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- piano
- automatic instrument
- Disklavier
player piano
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What is a player piano?
A player piano is a piano that plays music mechanically via a recording, typically using perforations on a paper roll or digital memory on a computer disc. The most common type operates via a roll of punched paper that controls a pneumatic system that depresses the keys.
The first form of the player piano was the Pianola, a cabinet stationed in front of a piano with wooden fingers that struck the keys. Levers and pedals controlled tempo, loudness, and accents. Later models, known as reproducing pianos, incorporated devices that approximated an artist's nuances.
In the 1980s, electromagnetic player-piano actions with laser sensors and computer controls were developed, allowing pianists to record, play back, and edit performances.
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How does a player piano play music without a person pressing the keys?
A player piano plays music mechanically, typically using perforations on a paper roll or digital memory on a computer disc. The paper roll passes over a tracker bar, activating pneumatic devices that move wooden fingers to strike the piano keys. Levers and pedals control tempo, loudness, and accents. Reproducing pianos can approximate an artist's nuances, including changes in tempo and dynamics. Modern player pianos, like the Yamaha Disklavier, use electromagnetic key-striking and pedaling mechanisms with sensors and solenoids.
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What is a piano roll in a player piano?
A piano roll is a roll of paper with perforations that is used in a player piano to mechanically play recorded music. As the paper roll passes over a tracker bar, the perforations activate a pneumatic system that depresses the piano keys. Levers and pedals control the tempo and loudness.
Piano rolls allowed manufacturers to incorporate devices that approximated an artist's nuances, and these sophisticated models were known as "reproducing pianos." Some companies manufactured piano rolls that reproduced performances by distinguished figures, such as George Gershwin, and some were later transferred to phonograph records.
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How are songs recorded and played back on a player piano?
A player piano records and plays music using perforations on a paper roll or digital memory on a computer disc. The most common type of player piano uses a roll of punched paper that controls a pneumatic system to depress the keys. Levers and pedals control tempo, loudness, and other dynamics.
Sophisticated models, known as reproducing pianos, incorporate devices that approximate an artist's nuances, including changes in tempo, loudness, and dynamics. Some companies manufactured player-piano rolls that reproduced performances by distinguished figures, and these performances were later transferred to phonograph records.
In the 1980s, electromagnetic player-piano actions with laser sensors and computer controls allowed pianists to record, play back, and edit performances. The Yamaha Corporation introduced the Disklavier, an acoustic player piano with a computer that recreates a performance's nuances using data on a disc.
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How did player pianos influence music and entertainment in the early 1900s?
Player pianos, which play music mechanically via perforated paper rolls, significantly impacted early 1900s music and entertainment. The public could hear ragtime on piano rolls in bars and entertainment venues, and the piano rag style was quickly taken up by bands and in popular song, accompanying dances.
These pianos allowed even unskilled individuals to produce satisfying music and, later, sophisticated models could replicate artists' nuances. By the 1930s, however, their popularity declined due to the rise of radio and phonographs.
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What are the main differences between a player piano and a modern digital piano?
A player piano mechanically plays recorded music using perforations on a paper roll or digital memory. The original player piano, the Pianola, was a cabinet with wooden fingers that struck the piano keys, activated by a paper roll passing over a tracker bar. Levers and pedals controlled tempo and loudness.
Modern digital pianos use electroacoustic or digital methods of tone production, heard through an amplifier and loudspeaker. The Yamaha Corporation introduced the Disklavier, an acoustic player piano with a computer that recreates a performance's nuances using electromagnetic key-striking and pedaling mechanisms. It can also record and play back manual performances.
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player piano, a piano that mechanically plays music recorded by means, usually, of perforations on a paper roll or digital memory on a computer disc.
In its original form as the Pianola, patented in 1897 by an American engineer, E.S. Votey, the player piano was a cabinet called a “piano player” that was stationed in front of an ordinary piano and had a row of wooden “fingers” projecting over the keyboard. In the cabinet, a paper roll passed over a tracker bar that activated the release of air by pneumatic devices that set in motion the wooden fingers that struck the notes on the keyboard. Later, the mechanism of this cabinet was built into the body of the piano. Levers and pedals in front of the cabinet or cabinet-piano controlled the tempo, the loudness, and other dynamics and accents. The pumping foot-treadle for activating the pneumatic system came to be located under the piano.
By careful pedaling of the treadle and careful use of the levers for tempo and other effects, a person relatively unskilled in music could produce somewhat satisfactory music. Player-piano manufacturers, however, eventually obviated even this elementary use of musicianship by incorporating devices into the player-piano roll that could approximate the performing nuances of an artist, including changes of tempo, relative loudness of bass and treble, crescendos, diminuendos, and other dynamics. These highly sophisticated models were known as “reproducing pianos.” In time, reproducing and other player pianos came to be powered by electricity, permitting not only player pianos for the home but also coin-operated pianos for amusement centres and dance halls. Ordinary player pianos were usually uprights, but reproducing pianos were often grands.
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In the early 20th century, some companies manufactured player-piano rolls that, with a fair amount of accuracy, reproduced performances by such distinguished figures as Alfred Cortot, Claude Debussy, Sergey Rachmaninoff, Artur Rubinstein, and George Gershwin. These performances were played on the reproducing piano, and some of them were later transferred to phonograph records. The player piano also attracted composers, who could write pieces without concern for the limitations of the human hand. Such works include Igor Stravinsky’s Étude for Pianola (1917) and Paul Hindemith’s Toccata for mechanical piano (1926). The vogue of the traditional player piano declined with the increasing popularity of the radio and phonograph in the 1930s.
By the 1990s the Yamaha Corporation, a Japanese piano manufacturer, had introduced the “Disklavier,” an acoustic player piano equipped with a computer that, by reading data on a floppy disc or compact disc, could re-create on the piano virtually every nuance of a performance—the tone, touch, timing, and dynamic range of a real performance. The key-striking and pedaling mechanisms were activated not pneumatically (as of old) but electromagnetically with a series of sensors and solenoids. Besides playing computer discs of performances recorded elsewhere, the Disklavier (and similar machines) could record the notes played manually on its own keyboard and then play them back, thereby enabling piano students and performers to study their own performances on an actual piano rather than a conventional audio system. Disklaviers ranged from simple uprights to the finest concert grands.