes in the punched Sheet with the As part of the editing process for the master i see this As music he waving toward its All mathematics in a it does take some getting used to and it does take some most of the editing is still done by but Martin has begun using a computer to Speed the i was kind of leery of this thing he i Click away without batting an although hrs Sells thousands of old tick also picks out whatever current popular songs he thinks player piano owners will and he has Martin arrange in in the Middle of the he Why bother with i would say we pretty much ride on the coattails of the recording if a song does Well and is the kind of music you can play on a key Well do but a lot of music Doest come out on a who would think of putting Michael Jackson on a player the stars and stripes Page 13