A Very Brief History of the Player Piano
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ก.ย. 2020
- A brief history of the player piano.
The player piano is a type of piano that can play music (both classical and popular) on its own. It doesn’t need a human performer to press the keys, and can do so by itself. For the majority of history, musical instruments had to be played by humans. If you wanted to hear music, you would need performers to play it for you, or you’d need to play it yourself- and in order to do that you would need plenty of money. But the advent of the player changed all that, and laid the groundwork for all the free and accessible music that we have today.
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The piano itself was invented around the 17th century, developing out of other keyboard instruments that came before- like the organ, the clavichord and the harpsichord. The organ would be the first keyboard to be automated. Organs are essentially lots of various pipes connected to bellows, which, when keys are pressed, blow air through the pipes and create sound. This was found to be much easier to automate than pianos, as organs mechanically are arguably a lot simpler.
Moving forward, and with the advent of steam power, people were becoming aware of the ability for pneumatics to do hard mechanical work for us,
Some of the first pneumatic player pianos were shown in the Philadelphia world’s fair in 1876. However, one of these prototypes was the pianista, which is considered an early ancestor of the true player piano.
Now we jump forward to the turn of the 20th century. Many different types of automated pianos had appeared, some with handles and crankshafts, some with bellows that you press with your feet, but it was at this point that all the different designs were beginning to coalesce- and the first true player piano, the Pianola, appeared.
Despite its obscene price, buyers- mostly rich- were fascinated by the new pianola, and it did very successfully right from its release.
Various musicians like Debussy and Scott Joplin would develop their own piano rolls- they would play one of their pieces into a pianola, and it would encode their performance- all the little details of rhythm and dynamics- into a piano roll card. This means that today we can essentially listen to the original composers playing their own music. Interestingly, Debussy, in his piano roll performance of Claire de Lune, played very quickly compared to the languid performances pianists give today- perhaps his creative vision was different to how we interpret it nowadays- and we’re missing some hidden meaning and emotion- or perhaps he was bored and just trying to get the performance over and done with.
Composers of the late 20th century began to see the player piano as an opportunity to make art that had never been seen before. Conlon Nancarrow, a composer born in 1912 but only having achieved notoriety in the 80s, composed lots of pieces for the instrument. The human body can only do so much with a standard piano- we’ve only got 10 fingers and we can only play so fast before things go out of control, but automated pianos aren’t governed by the fragile limitations of the human performer. Player pianos can be instructed to play any amount of notes, as fast as the composer likes, as often as they like, as hard as they like- and Nancarrow took great advantage of this in his “Studies for player piano”.
With the appearance of computers in the 90s, player pianos have only gotten more sophisticated over time. Composers and performers can now completely forgo the use of piano roll cards, instead choosing to beam the musical instructions written in MIDI directly into the piano’s computer via wifi.
Player pianos nowadays are still not massively accessible, and are generally only used for show or displays of wealth. They remain very expensive [steinway £46000 WTF] so they’re only available to the proper wealthy- but honestly, I don’t think that even matters! With computers, the idea of automated instruments has become almost obsolete- we now have notation software, DAWs and programs that can do it all for us. The player piano, with its very high price, has ironically inspired the development of products that make music free! That was the original goal of the player piano, to make music accessible to everyone, even people who can’t play or pay others to pay for them- and I think its achieved that goal.
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I don't know too much about music history and found this video incredibly fascinating. I had heard of both of them, but never realized Scott Joplin and Clause Debussy were both alive during the same time period and that there are player piano rolls *of the original composers playing their pieces*
It's fantastic isn't it! It's almost like being able to listen to recordings of their voices; reminds us that they were real people that did the same things we do
In 1996, I worked for a year as the pianist at the Mastertouch Piano Roll company in Sydney, Australia. I recorded 48 rolls in that year.
I was recently given a 100 year-old player piano. The piano technician said it still has a lot of life in it. I very much enjoy the whole "mechanical" aspect of the vacuum driven machinery. It's way more fun than some boring computer chip.
That's so cool! If you ever feel like recording it I'd love it if you could send it my way
You've answered a question I've wondered about for a long time, which is that there seem to be many more notes being played than can be reached with just 10 fingers. In the early days they must have had 2 pianists cutting the roll, or one who went over it twice. It's a shame there are no pianolas left in working order in the UK, as all the recordings you hear are from the USA, where there are many beautifully preserved examples. I don't have a piano myself but I have a Yamaha organ, and if you attach the little music "chip" it will play on its own. It's a 1986 Electone model I bought off a work colleague a few years ago for just £150. Every part is fully functional, not bad for a machine nearly 40 years old.
Now let's see an expanded one that takes us into different pumping methods: pedaled bellows, large but quiet electric pump, small but obnoxiously noisy vacuum cleaner fan ("What were they thinking?"), etc., and THEN skipping all that in favor of MIDI and solenoids.
Aeolian wasn't the first to make a pianola, but they certainly knew their marketing and in the UK a player piano was by default called pianola across the board, becoming a generic term for the unit, like coke is for all cola beverages. Before the Pianola, Aeolian developed an advanced player system for the reed organ. In America they arguably became the most influential and innovative player piano company, bargaining with Steinway & Son to insert their player units into the Steinway pianos. I personally own an advanced system of player piano called a Duo-Art as installed in a Weber grand piano made by Aeolian. The Duo-Art can re-create the exact playing of an artist as recorded at a special piano in the Aeolian factory.
Josef, you're invited to come and play and listen to my Weber Duo-Art piano whenever you want.
Really fascinating video. I know about player pianos generally, and I've heard a bunch of those "composer plays composer" rolls and am generally aware of Nancarrow, but the history behind them is something I'd never seriously looked into for some reason. Thanks!
Unless ot was a "hand played" roll the rolls would have been made by transcribing sheet music (often leading to more than 2 hands playing). Duo-art and AMPCO were the only player mechanisms that could replicate dynamics with most foot pump pianos requiring a pianolist to add expression. Also in the 1920s more than half the pianos made in America had player mechanisms.
An aspect of something so "mundane" I guess in that it shows up in movies all the time in period pieces, but I never really understood it's impact. Great video Josef!
"With the appearance of computers in the '90s"? Oh, what, you think they just appeared in the 90s?
I say you a deep dive into the history of the player piano now.
Oh yeah I should!
Greetings from NY Thanks for answering every question I had in my head about these instruments. Nice to see a composer/ musician especially of your young age giving thought to these things.
Thanks and, CHEERS!
The Debussy insight alone is worth the watch. Perhaps influenced by the popular ragtime of that era?
very good video. deserves more viewership.
I enjoyed your video! Here is a little more history you might like to know: The first practical pneumatic player piano or 'Pianola' was invented in 1896 by my grandfather, Edwin S. Votey, in his home in Detroit, MI. The original model and was later donated to the Smithsonian Museum in 1922. The Pianola's were produced in Garwood, NJ and the Votey Organ Company eventually merged with the Aeolian Company.
Until 1910 the early player pianos used rolls of 65 notes which did not allow for the playing of many classical works but at an industry conference in Buffalo, NY the 88 note roll (full keyboard) was established and used as the standard. By 1919 player pianos outsold standard pianos and continued to be popular into the late 1920's. The performances of many great pianists of that period have been preserved on those paper rolls!
My grandmother and grandfather are buried in the same cemetery as your grandfather. I was restoring a 65 note player piano the day my grandma passed. Since then I’ve restored at least a half dozen!
Thanks for this brief history! 🙌
Thank you i just was given a Player Piano with a few rolls.
They were basically the original ipods
It’s a little disappointing that you did not mention the high-end reproducing pneumatic players such as Duo-Art, AMPICO and Welte.
Very interesting video.
Great work!
Oh, Pianola: a mix of "piano" with "Victrola"!
Actually, the ola suffix appeared first with Aeolian and their Pianola. The Victor company must have thought it was a good marketing tool and borrowed it. By the mid 1920s a lot of different companies were using the ola suffix for all kinds of different products. Radiola, Playerola, and how about Motorola which still exists to this day.
til computers appeared in the 90s
Cool video, I especially found the part about Conlon Nancarrow interesting as a precursor to black MIDI
Makes me want to buy an ancient one, manual mechanisms press my keys😌
Oh god oh fuck i'm gonna cu
@@zer-mela oh my
You must buy one , ive restored several.
Great video
Like an early robot
Related to Patsy Stone?........
6.01 Hahaha
In first and fascinating as usual
I'm first. You're fascinating
Thanks so much! 💚💚