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Pictures of a Farrand Organ Company
"Cecilian" Music Roll from about 1910

The thumbnail pictures below are only for reference purposes. There's no way you can see the details or marks I made on the rolls, which show the way the spacing between adjacent perforations changes across the full 65-note scale. While I did find a perforation in the Note #1 position, the highest note I could find on the roll was Note #64. Below is a note I sent to Art Reblitz concerning the various measurements I took, in an effort to determine if the changes in the spacing between the perforations occurred at certain points in the scale or if they happened at a gradual rate. While I probably could have spent more time taking measurements at every possible point where two notes are adjacent to each other, I couldn't see why that was necessary at this point in time.


Hi Art,

Oh boy!! Now I have some work to do.... ;-)

First off, it's very difficult to get really accurate measurements...

Measuring center-to-center:

In the center, it looks like 0.150" (6-5/8" from the left edge, or in the middle).

On the bass edge, between notes #3 and #4, it's 0.350" (~1 inch in from left edge)

On the treble edge, between notes #63 and #64, it's 0.250" (~3/4" in from right edge)

However, note #3 and note #63 are both 0.850" from their respective edges. This doesn't seem to make any sense. So, I went back and made the measurements a second time. I even traced the holes and edges of the paper onto another piece of paper. I got the same measurements.... So, this is somewhat of a mystery to me...

Judging by the position of the note closest to the left edge, which I will assume is note #1, the center of the first note is located 0.300" in from the left edge. Now, assuming that note #2 is in the same relative position as note #64 (0.600" in from the right edge), that would mean that there's only 0.250" between note #2 and note #3, which corresponds with what I found between note #63 and note #64.

Further, judging by the position of note #64, which is 0.600" in from the right edge (in the center of the perforation), there is room for one more note (#65), which would be in the same relative position as note #1.

Continuing onward, I got the following measurements at the following distances from the right and left edges of the roll:

At 2.620" from the left, the spacing is 0.200"
At 1.950" from the right, the spacing is 0.200"
At 3.500" from the right, the spacing is 0.175"

Hope this makes some sense to you, because it sort of left me scratching my head... Just guessing here. It seems like there are at least four basic spacings between perforations: 0.150", 0.175", 0.200", and 0.250", but looking at these numbers, I would have to consider that another spacing would be 0.225".

Musically,

John A Tuttle
Player-Care.com


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This page was last revised February 8, 2013 by John A. Tuttle, who Assumes No Liability
For The Accuracy or Validity of the Statements and/or Opinions
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