Art play piano

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An art play piano is an automatic piano , which, however, in contrast to the electric piano, gives the user the opportunity to influence the reproduction of the music. Art play pianos are operated pneumatically. The music is by perforated paper tapes, the so-called "piano roll" or " roll of music (Engl." Piano Roll ) transmitted as a carrier medium. These music tapes are interchangeable and could be bought in music stores. In common parlance, all types of mechanical pianos are often called player piano or pianola without specifying the type of instrument. The brand name Phonola is also used in German.

The art piano can usually also be played by hand as a normal piano. Some art pianos, however, were built like orchestras without a keyboard. As a precursor of Art player piano there was Vorsetzer who could play the keys on an existing piano pneumatically.

An artificial piano has two pedal bellows in the lower center of the instrument, similar to those on the harmonium , with which the suction air (negative pressure) necessary for the transport of the piano roll and the pneumatic triggering of the piano mechanism is generated by constantly pedaling while playing the instrument. On the front there are controls in the form of buttons, sliders or pressure switches. With these, the user, known as a pianolist , can influence the playback. These controls can normally be used to regulate the speed of the piano roll, the pedals (for playing quietly by shortening the hammers' travel, and the holding pedal to cancel the damping) and the volume and quiet functions for bass and treble. For the first time, it was possible to reproduce the music almost like a pianist's playing.

The regulation of the emphasis on the art piano by hand levers, the so-called "hand emphasis", was advertised as an artistically high-quality game, which is therefore possible for every owner of such an instrument. Indeed, the artistic interpretation of a pianola roll requires considerable skill and musical knowledge. This therefore remained the domain of the musically trained pianolists.

Before the development of the reproduction piano , the art piano was considered a serious form of artistic reproduction of music. There were even professional pianolists up until the 1920s.

history

As early as 1895, the American Aeolian Company in New York City had been producing pneumatic pianos with a music tape under the brand name Pianola (see there), which, however, had no accentuation regulation, but could only play the music tape. This resulted in a uniform, somewhat ragged reproduction, these instruments could not meet higher musical demands.

The first real art piano with regulation of the accent was also brought onto the market by the Aeolian Company around 1900 ; it played 65 tones. The name pianola was and is often used as a synonym for the entire self-playing piano, especially in English-speaking countries. In 1902, Ludwig Hupfeld AG in Leipzig brought the Phonola art piano onto the market, which could initially play 73 and later 88 tones. In 1905 the first artist roles came from the Aeolian Company . These were no longer simply sound information read from the sheet music and punched into the piano roll, these roles played by real pianists already reflected the agogic , i.e. the pianists' tempo changes when playing the piano.

In contrast to the art piano, the bellows of the classic electric piano are operated by an electric motor. In the beginning, the electric piano also had no control options, since the factory-made holes in the piano roll, punched according to the sheet music, were played automatically without any volume nuances. Therefore it found its place in bars and entertainment venues with simple musical demands. From 1904, however, such pianos with artificially created emphasis increasingly came onto the market, such as the Hupfeld "Phonoliszt". As a result, playing the electric piano no longer seemed stiff and expressionless as before. If the electric piano is coupled with other instruments such as percussion and organ pipes, one speaks of a (piano) orchestrion .

In 1905 the Freiburg company M. Welte & Sons brought their reproduction piano called " Welte-Mignon " onto the market. For the first time, it was able to reproduce the recordings made by pianists as authentically as possible.

Since reproduction pianos were built to the highest standards of piano construction and pneumatics and were therefore very expensive, the simpler art pianos as well as the electric pianos enjoyed great popularity well into the 1930s.

In middle-class American households in the 1910s and 1920s, before the radio era, it was “good form” to have an automatic piano. There was a big market for these instruments. A certain amount of the instruments from that time are still available today, but their technical condition is often deplorable and requires a professional overhaul.

There is a very active association in Germany that is committed to the preservation of these instruments and their use, the “Society for Self-Playing Musical Instruments eV”, see web links.

See also

Web links