THE MUSICAL MUSEUM
LONDON, ENGLAND |
Player Piano
The concept of the modern player piano originated in the USA about 100 years ago.
These early devices, called 'Piano Players', took the form of a cabinet which could be wheeled up to the front of a conventional piano.
Projecting from the back of the cabinet was an adjustable row of sixty-five felt lined wooden 'fingers' which was lined-up with the keys
of the piano. Once in position, the cabinet was clamped in place, a music roll inserted and then by pedalling with the feet,
and by adjusting small hand levers, suitable expression could be inserted into the resulting music.
They were given the appropriate nickname of 'Push-Ups'.
These clumsy, rather cumbersome contrivances soon gave way to the Player Piano
where the automatic mechanism was built within the casework of the standard piano,
and from about 1910 until the end of the 1920s many hundreds of these instruments were
sold world-wide. They were immensely popular.
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The 'Push-Up' marketed by the Ĉolian Company was christened the 'Pianola' and was such a success
that the name caught on and has been misused ever since to mean any type of automatic piano.
The music rolls for all these machines were produced by a clever musician/technician who simply translated the printed notes of the sheet music into a series of perforations. All the role did was to play the right notes in the correct order!
The fun of putting the expression into the music was left to the operator. |
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In 1904, Edwin Welte of Freiburg, Germany, invented a much more complicated style of Push-Up which
was electrically operated. When this device was positioned in front of a standard piano, the very
special roll inserted, and the electric motor switched on, the piano would be played in exactly
the same way as the famous pianist had played when he or she sat down at the recording piano in
the Welte factory. All the delicate nuances of expression, tempo and phrasing were encoded into
the paper music roll.
As with ordinary Player Pianos, this fully automatic mechanism was later built into the standard
piano casework and several other firms brought out their own versions of Reproducing Piano. Most
notably, the Duo-Art of the Æolian Company and the 'Ampico' of the American Piano Company enjoyed
considerable success, and a number of other types, particularly the 'Triphonola' of the Hupfield
Company were moderately popular.
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The Musical Museum is unique in its extensive collection of this type of self-acting piano,
one of the most famous being the Steinway Grand Piano which once belonged to Princess Beatrice -
Queen Victoria's youngest daughter. It is fitted with the Duo-Art reproducing system.
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All the famous pianists of the first three decades of the last century recorded for at least
one of the reproducing systems and we can still enjoy the 'live' playing of such eminent persons
as Greig, Rachmaninov, Paderewski, Myra Hess and George Gershwin.
For more information on the Player Pianos in the collection please select the appropriate link:
Steinway-Duo-Art Pedal-Electric Grand
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