Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
MAY
25, 1918
THE MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
9
A DECADE OF PROGRESS—(Continued from page 7)
player-pianist in his appreciation of the higher forms of music
as it is actually being reproduced, and even the roll to teach the
proper method of singing. In the development of the straight
toll attempts have been made, and quite successfully, to produce
orchestral effects wholly impossible by ordinary hand-playing,
and for the lighter music there has been developed fancy roll
arrangements such as the jazz, 'cello, etc., that have been interest-
ing to say the least.
The opening up of this new field soon led to further develop-
ments, and this in more than one way. It was inevitable that in
the first flush of success some one should announce the day of
the personally controlled player-piano had gone for ever. But
it was soon seen that this was altogether premature. The record-
roll gave, for the first time, artistic phrasing. But it gave no
more. What it mainly did indeed was to stimulate the work of
designers to such an extent that the expressive capacity of the
player-mechanism began to undergo improvements at once. The
record-roll gave good phrasing, but it was necessary that the
expression control of the player-ipiano should be improved to a
corresponding extent, in order to be parallel with the other im-
provement. This, together with the courageous step taken by
certain manufacturers in adopting the single-valve system at this
time, led to an entirely new conception of the idea of foot-con-
trol ; and the player mechanism entered upon a new era of sen-
sitiveness and light-pumping.
That the adoption of the single-valve system should have
been delayed, however, is not a matter for surprise, when we
consider that the preliminary condition for such a development
is a high degree of air-tightness in construction. At the present
moment the single-valve has progressed so far and has assumed
such importance that the contest so long waged around it
has turned definitely in its favor.
The single-valve system is successful when it works on suffi-
ciently high-tension and in consequence can have sufficiently
small parts. Therefore such an action must be compact, air-
tight, of high vacuum capacity and with as small a space as
possible devoted to channeling.
There is no other consideration of importance. If the de-
signer can make his mechanism according to the above require-
ments, he will not need two valves to each pneumatic. If he
cannot, he will need a primary valve light enough to work quickly
on the tracker-bar air, and a secondary valve, worked by the
primary, large enough to control the pneumatic. It is wholly
a question of tension-level.
The above remarks have nothing to do with individual manu-
facturers using one system or the other. There is no superi-
ority in principle. The superiority or inferiority of any indi-
vidual mechanism must be judged on tke merits of that one alone.
But the point made here is, of course, that the impossibility
of 1908 has become the possibility of 1918. When a new mecha-
nism comes out to-day we perforce expect it to be built on the
single-valve system. This is simply because, other things being
equal, it is mechanically desirable to eliminate parts which are
legitimately eliminable.
On the whole, it is probably true to say that the single-
valve system has come to the front permanently, and that it will
be the system of the future. Its fight for recognition and its
gradual adoption form one of the most picturesque incidents in
the development of the player industry as the same has been
presented to us during the last decade. It is also probable that
the so-called unit-valve construction will be a feature of single
valve actions hereafter.
The Reproducing
Piano
The advent of the so-called reproducing piano has been
another extremely important and momentous event. The gradual
development of the idea forms part of the secret history of the
last ten years and even to-day it cannot be said that all the his-
tory has been written. Starting with the notion of a recorded
roll, the reproducing piano has been gradually worked out as a
player-piano using such rolls, with special devices for changing
the dynamic intensity of selected tones.
These devices, generally speaking, consist of a division of
the action into bass and treble halves, with a set of automatically
controlled governors for each half. A master expression gov-
ernor is provided for each half of the action, with other gover-
nors, three or more in number, each controlled by a different
spring-weight, working upon the master governor. By combin-
ing these suitably through marginal perforations in the roll,
various combinations of tone strength can be given to the suc-
cessive notes as their perforations pass the tracker-bar.
The editing of the roll—meaning by that the selection of
the tone-strength combinations, as expressed by combinations
of the governors, is a matter for careful work done after the
record is first made. The arrangers work in the various com-
binations under the eye of the artist who made the record, till
an approximation to the tone-strengths he used is obtained.
Various helps to this end have been devised for the purpose of
giving means for recording the general idea of the artist as to
the dynamic strengths. In any case, the roll must be carefully
edited, note by note almost, until the rendition is satisfactory.
Of course, various difficulties must often be evaded rather than
met. Tones to be picked out in the middle of chords must be
advanced or retarded; although, in fact, it is found by actual
comparison of the rolls that the artist in making such accentua-
tions at the keyboard insensibly cither advances or retards the
critical tones. This makes doctoring of the roll unnecessary.
Of course all this, though wonderfully ingenious and won-
derfully close to the real thing, still does not represent the ulti-
mate goal of achievement, although it is almost incredibly in
advance of the state of the art ten years ago. It does, however,
show one of the directions in which we are going and points to
still more remarkable accomplishments in the future.
With all this it is a remarkable fact that the growth of the
foot-driven player has been each year faster and faster. When
we find one house turning out thirty-live thousand actions in a
year, we find likewise that the foot-driven player is holding its
own most decidedly; nor is there any special likelihood that its
sway will be seriously disturbed. Those who have imagined that
the electric player, so-called, meaning the motor-driven player,
will do away with foot-pumping, are vastly mistaken, as the prog-
ress of the industry during the past three years plainly shows.
The people seem to like pumping; and unless the trade is far
from wise, it will not try to persuade them otherwsie.
The foot-driven player has of course been immensely im-
proved in sensitiveness, cleanness of repetition, simplicity and
reliability. But a good deal of its present popularity and strong
position is undoubtedly due to the fact that there have been estab-
lished schools for teaching the elements of player construction
and repair to tuners, which have been immensely successful. In
addition, the general spread of information through house-organ
magazines for tuners and repairmen and through technical cata-
logs has had its inevitable effect; and we now find that the
player-piano is no longer considered a mystery.
This matter of technical education, however, now that the
reproducing piano and the various automatic players for motion
picture work, etc., have become so important, is still of the ut-
most importance and it is clear that systematic work must be
done in the future aloiy* these lines. Still it must be remarked
that what has already been accomplished is considerable and
marks one of the most favorable aspects of the last ten years'
progress.
The "Automatic 99
The rise of the automatic player action during the last ten
years has been astonishing. Coincident with the great expansion
of the motion picture business, the opportunity to provide in-
struments capable of making the peculiar kind of music that
goes with the film has given rise to a large variety of instru-
ments, mainly based upon the motor-driven player-piano, but
embracing also organ attachments, accessories, traps, etc., and
often expanding out into large organs with the piano and acces-
sories as incidentals thereto. The development of this branch
of the industry has been astonishing, when one recollects that
ten years ago it hardly existed at all. It has of course all arisen
(Continued on page 11)