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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
The Automatic Versus the Personal Control of the Player-Piano Considered
—Player Business Approaching Cross Roads and the Question is Which
Road to Take—Views of Manufacturers and Dealers on This Subject.
There is no getting away from the fact that
the player business is approaching a cross-roads.
Its progress has up till now been pretty nearly
along one line of march, but the ways are divid-
ing just ahead, and it will soon be necessary for
each one to consider which road he will take for
the future.. Not only are these roads divergent,
but they diverge along lines almost diametrically
opposite, so that there seems to be little, if any,
reason for hope that any future time will re-
veal them to have come together again. The
player business is, in fact, virtually at a crisis.
The nature of the dilemna, between the horns
of which we are beginning to find ourselves, may
be understood from consideration of past his-
tory. Put in a few words, it is the conflict be-
tween two opposing theories of expression con-
trol, called respectively the Automatic and the
Personal. In what follows we have endeavored
to summarize the views and opinions of a great
many men in the player business, with a view to
presenting some general view of the situation
that may be of value of those who are still in
doubt. In doing so, however, we must first
briefly investigate the general idea of expression
control as applied to the player-piano.
Why Is the Piano Player?
We reveal no secrets when we say that the
hopes of the earlier player pioneers have been
largely disappointed, at least so far as concerns
the reception which the world has given to the
piano playing mechanism. When these mecha-
nisms were first put on the market, their inventors
and promoters were undoubtedly inspired by sin-
cere motives, and when they built their first in-
struments in such a way as to give some latitude
to personal control, they most certainly believed
that their action was well conceived and entirely
correct. They thought that a purely automatic
piano playing mechanism would not succeed. And
they believed this on well-reasoned psychological
grounds. For some years after the advent of the
first piano players and player-pianos, all the tend-
ency of invention seemed to turn in this direction.
When, therefore, we ask ourselves why is a
player-piano, we are bound to conclude that the
pioneers thought that it was because men needed,
and would buy and pay for, means for expressing
personally their musical feelings.
The Neglected Factors.
But it began to be realized early in the game
that some of the original calculations were, to
put it mildly, incomplete. The elements of mu-
sical performance, when the mechanical technic is
put out of consideration, as may be done in the
case of the piano player, are three in number, and
may be set forth as (1) tempo control (2) accent
control (3) general dynamic control. The first is
sometimes called phrasing, the second relates to
the general distribution of emphasis among the
tones of a piece and the third has to do with the
general level of soft or loud playing at any one
time existing. The early players were built so
that such measure of control as they exerted or
permitted to be exerted over these three elements
must be furnished entirely by the human performer.
The first break came in the first element. It
was found that a great many people will not take
the trouble to learn even the simple trick of re-
*arding or accelerating the speed of playing so as
to introduce contrast. It was found, in short,
that even the little musical thinking required for
this is viewed with dislike by many owners of
players. So, first we had the various devices for
guiding the hand of the operator in control of
the tempo lever, and latterly we have had the so-
called "hand-played roll, a record of the phrasing
employed by an artist in the rendition of a piece
of music. This marked the first concession to the
difficulties of the situation, and the first recogni-
tion of the neglected factor—musical indifference.
The second neglected factor was discovered and
recognized when it was seen that the accentuation
control of music is too big a job for the operator,
so that it became necessary to find some way of
picking out the notes of a melody and empha-
sizing them against the accompaniment, automat-
ically and in a manner outside human control. It
was, in fact, discovered that the player trade had
been neglecting the factor of finger independence,
which enables the pianist to accent one note in a
chord or one note against its accompaniment.
The third factor came into the limelight when
dealers began to say that people did not want to
pump the player pedals, and when, therefore, we
began to see players equipped with electric mo-
tors to run the bellows, thus destroying the last
vestige of the human control feature. This third
neglected factor was human desire to be amused
rather than to accomplish.
At the Parting of the Ways.
We have come in sight of the cross-roads. Some
manufacturers are holding out against the various
changes which we have described, and in spite of
their attitude continue to do a good business. The
question of supremacy is still open; in fact, su-
periority has not by any means been decided. But
the present superficial opinion of the trade inclines
without doubt in the direction of further extend-
ing the automatic idea. Upon the decision of the
majority will ultimately depend the entire future
destiny of the piano player.
What Manufacturers Say.
Opinions differ in details and there are some
manufacturers who cling stoutly to the idea of
controlled tempo and controlled accent and who
have, in fact, deeply committed themselves to
such systems; but the fact remains that the ma-
jority, and a large majority at that, continues to
produce a player unequipped with any such de-
vices. When we take the last step and consider
the motor-driven bellows, we find scarcely any
manufacturer enthusiastic about it. The general
opinion which we have gained from talking with
many manufacturers within the last few weeks is
simply that they are not at all believers in the
purely automatic player-piano. Nobody can, we
are sure, entertain seriously any different notion if
he will but listen to what manufacturers are saying.
What Dealers Say.
The retail trade is responsible, without a doubt,
for the automatic trend. No one can doubt this
who has access to the facts. Nor can anyone
doubt either that fear of the talking machine has
more than anything else caused this state of mind.
The claim is most commonly made that the talk-
ing machine attracts because there is nothing to
do but put in a record and wind a spring. The
opposite claim is that the player-piano is losing its
attractiveness because people are tired of pumping
it. It need scarcely be insisted, we suppose, that
neither claim has real foundation. It is our com-
plete conviction that intelligent presentation of the
player-piano on its merits would soon reveal the
fact that the talking machine is not actually a
rival to it, but that it is parallel in its progress,
instead of being at right angles. No one can seri-
ously doubt that talking machines and player-
pianos do not interfere with each other. The
dealer, however, who will not take the trouble to
present the player-piano sanely naturally finds that
he is not selling player-pianos, and so when he
does sell some talking machines, falls into the
error of supposing that the latter are more nat-
urally attractive than the former, which is simply
nonsense.
A Pumped Player Not Essential.
Let it be understood that we do not attack the
motor-driven player. On the contrary, we know
quite well that a player can be made without foot-
driven bellows, and yet be placed under personal
control, quite as delicately as, if not much better
than, the ordinary player-piano. The point is that
the cry for abolition of pumping has come about
through other reasons entirely, as we have stated
above. The gravamen of it is not the abolition of
pumping half so much as the abolition of neces-
sity for personal control, and this because it is
supposed to be easier to sell a player which runs
by itself than one which you have to teach people
to operate.
What the Consumer Thinks.
If you ask intelligent people not in the piano
trade what they think about player-pianos you will
not find much enthusiasm among them. You will
usually find, indeed, that they consider the player-
piano impossible from the purely musical point of
view. Their interest therefore is simply that
anything likely to improve it is likely to be re-
garded as good. So far as concerns personal con-
trol, we have very seldom heard any intelligent
comment on this question from laymen. In short,
it would be absurd to say that the question of
pumping, of personal control, or of anything else,
has been or is likely to be decided by public opinion.
To Summarize.
Our own observations lead us to the following
quite definite conclusions:
1. Manufacturers would, on the whole, be just
as glad if the player remained as it has always
been, a personally controlled instrument.
2. Dealers have raised the cry for the purely
automatic piano largely out of a misunderstanding
of the reason for the slowness of player sales.
This reason really lies entirely in intelligent as
against non-intelligent exploitation.
3. The public as a whole is profoundly indif-
ferent.
The Decision.
In the circumstances, we feel very much in-
clined to the belief, emphasized by the apparent
majority opinion of the trade, that the player
business, if it looks to its own future wisely, will
not rush too hastily away from the features of
personal control on which it has built up its pres-
ent standing.
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