Edwin Scott Votey

Edwin Scott Votey (born June 8, 1856 in Ovid , Seneca County , New York , † January 21, 1931 in Summit , New Jersey ) was an American piano maker. He is considered to be the inventor of the pianola . Others before him had the idea and constructed automated music playback, but it was Edwin Votey who brought the development of the technology of the automated piano into the state, which then bears the well-known name "pianola" - and thus connects the invention of the self-playing piano with his name .

This does not mean that reel-powered musical instruments came out of nowhere at the end of the nineteenth century. In the United States and Europe, large numbers of engineers and musicians had participated in its design and manufacture over 25 years. As Votey began to deal with the development, were punched tape rolls -betriebene American organs already widespread and has even been some experimental roller-operated pianos manufactured and sold.

But his pianola, the first that he completed in his workshop on Forest Avenue West, Detroit, in the spring or summer of 1895, was the first reel-operated piano player to achieve truly musical performance with the aid of piano rolls.

Votey's other successes include the invention and development of the Aeolian pipe organ, the establishment and management of the numerous musical instrument factories that came under the Aeolian concern, and terms of office as a councilor in his adopted home, Summit, New Jersey.

Votey had traveled extensively in his responsibility overseeing many of Aeolian's international subsidiaries, and he was an avid and very early owner of an environmentally friendly steam powered automobile , a Stanley Steamer .

Early years

Edwin Votey was born in 1856 to the Baptist pastor Charles Votey. The name Votey is of Huguenot origin (originally de Vauxtie ). This family immigrated to North America around 1745. In April 1873 the family moved to West Brattleboro , Vermont , where Charles Votey was to take responsibility for a newly established Baptist church. The Baptist Church had bought a former meeting house of the Universalist Society and repaired it with funds provided by three directors of the Estey Organ Building Society, by far the most important employer in town.

In such a situation, it was almost inevitable that a bright young man would begin his career in the organ building industry as an employee of the Estey Organ Company. Edwin Votey was soon employed in the sales of pipe organs as a salesman and technician. Estey was clearly something of a hotbed for talent development, a kind of unofficial university for engineers in the field of pneumatics , because not only Edwin Votey began his career there, but also the White brothers who later ran the Wilcox & White company .

Before long, Edwin Votey's engineering skills caught the eye of CJ Whitney, a wealthy Detroit music dealer. He then bought the bankrupt Detroit Organ Company, renamed it "Whitney Organ Company" and hired Edwin Votey as technical director.

WR Farrand, the son of a successful local pharmacist, was appointed to direct the administration and when Whitney retired in 1887 the name of the company was changed to Farrand & Votey Organ Company. In 1890, Edwin Votey spent six months in Europe, studying organ building and selling pipe organs.

In 1892, Farrand & Votey bought the organ builder Hilborn & Frank Roosevelt at 135th Street and Park Avenue in New York City , a few years after the death of Hilborn L. Roosevelt, a cousin of US President Theodore Roosevelt . This company acquisition gave Farrand & Votey control of numerous lucrative patents, particularly for organs with electric action . The company achieved considerable success with an organ at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 . That same year, Aeolian also built the first organ, which was installed in the former Aeolian Hall at 18 West 23rd Street in New York. The company's instruments now ranged from elaborate pipe organs ("grand residence" organs) to organs for public institutions, as shown in a picture from January 1898, the Votey pipe organ in the Steinway Hall in Chicago.

The pianola

Edwin Votey built his first pianola in his Detroit home in the spring or summer of 1895. Other prototypes followed in 1896/97, and production began in 1898. That year work on the Aeolian organs and pianolas grew beyond measure, and the Votey Organ Company organized the acquisition of the Farrand & Votey company.

For the first three years, pianolas were manufactured in Detroit at the company's headquarters at 1256-1260 12th Street. Although Edwin Votey was already closely associated with the Aeolian Company, he was not elected to the board of directors until 1897 .

Although Votey had applied for a patent for the pianola in November 1899, protection was not granted until July 1904. Published U.S. Patent No. 765645 actually stands for an intermediate form of the instrument. A handwritten note on the copy of the Aeolian Company patent quotes then Aeolian boss George B. Kelly as follows: "This patent is not for the original pianola invention, made in 1895, but for one in patent suggested shape that was not adopted. The older shape was used in manufacture. "

In 1898, the Votey Organ Company was acquired by the Aeolian Company and a new purpose-built pianola manufacturing facility was built in Garwood, New Jersey, which was completed in August 1900. The plant was built on site adjacent to North Avenue, Garwood, with the Central Railroad of New Jersey at the rear. In August 1903 a new holding company, known as the Liparian Company, was set up for Weber Piano and Pianola Co. Edwin Votey became Vice President, General Manager and Technical Director.

Votey's career in the Aeolian Company

The years between 1900 and 1930 were the pinnacles not only of the success of the Aeolian company, but also of Edwin Votey's career. As managing director of the company, Votey had a special responsibility for the subsidiaries. This required many overseas trips; As technical director, he also oversaw the construction and organization of many factories.

Edwin Votey is mostly remembered for inventing the pianola, but he also led the teams that developed the Aeolian pipe organs, the Grand Pianola Piano, and the Duo-Art . The Aeolian Company reproduced piano music that the playing of Ignacy Jan Paderewski , George Gershwin , Percy Grainger, and hundreds of other pianists, received for future generations.

The evolution of the music roll

The success of the Aeolian Company's instruments depended on the range and accuracy of the musical roles they played, and evidence of Votey's intimate bond in these matters can still be seen in the Aeolian Company's experimental votey test rolls, and some as well the existing samples at the Aeolian factory in London, England, where various English and Votey-style dynamic lines are clearly marked. A special voting machine was introduced in the London music roll mill around 1920, which used stencils to print dynamic scales and tempo lines at high speed and to be able to display them in two separate colors.

Proof of the Votey stencil machine can be found in London on a “Works Progress” card. It is one of at least two of the many hundreds of thousands of rolls made at the Universal Music Company in Hayes , Middlesex, west of London. Universal became a subsidiary of the Aeolian Company for reel production. Their London factories were mostly located in Hayes. The job card has only survived because it was used for special purposes and it will progress the Themodist roll no. T300018C, the Raymond overture by Ambroise Thomas , perforated on September 3, 1920 by Jack Draper, unwound the same day and "sent to the office of the Votey machines", as the handwriting clearly shows.

One of the most complex developments of the Aeolian roll factories was the Duo-Art AudioGraphic music rolls, on which long, illustrated programs were printed as an introduction to the music. The series of rolls called "AudioGraphic" was launched in London around 1926 with a large banquet for those involved. The most important musical scholars in England were present that evening, including Percy Scholes, editor of the series. Edwin Votey also had his place at the head of the table, alongside his compatriot and long-term business associate, William R. Steinway .

Other inventions and board memberships

During the First World War, Votey, together with Charles Kettering and others, developed an automatically controlled aircraft for bombing purposes at the former Wright Brothers Airfield in Dayton , Ohio, the so-called Kettering Bug - the first guided missile. This guided missile made use of the mechanisms developed in the pneumatically controlled piano for the control of direction and height, in conjunction with a gyroscope and an aneroid as well as barometers and clocks. The Aeolian Corporation was commissioned to manufacture the pneumatic part of these control mechanisms: the control was a modified form of the company's own 88-key roll tracking system, as disclosed in Kettering's patent US No. 1,623,121 can be recognized.

Votey has also served on the boards of a number of banks and mortgage lenders, was director of the National Security Council and a member of the Engineers' Club. For a short time he also served as a councilor in Summit, New Jersey.

family and friends

Edwin Votey's family life appears to have been happy and straightforward. In 1878 he married Annie M. Gray of Phelps , New York. They had three children, a son, Charles, and two daughters, Fanny and Edwina. Charles followed his father to the Liparian Company, where he was to be responsible for running many factories. Rose and Fanny, after their marriage Fanny Votey Rogers, were trained as concert pianists. Fanny recorded several Duo Art and Metro Art music roles. Strangely enough, the family does not seem to have had a pianola in the house; they seemed to have preferred a normal, non-automated piano.

End of life

Edwin Votey continued his active business until the spring of 1930 when he retired due to ill health but retained his mandates with the Aeolian Company. He died on January 21, 1931, aged 74 and was buried in Chatham , New Jersey, about a mile from his Summit home.

source

• Website of the pianola organization about the manufacturer and inventor Votey