page_title: Piano roll
hierarchical_section_title: Piano roll
caption_attribution_description: A stack of player piano rolls, some in boxes, some not.
context_page_description: A piano roll is a music storage medium used to operate a player piano, piano player or reproducing piano. Piano rolls, like other music rolls, are continuous rolls of paper with perforations punched into them. The perforations represent note control data. The roll moves over a reading system known as a 'tracker bar' and the playing cycle for each musical note is triggered when a perforation crosses the bar and is read.
  Piano rolls have been in continuous production since at least 1896, and are still being manufactured today; QRS Music offers 45,000 titles with "new titles being added on a regular basis", although they are no longer mass-produced. MIDI files have generally supplanted piano rolls in storing and playing back performance data, accomplishing digitally and electronically what piano rolls do mechanically. MIDI editing software often features the ability to represent the music graphically as a piano roll.
  The first paper rolls were used commercially by Welte & Sons in their orchestrions beginning in 1883.
  A rollography is a listing of piano rolls, especially made by a single performer, analogous to a discography.
context_section_description: A piano roll is a music storage medium used to operate a player piano, piano player or reproducing piano. Piano rolls, like other music rolls, are continuous rolls of paper with perforations (holes) punched into them. The perforations represent note control data. The roll moves over a reading system known as a 'tracker bar' and the playing cycle for each musical note is triggered when a perforation crosses the bar and is read.
  Piano rolls have been in continuous production since at least 1896, and are still being manufactured today; QRS Music offers 45,000 titles with "new titles being added on a regular basis", although they are no longer mass-produced. MIDI files have generally supplanted piano rolls in storing and playing back performance data, accomplishing digitally and electronically what piano rolls do mechanically. MIDI editing software often features the ability to represent the music graphically as a piano roll.
  The first paper rolls were used commercially by Welte & Sons in their orchestrions beginning in 1883.
  A rollography is a listing of piano rolls, especially made by a single performer, analogous to a discography.
caption: A stack of piano rolls, some in boxes
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