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JULY 27,
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
1918
The Problem of Devising an Electric Mechanism that Shall Eliminate the
Pneumatic System Now Used for the Operation of Player-Pianos Presents
Many Rather Unusual Difficulties, But Which May Some Day Be Solved
Some time ago the Editor of this Player Sec-
tion received an interesting letter from Byron
Shaw, of Pleasant Hill, 111., who is a piano
tuner and a student of the development of
player mechanism. Our correspondent has seen
at the recent music show in New York a new
type of electro-magnetic player mechanism
which seemed to him to have many features of
interest and novelty, particularly as to its small
size, adaptability to any piano without change
of case, and low cost as compared with pneu-
matic mechanisms. He asks us for an opinion
as to the future of these mechanisms.
The subject is certainly of more than aca-
demic interest, because very plainly the day is
coming when the high cost of manufacture and
perhaps also the stress of competition will cause
men in the trade to give careful thought to the
possibilities of the electric current as a motive
power more directly utilized than is at present
the case. One can conceive the argument be-
ing made that, since the idea of applying motor
drive to the player mechanism is already well
established, the further step of abolishing the
pneumatic system altogether, is by no means
illogical. If indeed it could be shown that elec-
tric mechanism might be constructed at a much
lower cost and with anything like equal effi-
ciency, it is not at all certain that the pneu-
matic action would continue to go unchallenged.
Incubation
Of course, the great difficulty with all new
ideas is that they are new. In other words,
the long and trying period of experiment and
trial must always be faced by anyone who would
take up a new system of construction, or a new
design. When a new principle is involved, noth-
ing can be more certain than that whatever
period of incubation has been found necessary
in previous developments, will likewise be found
necessary in the new one, no matter how much
better the principle may be in the one case than
in the other.
Considerations like these may always be re-
lied on to maintain a conservative view amongst
those who have the credit and prosperity of an
industry in their hands. A single failure in a
single design has, ere now, almost ruined a
lar,t?e and prosperous manufacturer.
Failures
The application of electric power direct to
the action of a piano for the purpose of per-
forming music has formed the subject of much
thought and many inventions during the last
fifty years. The files of the patent office bear
eloquent testimony to this, while it is only nec-
essary to look around us to perceive, not less
clearly, the complete failure of any of these in-
ventions to bear fruit.
Clever men, experi-
enced in the financing and marketing of indus-
tries like ours, and well acquainted with the
personnel and conditions of the piano trade,
have put much money into electric player ac-
tions, and. although some of these have been
very good, the attempt to popularize them has
not been considered worth while.
Yet it would be ridiculous to suppose that
electric action is either unpractical or incapable
of being produced economically. The advent
of a new and low-priced action shows that other
minds have not felt satisfied with the treatment
the idea has received in the past and are deter-
mined to give it another trial. It is to be hoped
that they will be completely successful, for their
success could only have a healthy and stimulat-
ing effect upon the whole trade.
Technical Points
But are there any technical points of special
interest that must be held in consideration when
the question of electric action is brought up?
Yes, there are, undoubtedly! Some of them are
extremely important, and it is impossible to
understand the nature of the engineering prob-
lem before the designer without having them
clearly in mind.
Touch
It must not be forgotten that the pneumatic
piano player has come very close indeed to
solving the problem of touch.
Wholly irre-
spective of the ability of the player-pianist in
any given case, the fact remains that the atmos-
pheric air, controlled under conditions which
permit its flexibility to be utilized, gives us a
power which appears to be capable of as much
refinement as the mind of the musician can con-
ceive, or execute through his fingers. This
statement is by no means yitiated by the rea-
sonably evident fact that, so far, the pneumatic
mechanism has not been developed to a point
where the flexibility of air in respect of its pres-
sure can be utilized to the fullest extent. But
this is only so because the pneumatic mechanism
must also be constructed, for commercial rea-
sons, so simply that an unskilled person can
use it with satisfaction and pleasure. Never-
theless, certain highly advanced refinements
have been designed and constructed which in-
dicate immense possibilities for the future. In
fact, it is perfectly proper to say that the at-
mospheric air furnishes us with a power of
which the capabilities for playing purposes have
hardly as yet been explored, much less ex-
hausted.
Current Control
Now it is exactly here that the first technical
point to be considered sticks out. The electric
WRIGHT-PUYER-ACriON
THE MOST DURABLE, RESPONSIVE AND
ACCESSIBLE, CONTAINING
THE WRIGHT METAL STACK
Motors,
Compensating
current, if it is to supersede the pressure of air,
must be equally capable of acting at any re-
quired pressure within the limits of the re-
quirements of piano playing. It is certain that
unless the power of the current can be modified,
some kind of elaborate lost-motion action must
be applied to the hammers of the piano, so that
the force of the current may be more or less
dissipated as required. But this is, in itself, a
wasteful system, and the experience of those
who have worked on such systems in the past
has been unfavorable towards its further em-
ployment.
Only a really efficient system of
current, control will put the electric action on
a level with the pneumatic system.
No such system of control seems as yet to
be in sight, although many approaches towards
it have been made. A system of steps, through
the ordinary form a resistance box or rheostat,
will by no means work satisfactorily, because
the required flexibility is not to be- had in this
way. The remarkable work done some years
ago by Dr. Cahill in his Telharmonic system
Rives hope, however, that a thoroughly practical
method for controlling current voltage to a de-
gree of flexibility approaching the capabilities
of the atmospheric air may yet be found.
The electro-magnetic system is apparently the
only possible one for applying electric power to
the piano action. Even when this is controlled
through a most carefully designed resistance sys-
tem, however, it seems to be somewhat jerky,
and there is, in our opinion, a very great ob-
stacle here to the perfecting of electric action.
The fact that the electric current performs only
the function of energizing the magnet, and that
the action of the magnetic power cannot actual-
ly be controlled through the air-gap between
armature and poles, seems to us to constitute
a difficulty of considerable magnitude.
There are other difficulties in the way, al-
though none of these can be called essential.
One of them undoubtedly will be connected with
the question of accent. There is an elaborate
problem here and one that so far has not been
solved.
Wiring
The question of power, the question of con-
si ruction, have not been considered. But it is
evident enough that the wiring and assembling
of the eighty-eight electro-magnets, together
with the necessary rheostats, the contract-bar
over which the paper roll must travel, the make-
and-break system at the tracker bar, and many
other details, present genuine problems which
will require the refining influences of time and
experimentation to bring to anything like per-
fection. Electric action has many interesting
and valuable possibilities, it is by no means
something to be put aside without considera-
tion; but at the same time it would be hard to
predict in what direction it will finally develop
itself.
We are quite sure, however, that many experi-
ments will be made in these directions during
the.next few years and that results of real im-
portance and significance will be attained.
Electric
Pomps and
SECURES WHITMAN AGENCY
Player Parts
to order
W R I G H T & S O N S C O M P A N Y , WO T RCETTIR?MAS S
The Whitman Piano Co. announced recently
that they have placed the sole agency for the
Weydig, Henkleman and Whitman pianos and
player pianos for Marshall and McCracken
counties, Kentucky, with Sam Peterson, of Pa-
ducah, Ky., and Sid J. Peterson, of Benton, Ky.