My MIDI files come from a number of sources.
The files below come from public domain sources. You
can download them by Right-Clicking on them. Feel
free to play or punch them on your own organ, but do not
distribute them to others. I work and print files using the "true" Carl
Frei scale starting with a bass F and rising to a D. Other 20er
arrangers, or punching services use shifted/transposed scales.
20 Note Tuning Roll - The notes in the Carl Frei scale.
The Chattanooga Blues - The first COAA rally of the 2008 season is at Lake Winnie Amusement Park near Chattanooga, TN. My plan is to punch a tne or two for each rally location, and I found this piece while looking for Chattanooga Choo-Choo. It was a piano roll scan by Terry Smythe on one of the internet archives and created this file from it.
Beautiful Ohio - Our second COAA rally in 2008 is in Marietta, Ohio, where the overhight steamboats regularly play this one when stopping. This is derived from a Wurlitzer 150 scan in the player piano roll MIDI archives, but with a key tranposition from C to Bb and a lot of detail editing.
The Jolly Blacksmith Polka - I found the sheet music for this on the Library of Congress site Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music. I printed the pages on paper, then scanned and processed them with Neuratron's PhotoScore MIDI Lite to create a base file. I then did a key transposition, eliminated out-of-range notes, and otherwise "arranged" the tune for a 20 note roll.
A Trip to Niagara - Around 1900 the Buffalo, NY area hosted a numbrer events of national interest, and, as a result, became the subject of numerous tunes. I arranged this one for the Olcott Beach COAA Rally.
Pennsylvania (One Step) - Here's a tune with a Pennsylvania theme which is my piece for the Knobels Amusement Park COAA Rally.
Johnny Morgan - Ron Bopp featured a sheet music cover of this tune on the cover of the Carousel Organ. The lyrics speak of a young man who played a grind-organ in a family band which "often got a penny to go into another street." Johnny was a hit with the "servant girls." Finally, "Johnny played his instrument, and pleased the lady so, That when the time arrived to leave, she would not let him go. She asked if he would marry her, which John did very soon. Now on the organ Johnny plays her many a merry tune." I found the sheet music on the Library of Congress site.
Clarionet Polka - I was looking for the Pennsylvania Polka, and found a midi file with that name in the player piano collection. After punching it I found out that it was actually the Clarionet Polka. Oh, well, it's a good tune anyway.
Circus Life March - I found this nice march in the on-line collection of paper-to-midi scans of Wurlitzer 150 rolls which is posted oniline. First, I don't think this is the original title of the piece. If you can put another name to it, please let me know. Second, the Wurlitzer 150 roll scans are a pretty good starting point for 20er rolls. They require a bit of editing to move notes into the Frei scale, but the work of finding substitutions for "missing" accidentals and of improvising "the decorative bits" has been done.Muss I Denn
Du, Du, Liegst Mir Im Hertzen
Die Lorelei
Die Gedanken Sind Frei
Lili Marleen
Wenn Die Soldaten