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Stanford’s Digital Piano Roll Archive

The Stanford University is very actively working with piano rolls. Many wonderful projects and publications come from that. SUPRA is a great example, which is described as 'The Archive of Recorded Sound (ARS) at Stanford University Libraries holds a major collection of perforated paper rolls for mechanical player pianos — otherwise known as piano rolls. Private individuals maintained magnificent roll collections, held concerts, created forums to exchange information, and developed innovative methods for generating sound recordings from digital scans of the rolls. Stanford has benefited from the expertise of this community and developed a formal program to preserve piano rolls digitally while making them widely accessible once again for research and enjoyment. This online exhibit provides digital access to a subset of Stanford’s roll collection via image files (full-color and monochrome), MIDI files, and audio files.

We invite you to use this exhibit to search, browse, and explore the piano rolls in the collection; learn about the research conducted at Stanford on player pianos and rolls; and delve into the significance of piano rolls for the study of historical performance practice.'

Another very promising project to be released soon, is the 'Pianolatron', a web-based virtual pianola player, offering a great database with roll scans, but also the ability to play own files using virtual levers for accentuation, pedal and speed. This amazing project opens the door for everyone to play around with piano rolls, without the necessity of having a pianola or rolls.