DIY piano rolls: teach kids to digitally encode music using paper tape

Teach your kids to digitally encode music with this 20-note music-box/player piano that recapitulates the first digital music format -- the piano roll.

Included is the Music Box, one pre-punched strip which plays Romeo and Juliet, 2 blank strips, and a hole punch, so that you can create your own tunes! The strips are 66 x 7cm. We can also supply more blank strips.

Link (via Red Ferret)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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tokmik

Is it possible for a trial to be transcribed without a control record, like a tape recording or punch tape th? Los Angeles Piano Teachers
Anonymous

No discussion of this topic is complete without a mention of Conlon Nancarrow.
NovySan

Hi, Tom! This is Dan from Dorkbot SoCal. I just knew that had to be you before I even clicked the link.

I have one of these and have created some great little instruments with the music box as the the heart. I’ve added peizo pic ups, cigar box resonator, etc etc.

One word of warning however, the nylon gears on these things strip faster than Gypsy Rose Lee at a Shriner’s Convention. Don’t EVER try to put in a double thickness. I am currently in the process of re-gearing with all brass to make it a little more robust.
airship

There’s a smaller $20 version here:

http://www.grand-illusions.com/acatalog/Music_Box_Set.html#a13
wgmleslie

What’s incredible about musical punch-tape is that it actually captures the style and expression of the artist. If you listen to a band of punch tape, you can actually hear the emphasis and rhythm of the performer.
Cpt. Tim

punch tape recording is killing music
joe

Somewhere the RIAA is furiously trying to figure out a way to make DRM for this.
EtaWat

#3 “Somewhere the RIAA is furiously trying to figure out a way to make DRM for this.”

PRM?
David Newland

Best example of the style of the artist is on the Scott Joplin piano rolls, recordings of which are available on CD. It’s eerie.
kaiza

Somewhere the RIAA is furiously trying to figure out a way to make DRM for this.

A player that shredded the paper as it’s passed through would do the trick.

I’m ashamed I thought of that so quickly :(
Kieran O’Neill

#3: You laugh, but actually…

These fellas play a fairly interesting role in the history of copyright. The very term “mechanical copyright” apparently comes from them.
MCM

Even though I know they want to sell extra stuff, you’d think they’d at least give you more than *2* blank strips with it, not much margin for error there…
keighvin

You can also make your own strips on 80# paper. A PDF template can be downloaded from the ThinkGeek product page for this:

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/science/8f7f/

I picked one up for my Dad (geek+music), whereupon we had a conversation about transcribing Mozart’s table-top music (a single sheet cross-read by 2 musicians, one on either end) onto a longer sheet of punch tape folded into a mobius strip – there’s nothing preventing a misfeed of the paper in terms of upside down or backward.

2 octaves in the key of C.
tomic

“Comes with a form you fill out to inform RIAA and Homeland Security of your activities. Enjoy!”

Seriously, this is actually close to the roots of “DRM” and music copyright, as #7 points out… legal battles over publication of music on paper was the very forefront of copyfight…

I absolutely love paper tape. I love the tactile nature of it, a medium both people and machines can read. Paper is lovely stuff.

Data density sucks, but hey.

http://wps.com/projects/paper-tape/index.html