A player piano performing.

The player piano is a type of piano that plays music automatically without the need for a human pianist. Instead, the keys are struck by mechanical, pneumatic or electrical means. The player piano was most popular in the first half of the 20th century, roughly at the same time as the acoustic phonograph. Image File history File links Player_piano_keyboard. ... Image File history File links Player_piano_keyboard. ... A short grand piano, with the top up. ... For other uses, see Music (disambiguation). ... Pianist Claudio Arrau, Carnegie Hall, 1954. ... Table of Pneumaticks, 1728 Cyclopaedia This article is about the tool. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999... Edison cylinder phonograph ca. ...

History of the player piano

This musical instrument was not invented by any one person, since its many distinguishing features were developed over a long period of time, principally during the second half of the 19th century. An early example was the Pianista, developed by Henri Fourneaux in 1863, though ultimately the best known was the Pianola, originally created by Edwin Scott Votey in 1895 at his home workshop in Detroit, Michigan. It was Votey's invention that initiated mass production of the instrument, which went finally into production in 1898.[1] John MacTammany, an American Civil War veteran, also claimed much credit in the invention and development of the instrument, having patented several devices that were important to the development of the player piano from 1881 onwards. A musical instrument is a device constructed or modified with the purpose of making music. ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1863 (MDCCCLXIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... 1895 (MDCCCXCV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Nickname: Motto: Speramus Meliora; Resurget Cineribus (Latin for, We Hope For Better Things; It Shall Rise From the Ashes) Location in Wayne County, Michigan Coordinates: Country United States State Michigan County Wayne County Settled 1701 Incorporation 1806 Government  - Type Strong Mayor-Council  - Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick Area  - City  143. ... Mass production is the production of large amounts of standardised products on production lines. ... This article is becoming very long. ... Year 1881 (MDCCCLXXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar). ...

Types of player pianos

Steinway Welte-Mignon reproducing piano (1919)

A coin-operated Link Orchestrion player piano.

The most commonly found older player pianos are pneumatic, powered by a vacuum which is created via foot-powered bellows or electric motors. There are two main types: one fully automatic which faithfully reproduces a pianist's interpretation of the music, and one which lacks the nuance of live performance. Nowadays, these are usually known as the reproducing piano and the pianola respectively, though there are also instruments that cross this exact division. Originally, the Pianola (with a capital 'P') was a registered tradename of the Aeolian Company, but became a generic name associated with the player piano. Many companies marketed the player piano with different names, most commonly with the suffix OLA or with the word TONE incorporated into it, but Pianola was the name that stuck. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (600x800, 94 KB) Beschreibung Beschreibung: Steinway-Welte Klavier 1919 Quelle: selbst gemacht Datum: 06. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (600x800, 94 KB) Beschreibung Beschreibung: Steinway-Welte Klavier 1919 Quelle: selbst gemacht Datum: 06. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (643x640, 233 KB)I took this picture on Oct 9, 2005 in the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, CA. Kowloonese 19:30, 30 December 2005 (UTC) The picture shows a Link Orchestrion, a sophisticated type of mechanical musical instrument that... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (643x640, 233 KB)I took this picture on Oct 9, 2005 in the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, CA. Kowloonese 19:30, 30 December 2005 (UTC) The picture shows a Link Orchestrion, a sophisticated type of mechanical musical instrument that... Look up Vacuum in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Hand bellows The bellows is a device for delivering pressured air in a controlled quantity to a controlled location. ...

The most familiar type of pneumatic player piano looks like a normal upright piano, but has a mechanism controlled by a paper music roll contained within the cabinet of the piano itself. However, the original pneumatic players were constructed in a separate cabinet, which was placed in front of the keyboard of an ordinary piano. This unit was positioned in such a way that a series of felt-covered wooden or metal "fingers" were located above each key of the piano and struck the corresponding note as indicated by the perforations in the music roll; most include one or more moving "feet" to control the piano's pedals as well. These early instruments came to be known as cabinet players or vorsetzers. From around 1908, the roll mechanisms were also built into grand pianos.

A restored pneumatic player piano

Ampico (American Piano Company), Welte-Mignon, and Duo-Art (Aeolian Company) are a few of the popular brands of (now antique) reproducing piano mechanisms. Each uses a different encoding method for the paper music roll and different internal systems to control the piano during playback. These mechanisms were retro-fitted into many different piano brands (Steinway, Marshall and Wendall, Kimball, etc.) Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (2272x1704, 1408 KB) Summary Its a Pianola or player piano. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (2272x1704, 1408 KB) Summary Its a Pianola or player piano. ... Ampico (short for American Piano Company) was one of the leading reproducing piano technologies of the early 20th century, the others being Duo-Art and Welte. ... M. Welte & Sons, Freiburg and New York From 1832 until 1932, the firm produced mechanical musical Instruments of highest quality. ... Duo-Art was one of the leading reproducing piano technologies of the early 20th century, the others being Ampico and Welte. ...

Player pianos were sometimes manufactured with additional combinations of organ pipes and percussion instruments built into them. This kind of instrument was called an Orchestrion, built since about 1840. One of the leading companies in this business were the German-American company M. Welte & Sons, the later producers of the Welte-Mignon reproducing pianos, and the Wurlitzer Company, founded by German immigrants from Bavaria. These massive devices were some of the most complicated mechanical musical instruments ever built, with the exception of a few organs. The choir division of the organ at St. ... Percussion may refer to: A family of musical instruments – see percussion instrument; A method of clinical examination – see percussion (medicine). ... The name orchestrion has been applied to three different kinds of musical instruments: A chamber organ, designed by Abt Vogler in 1785, which in a space of 9 cub. ... M. Welte & Sons, Freiburg and New York From 1832 until 1932, the firm produced mechanical musical Instruments of highest quality. ... M. Welte & Sons, Freiburg and New York From 1832 until 1932, the firm produced mechanical musical Instruments of highest quality. ... The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to simply as Wurlitzer, is an American company, formerly a producer of stringed instruments, woodwind, brass instruments, theatre organs, band organs, orchestrions, electric pianos and jukeboxes. ... Organ in Katharinenkirche, Frankfurt am Main, Germany The organ is a keyboard instrument played using one or more manuals and a pedalboard. ...

Nickelodeons are coin-operated player pianos which were normally located in public establishments. Much more elaborate coin-operated versions include additional sound-effects like the Orchestrion. They were eventually replaced by jukeboxes in the early 20th century, though restored or replicated Nickelodeons and Orchestrions are sometimes found today in public establishments as novelty items. The name orchestrion has been applied to three different kinds of musical instruments: A chamber organ, designed by Abt Vogler in 1785, which in a space of 9 cub. ... A jukebox is a partially automated music-playing device, usually a coin-operated machine, that can play specially selected songs from self-contained media. ...

Player mechanism

Player piano action.

Horizontal row of tracker tubes detects music roll holes.

The common pneumatic mechanism generally uses many tracker tubes behind the music roll. A state of vacuum in a tube is destroyed when air enters through a perforation in the music roll. The increased air pressure opens a valve which allows pneumatic force, through a mechanism such as a bellows or piston, to activate a key. Some players use a double valve so as to better control the movement. When the perforation moves past the tracker tube, a bleed hole restores the vacuum state in the tube. These operations take place quickly enough that a player can execute a trill much more rapidly than can be played with the human finger. A cabinet player presses a mechanical finger on a piano keyboard, while a piano with an internal player uses internal mechanical linkages to move a key. Players may also alter the sound of the piano with a sustaining pedal lever and a soft or accent lever. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 368 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (964 × 1571 pixel, file size: 647 KB, MIME type: image/png) 1. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 368 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (964 × 1571 pixel, file size: 647 KB, MIME type: image/png) 1. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (2272 × 1704 pixel, file size: 1. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (2272 × 1704 pixel, file size: 1. ...

A fully pneumatic system is driven by a foot-operated bellows mechanism which creates a vacuum in a reservoir system, similar to that used in a foot-operated organ. Some models use an electric motor to create the vacuum or to move the music roll. A rewind lever rewinds the roll with the music playing mechanism disabled. Organ in Katharinenkirche, Frankfurt am Main, Germany The organ is a keyboard instrument played using one or more manuals and a pedalboard. ...

Music rolls

Music rolls for pneumatic player pianos, often known as piano rolls, consist of continuous sheets of paper, about 11 1/4 inches wide and generally no more than 100 feet in length, rolled on to a protective spool, rather like a large cotton reel. The paper is perforated with numerous small holes, which control the pattern of the notes to be played as the roll moves across a tracker-bar. On reproducing rolls, additional holes control the volume level, accents, pedals, etc., to faithfully recreate the original performance. Interest in inventing a self-playing piano resurfaced in the late 1890s. Several different mechanisms were developed and sold, but the paper rolls were not interchangeable. Melville Clark, an inventor and piano designer, developed an 88-note, standardized roll size for the player industry, and built his Apollo player piano to this standard in 1901. By 1908, other manufacturers had adopted his standard. The paper rolls were punched by duplicating machines called perforators from a master roll used as a pattern. The master rolls were tediously hand-punched by skilled workers directly from sheet music. To avoid this production difficulty, Clark invented the "marking piano" in 1912. His marking piano punched the master roll data as the musician performed a piece of music. The marking piano was used from 1912 to 1931. A Music Roll is used to operate a Mechanical organ or Orchestrion and contains the music to be played. ... A piano roll is the medium used to operate the player piano or pianola, band/fairground organs, calliopes and hand-cranked organs and orchestrions and pipe organs as well. ...

Historic performances by artists of the day were preserved in live recordings, and the marking piano made the Roaring Twenties the heyday of the player piano until the popularity of the phonograph and radio surpassed it. In 1926, its peak sales year, over 10 million piano rolls were sold. The marking piano was retired in 1931, restored in 1971 to record the performances of other outstanding artists, and designated a National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark in 1992. Following all-time low sales in the 1950s, roll-player pianos experienced a revival in the 1970s, and traditional player pianos and paper rolls are still manufactured and sold.

Music rolls were not very popular in Europe, except for some German instruments, and book music was the most commonly used medium for large instruments. Book Music is the European version of making mechanical music medium for organs in Europe and it is actually similar to piano rolls, but book music is produced by thick cardboard, with perforated holes, and it is presented and played in a folded zig-zag style. ...

Preservation and restoration

Efforts are underway to restore and archive player piano music rolls in the form of MIDI sequences. This is being accomplished by optically scanning the player piano rolls, then converting the resulting image file into MIDI using specialized software. An excellent side-effect of this procedure is that modern player pianos use MIDI control and sometimes even include media readers (floppy or CD drives, etc.), and thus these sequences can be readily played on modern pianos with no further modifications to the MIDI sequence.

Modern player pianos

Player and control unit of Yamaha Disklavier Mark III

Synthesizer control unit of Yamaha Disklavier Mark III

Later developments of the reproducing piano include the use of magnetic tape and floppy disks, rather than piano rolls, to record and play back the music; and, in the case of one instrument made by Bösendorfer, computer assisted playback. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (480x640, 108 KB)The control unit of the Yamaha Disklavier Mark III. This picture shows one component of the Yamaha Disklavier player piano. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (480x640, 108 KB)The control unit of the Yamaha Disklavier Mark III. This picture shows one component of the Yamaha Disklavier player piano. ... The Yamaha Corporation (ヤマハ株式会社; TYO: 7951 ) is a Japanese company with a large number of product areas. ... The trade name Disklavier (DISC-lah-veer) refers to a family of piano-related products [1] originated and continuously manufactured by Yamaha Corporation, based in Hamamatsu, Japan, with branches and subsidiaries worldwide. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (480x640, 120 KB)The Synthesizer control unit of the Disklavier Mark III. This picture (looking up from the floor) shows one component of the Yamaha Disklavier player piano. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (480x640, 120 KB)The Synthesizer control unit of the Disklavier Mark III. This picture (looking up from the floor) shows one component of the Yamaha Disklavier player piano. ... The Yamaha Corporation (ヤマハ株式会社; TYO: 7951 ) is a Japanese company with a large number of product areas. ... The trade name Disklavier (DISC-lah-veer) refers to a family of piano-related products [1] originated and continuously manufactured by Yamaha Corporation, based in Hamamatsu, Japan, with branches and subsidiaries worldwide. ... Compact audio cassette Magnetic tape is a non-volatile storage medium consisting of a magnetic coating on a thin plastic strip. ... A floppy disk is a data storage device that is composed of a disk of thin, flexible (floppy) magnetic storage medium encased in a square or rectangular plastic shell. ... Bösendorfer (L. Bösendorfer Klavierfabrik GmbH) is a piano manufacturer, a wholly owned subsidiary of the BAWAG PSK Gruppe, and is based in Vienna, Austria. ... A BlueGene supercomputer cabinet. ...

Almost all modern player pianos use MIDI to interface with computer equipment. Most modern player pianos come with an electronic device that can record and playback MIDI files on floppy disks and/or CD-ROMs, and a MIDI interface that enables computers to drive the piano directly for more advanced operations. Live performance or computer generated music can be recorded in MIDI file format for accurate reproduction later on such instruments. MIDI files containing converted antique piano-rolls can be purchased on the Internet. MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is an industry-standard electronic communications protocol that enables electronic musical instruments, computers and other equipment to communicate, control and synchronize with each other in real time. ... The CD-ROM (an abbreviation for Compact Disc Read-Only Memory (ROM)) is a non-volatile optical data storage medium using the same physical format as audio compact discs, readable by a computer with a CD-ROM drive. ...

As of 2006, several player piano conversion kits are available (PianoDisc, Pianomation, etc.), allowing the owners of normal pianos to convert them into computer controlled instruments. The conversion process usually involves cutting open the bottom of the piano to install mechanical parts under the keyboard. 2006 is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Player pianos versus electric pianos

A player piano is neither an electric piano, electronic piano, nor a digital piano. The distinction between these instruments lies in the way sounds are produced. A player piano is an acoustic piano where the sound is produced mechanically by moving keys which cause hammers to strike the piano strings. An electric piano (e-piano) is an electric musical instrument that is very mexican sounding. ... An electronic piano is an entirely electronic musical instrument designed to simulate the timbre of a piano (and sometimes a harpsichord) using analog circuitry. ... A digital piano is a modern electronic musical instrument designed to serve primarily as an alternative to a traditional piano, both in the way it feels to play and in the sound produced. ...

References

• Reblitz, Arthur A. Player Piano Servicing and Rebuilding. ISBN 0-911572-40-6 Lanham, Maryland: Vestal Press, 1985.
• Reblitz, Arthur A. The Golden Age of Automatic Musical Instruments. ISBN 0-9705951-0-7 Woodsville, New Hampshire: Mechanical Music Press, 2001.
• http://www.mechanicalmusicpress.com
• White, William Braid. Regulation and Repair of Piano and Player Mechanism together with Tuning as Science and Art. New York: Edward Lyman Bill, 1909.

See also

• Barrel piano
• Conlon Nancarrow, composer of dozens of "Studies for Player Piano"
• Disklavier
• George Antheil, who famously used 16 synchronized player pianos in his Ballet Mechanique
• Mechanical organ
• Punched tape

A Faventia barrel piano A barrel piano (also known as a roller piano) is a forerunner of the modern player piano. ... Conlon Nancarrow (October 27, 1912 - August 10, 1997) was an American composer who took Mexican citizenship in 1955. ... The trade name Disklavier (DISC-lah-veer) refers to a family of piano-related products [1] originated and continuously manufactured by Yamaha Corporation, based in Hamamatsu, Japan, with branches and subsidiaries worldwide. ... George Antheil (June 8, 1900 – February 12, 1959) was an American composer and pianist of German and Lutheran descent, born in Trenton, New Jersey. ... The Ballet Mechanique was composed by George Antheil in 1924. ... A Mechanical organ is an organ that is self playing, rather than played by a musician. ... A roll of punched tape Punched tape is an old-fashioned form of data storage, consisting of a long strip of paper in which holes are punched to store data. ...

External links

• The Player Piano Group - the UK's leading player piano & related instrument society
• The Player Piano Group at YouTube
• Welte-Mignon, Portal for Reproducing Pianos
• The Pianola Institute London
• Themodist.com - extensive player piano and player organ historic info site
• Pianola.co.nz - Listen to MIDI files created by scanning player piano rolls.
• Player pianos in a photo archive
• Archival Preservation of Player Piano Music Rolls - offers many scanned player piano rolls for free download in MIDI format
• The Mechanical Music Digest, a forum (with searchable archives) on musical instruments that play themselves
• Automatic Musical Instruments Collectors' Association - An excellent world wide association linking together like minded people sharing a common interest in turn-of-the-century musical instruments that play by themselves in some manner.
• Video of an Aeolian Pianola player piano.