Posts Tagged ‘History Of Electronic Music’

THE HISTORY OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC. Part 24: How A Business Machine And A Childs Toy Met In The Middle. The History Of The Phonograph. Chapter 2

Part 24.  How A Business Machine And A Child’s Toy met In The Middle.

The History of the Phonograph. Chapter 2

In the last episode we found out about the invention of the first ever, audio recording device, and Thomas Edison’s creation the Phonograph, that started an r-evolution that would change the world.

Today we continue our story looking at an  invention that became the humble record player we know and love today.

In 1886, Charles Sumner Tainter and Chichester Bell invented a device that used wax coated cylinders that were engraved using a vertical method that became known as hill and dale. Their device was named the Graphophone.

Emile's wife was going to kill him when she relised he chopped up the garden hose..

Emile's wife was going to kill him when she realized he chopped up the garden hose..

In 1887, Emile Berliner, a German born American came up with a method of using a lateral stylus movement that imprinted it’s vibrations as it moved in a spiral along a zinc disc.
He named this invention the Gramophone. (any one watch the Grammy’s??)

Looking at early patents from Edison, it’s clear that he also considered the idea of recording sound as a spiral on disc, but as the velocity and pressure of the stylus is greater the closer to the middle the disc, he opted to go for the more “scientifically correct” cylinder where the velocity and pressure remain constant.

It’s interesting to note, that Edison didn’t see the phonograph’s primary use as a music player, and initially wasn’t marketed in this way at all.
In a suggested list of it’s 10 most useful applications, Edison listed 8 of them based around the voice for educational, business and archival purposes, only 2 refer to music reproduction including music-boxes and toys. (and none of them refer to using them as placemats in cafes??!)

Despite Edison’s intentions for the Phonograph to become a business machine, by 1889, something of a commercial recording industry had started up. The first phonographic parlor was opened in San Francisco, here customers would select which songs to listen to on their hired phonograph salon.

Initially musicians would have to record into several phonographs at once and keep repeating the performance until enough copies were created to satisfy the demand.The recordings were all made acoustically, the music was recorded through a horn that led to the recording diaphragm.
Both the frequency range and the sensitivity was of  low quality, and wax was a poor medium for capturing music.
Singer’s would almost have to put their face into the recording horn, apparently standard violins were barely usable, but Cello’s and double bases were completely un-recordable.

But despite all this, the novelty value of hearing music jump off a cylinder or disc was immense. The start of the century saw the industry start to pick up speed.

Canned music!

Canned music!

Phonograph cylinders were sold in cardboard tubes, with cardboard lids at each end. These tubes were used to protect the recordings. These containers and the shape of the cylinders (together with the “tinny” sound of early records compared to live music) prompted bandleader John Phillip Sousa to famously make fun of the records as canned music. But he did still record on them.

Click here to hear 1 of Sousa’s recordings.

Berliner’s invention of the gramophone gave the industry a much-needed boost, he also invented a method of creating a matrix (or master disc) that could be used to duplicate almost unlimited copies.

Despite that fact that his first commercial applications were for toys, he quickly realized the gramophones’ musical potential and hired famous musicians to be recorded to promote his discs.

The maximum available duration had a big impact on music of the time.

By the beginning of the 20th century both cylinder s and the early discs played for 2 minutes.

In 1903 Victor released a 12 inch disc that could record a whopping 3 minutes 30 seconds! This had a massive influence on the duration of commercial music, and to a very large degree is where we get the short radio friendly edits of pop songs today.


Here’s a clip of Jene Bailey’s Orchestra playing “All Aboard For Heaven” c. April 1925 it’s played from a restored 1901 Zon- O-
Phone “Home” disc phonograph or Gramophone.

That’s not to say that longer tracks were not recorded. One of the workarounds to this problem was to release sets of records.  The first multi-record release happened in 1903. HMV England released the very first complete recording of an Opera, Verdi’s ‘Erani’ and it came in a tidy little package of 40 single sided discs!

The Famous His Masters Voice Dog, He's be 23,000 years old now in dog years.

The Famous His Masters Voice Dog, He'd be 23,000 years old now in dog years.

In America at the start of 1900, there were 2 leading flat disc manufactures that were far bigger than the rest, Columbia whose discs were played at 80 rpm and Victor whose discs played at a speed of 76rpm. The fact that both companies’ discs could be played on each others respective players meant that eventually the speeds met in the middle and 78rpm became the standard for the fist few decades.

So the phonograph and the gramophone had grown up a little, starting as a business machine and a children’s toy respectively, people were starting to enjoy them both as a way of connecting to music. And remember this is all before electricity was used in households!

The next 30 years saw many changes as the industry matured into something the world had never seen before.

Find out what in part 25 CLICK HERE.

CLICK HERE for the previous chapter

CLICK HERE for the INDEX of History Of Electronic Music


THE HISTORY OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC: Part 23. In The Beginning There Was Soot… The History Of The Phonograph. Chapter 1.

Part 23.  In The Beginning there was soot…

The History of the Phonograph. Chapter 1.

In 2008 something incredible happened in the history of sound.

It was rewritten.

Up until 2 years ago, it was common belief that Thomas Edison was the first person to record sound that was capable of play back.

That was until modern technology “caught up” to the world’s first sound recorder.

the Phonoautograph, you speak in that thingy there and turn that whatsit over there, and call forhelp beacuse you ruined it.

The Phonoautograph, you speak in that thingy there and turn that whatsit over there, and then call for help because you ruined it. -image courtesy of firstsounds.org-

In 1855 Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville ,a French printer and bookseller from Paris created the device he called the Phonoautograph. It Consisted of a mouthpiece horn and membrane that was attached to a stylus which recorded the fluctuations of sound on a rotating cylinder that was wrapped in smoke blackened paper. (phew that sentence was almost as long as Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville’s name!)

Unfortunately he wasn’t able to devise a way to play back the sound recorded, (which to my way of thinking is the equivalent of eating some funny mushrooms and then writing down the secret to the universe then afterward not being able to read what what you wrote.)
As a result the phonoautograph was manufactured and sold as a laboratory instrument for analyzing sound. (and the secret to the universe will stay in my 2nd drawer neatly folded until the chosen one with magical reading skills come along).

Just over 150 years later Scientists at Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory in California analyzed a cylinder that Martinville recorded back in 1860. Incredibly, they managing to playback a ten second recording of the French folksong Au Clair de la Lune.

To hear the earliest known recorded sound that was trapped in charcoal for 148 years watch the above youtube clip, or  click here. This is will take you to the home site of the firstsounds.org project.
NOTE: for those wondering. It categorically does not say “Help me! The evil Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville has trapped me in soot for nearly 150 years!”
Because that would just be silly.

Another Frenchman, scientist Charles Cros, conceptualised the phonograph, but was unable to create a working model.
By the time Cros’ theory was made public, Thomas Edison had created a working phonograph.
Thus both Edison and Charles Cross are recognized with independent discoveries of the phonograph. ( A good fact to remember for the pub trivia).

This phonograph was made a long time ago but photographed recently, we know this because it's in c-o-l-o-u-r!

This phonograph was made a long time ago but photographed recently, we know this because it's in c-o-l-o-u-r!

In 1877 Thomas Edison was working on 2 other inventions, the telephone and the telegraph.
While trying to create a machine that would write telegraphic messages,  a “telegraph repeater,” which would “record Morse code signals by indenting dots and dashes on a paper tape,” , he noticed that the tape of  the machine gave off a noise similar to words. Speculating on this, Edison designed a device with the intention to be able to record a telephone message.

At first he used a stretched taught diaphragm attached to an embossing needle that was passed rapidly against paraffin paper, later he refined his design by swapping the paper for a tinfoil wrapped cylinder. It had 2 needles, 1 for writing on to the cylinder and 1 for playing it back, which was achieved by swapping the mouthpiece for a “reproducer” which had a more sensitive diaphragm.

Edison gave this design to his head lab mechanic, John Kreusi, legend has it that Kreusi built it in 30 hours!
On getting his hands on the machine, Edison tested it out immediately by reciting the nursery rhyme “mary had a little lamb”.
Despite expecting some success, he was amazed when the machine spoke his words back to him in a small tinny voice.

.

.

Edison organized a presentation with his good friend, the editor of the Scientific America

“Mr. Thomas A. Edison recently came into this office, placed a little machine on our desk, turned a crank, and the machine inquired as to our health, asked how we liked the phonograph, informed us that it was very well, and bid us a cordial good night.”

Need less to say the folks witnessing were impressed, the following quote is from the same article as quoted above found in the Scientific American Nov.17, 1877.

“It has been said that Science is never sensational; that it is intellectual, not emotional; but certainly nothing that can be conceived would be more likely to create the profoundest of sensations, to arouse the liveliest of human emotions, than once more to hear the familiar voices of the dead. Yet Science now announces that this is possible, and can be done…. Speech has become, as it were, immortal.”

My favorite of all the recordings can be found in the creative commons it’s of an after dinner Speech at the “Little Menlo” in London.
George Gouraud had come to London to demonstrate Edison’s “Perfected” Phonograph. Gouraud demonstrated the phonograph to various celebrities in a series of Phonograph Parties in the autumn of 1888 and made recordings of their reactions as messages for delivery to Thomas Edison. Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) was one of these guests, and it is his speech to Edison that appears here.

Transcription:

George Gouraud:
Little Menlo, October 5th 1888; From Gouraud to Edison, continuation of introduction of friends. Now listen to the voice of Sir Arthur Sullivan.

Arthur Sullivan:

Dear Mr. Edison,
If my friend, Edmund Yates has been a little incoherent, it is in consequence of the excellent dinner, and good wine which he has drunk. Therefore, I beg you would excuse him. He has his lucid intervals.
For myself, I can only say that I am astonished and somewhat terrified at the results of this evening’s experiment — astonished at the wonderful power you have developed, and terrified at the thought that so much hideous and bad music may be put on record forever. But all the same, I think it is the most wonderful thing that I have ever experienced, and I congratulate you with all my heart on this wonderful discovery.
-Arthur Sullivan

I just love the line that Edmund Yates has his lucid intervals..

You can listen for yourself by clicking on this link Arthur_Sullivan_-_wax_cylinder_recording

Edison may have been the bad boy of the inventer gang, but his 3 legged chair sucked.

Edison may have been the bad boy of the inventer gang, but his 3 legged chair sucked.

Even though interest was great, it would be another 20 years before the world would really take to this world changing invention.

And it truly was, Edison had discovered the fundamental nature of sound.

Sound at it’s simplest description are fluctuations in air pressure.
The effect of vibration (waves) as they are reflected and captured by the minute diaphragm that vibrates in our ear in response.

This means that every sound has it’s own vibrational signature, by speaking into Edison’s Phonograph, the diaphragm vibrates in response to the vibrations of your voice, which is then embossed on the tin foil, playback was basically achieved by reversing the process.

This remains the fundamental method of all analog recording and playback we use today.
(which to me is the equivalant of eating normal mushrooms and writing down the secret to the universe and then everyone being able to read and understand it!)

What happens next? Does Edison’s Phonograph fall into the wrong hands? Does Edouard-of-the-long-french-name succeed in capturing anyone else using just tinfoil and a rubber band?

CLICK HERE FOR PART 24 THE NEXT EXCITING INSTALLMENT INTO THE HISTORY OF THE PHONOGRAPH.

CLICK HERE for the INDEX of History Of Electronic Music


THE HISTORY OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC: Part 19. The Reproducing Piano.. ..what it can have Babies?

The Reprouducing Piano. ..What! It can have Babies?

No, not really no.

baby pianos should not be seperated from their mother and like to fed nursery ryhmes and folk songs

Baby pianos should not be seperated from their mother and like to fed nursery ryhmes and folk songs

But it’s birth was one of proper recorded live music…

In Part 18 we met the player-piano-player family of instruments.

We learned that many felt that the largest and final fault of these instruments was that they were not actually fully automatic, as the player had to control the tempo and interpret what the tempo should be at any moment in the song. It also could not properly replay the subtle dynamic shading’s of master players.

There was another camp of Players that believed that controlling the tempo, interpreting the flow of the music, much like a conductor is the art of playing these instruments.

Non the less, it is true to say that the scrolls that were created, for many, many years, were created by transcribing or translating the musical notation into a system of perforated holes. (holy music anyone?)

While music notation is an incredibly accurate way of recording the mechanics, the mathematics of the music, the map is not the territory.

It cannot describe the dynamics, the soul of the music that is created through slight fluctuations of tempo and dynamics of struck notes.

This type of problem appeared again many decades later, with the invention of sequencers, drum machines and sound generators.
The technology did not fully mature until it could swing the notes, strike the individual tones with slight changes and differences, put a human soul style into the artificial output.

Then what is a Reproducing Piano?  It’s a Piano that can play back or be able to reproduce the performance of a human playing on it or another piano. It effectively records the performance as the changes in notes, tempo and dynamics.

Something to keep in mind, is that Player-Piaono-Players were not seen as passive instruments. These were approached as an accessible interactive musical

This ia a classic Version of a Piano Player Player, not be mixed up with a hip hop player player becasue then you'll probably get dead.

Remember this Guy? He's a classic Version of a Piano Player Player, not to get mixed up with a Gangsta Player Player, because then you'll probably get dead.

instrument that were easier to play than any previous music instrument. While the Organette can really be considered the first truly domestic passive automatic instrument but was seen more as a novelty.

This mindset is important to note, because it explains why and how the Reproducing Piano came about more or less as a byproduct or accident.
The earliest versions came about in order to speed up production.

As it was often a very laborious and time consuming job to create the master scroll or stencils, early attempts to notate the scrolls live during a performance we’re mainly created as a way of speeding up the process of creating the music rolls. Even when the master players sat down to record onto these scroll masters, they were often just used as masters and would then be copied by hand (with small variation in where the holes were being created.

The earliest methods, were more used for automatic musical notating that could be used to create a stencil to be cut out by hand afterward.

This should not be under looked, this in fact was probably the first automatic method to record improvisation! (think of of it as a the Protools!)

The First technological breakthrough was the invention of real time perforating machines around 1894. The accuracy of recording the notes was truly amazing when compared to even midi as pianola.org explains;

“ but as early as 1894 there were real-time perforating machines in the USA which could instantly produce rolls from the playing of pianists. George Howlett Davis, an American engineer who worked for a while in the 1890s for the Automaton Piano Company of New York, patented at least two designs for perforating machines, which could be operated from a piano keyboard. In a British patent which he applied for in 1900, he speaks of working to an accuracy of 2,200 perforations per minute, roughly 1/37th of a second. Given that player pianos can reproduce complicated music with many notes simultaneously, this is not so much worse than our present-day MIDI, which, if it is subjected to the twenty-note chords sometimes played by duettists, can only manage 1/50th of a second.”

But this still did not record the pacing and dynamics faithfully as the master.

It was in 1904 that an Instrument Called the ‘Mignon Artistic Player Piano’ came into the world.  Invented by Edwin Welt and Karl Bockisch

ahh the good ole days.. i still remember Aunt Agatha freaking out.. "james!" she cried, "someone's stolem all the liquor in the canbinet and replaced it with a piano!"

ahh the good ole days.. i still remember Aunt Agatha freaking out.. "Cuthbert!" she cried, "someone's stolen all the liquor in the cabinet and replaced it with a piano!"

for the company Michael Welt and Sohne. This German Company was known through out the world for producing beautiful Orchestrons.

It seems that the ‘mignon’ developed out of the technology they used to record the music rolls for automatic organs.

What we know for sure is that they developed an ‘experimental’ piano playing recording device, this device was able to record a piano performance and then through the use of the Mignon Player Piano automatically play it back reproducing the notes, tempo, dynamics, phrasing and pedaling – thus the first reproducing Piano was born.

It was also an unusual thing to behold, as it was not really a piano player, or player piano. It lacked a keyboard and was often described as looking like an ornate sideboard.

Even though mechanically it was a piano, and that other Reproducing Pianos that followed contained keyboards, I believe the ethos of the Welte-Mignon was telling, this instrument was not meant to be played upon. This was a playback instrument, and the companies aim was to record for playback the performances of the finest Piano players alive.

In fact, the excellent Pianola.org has some recordings of just this click here.

The musical capabilities of this new invention brought the attention of many great pianists, and garnered a well-deserved respect very quickly indeed.
One of it’s great recording features was it’s ability to use electric contacts floating on mercury to record the notes played, thus keeping the feel of the keys light for these maestros to record on.

It wasn’t long before the Mignon mechanism was also installed on Steinway’s and Feurich pianos (this time with Keyboard).

Although there were many other competitors that entered the reproducing market, we’re just going to concentrate on one other, the Aeolian Companies reproducing piano the Duo-art.

The Duo-art hit the market 9 years after the Welte-Mignon, this is quite significant given that the Aeolian Company were by far the biggest player (pun intended) in the Player Piano market.

The reason for this tardiness?
Well my initial thoughts were that the chief engineer had dropped his keys behind the piano, and You know how hard it is to get them back out again..

But apparently I was way, way off. (go figure?)

Pianola.org suggests that reasons were 2 in number.

1) A belief that this technology would not take off, because Pianola players wanted to create their own interpretations of this music, rather than sit and listen passively.

2) The developmental/experimental department was occupied with an unfortunate failure -  A synchronized phonograph and player piano.

This once again shows their emphasis on the interactive over the passive.

Unlike the Welte-Mignon, the Duo-Art’s recording process didn’t automatically record the players tempo and dynamics straight from the keys, instead a musical producer would man 2 dials beside the piano that would control the speed and dynamics recorded live onto the perforating machine.
Once a few copies were made, they would be re run the through the machine as a live performance where the producer, the player or the composer himself could control these variations until satisfied with the performance. In some ways the recordings on the Duo-Art can be seen as studio albums, and the Welte-Mignon that of live albums.

Even though it was the phonograph that in the end would later dominate the playback market, their recordings were scratchy and dull at best and required the user to replace the needle itself quite often.

Even to this day, there is something magical about hearing an instrument re-produce live a recording that was captured at another time and place.

Many believe that there is no better substitute to a live performance of  a master Pianist.

The player-piano-player family still survives somewhat today. The music scroll versions mainly due to the it’s rare owners loving care and careful restoration. Thanks to modern technologies like midi, they can be used to interpret live performance or even previously recorded, or notated, and then sent to a perforating machine.

they had to fit a car alarm to this, as the local gang kept nicking it, thinking it was a car stereo..

they had to fit a car alarm to this, as the local gang kept nicking it, thinking it was a car stereo..

There are new digital technologies that are available for both the player pianos and piano players, proving that the art – the medium still has something going for it. I believe that that while the piano is envogue these instrument’s will also be around.

We’ll soon be devoting a post to these modern versions in our technology section, so watch out for that.

The fall from mass popularity heralded a new way that modern society related to music, this was reflected in the advertising of the day.

Adverts for Player Pianos and Piano Players always had the people in the picture participating in the experience; suddenly these people were passive, concentrating on the performance.

It’s interesting to note that the active participating in the music has made a come back through computer games and hand held’s.
Games such as the Guitar Hero and Rockband Franchises, allow people to get involved with the music they have previously loved only from a passive listening or active dancing state.

Sure games likes these are seen as a novelty now, but they’re  immensely popular, who knows what new developments are in store for us in the future?

Speaking of the Future, Merry Christmas Everyone and Happy New Year!!!

We start a brand new thread to our tale next chapter Click here for part 20. The Attack of the Automatons!

CLICK HERE for the previous chapter

CLICK HERE for the INDEX of History Of Electronic Music


THE HISTORY OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC: Part 18. Player Piano Playing vs Piano Player Playing, Confused Much?

Part 18.  Player Piano Playing vs Piano Player Playing, Confused much?

There’s a very good chance that you’ve heard of the Pianola.

This is a Player-Piano. ( and a baby)

This is a Player-Piano. ( and a baby)

There’s also a very good chance that when you think of the Pianola you think of the upright piano with a window in the middle containing a scroll with holes in the paper. This is because that this was by the far the most popular and well marketed Brand of player piano’s, but the Pianola actually started life as a different device altogether a piano player (and an automatic one at that). Confused yet?

Just to make it a little more confusing, Pioanola is a brand created by the Aeolian Company, there also other brands of Piano Players created by other companies such as The Apollo, The Angelus, the Pleyela and the Simplex which had one of my favorite slogans, “anyone can play anything”

Ok, now that Ive turned a perfectly good introduction into a confusing heap of information let me attempt to get a shovel and dig my way out..

A Piano Player is an automatic device that is separate to the piano or organ. It sits in front and above the keyboard, it reads a perforated scroll and then depresses the keys using small fingers made of wood and metal covered in felt

A Player Piano is a Piano that reads scrolls as part of the inner workings and then strikes the different notes from inside the piano think of it as an all in one device.

..And this is a Piano-Player (no baby).

..And this is a Piano-Player (no baby).

The First published Piano Player seems to have been invented around 1879 by Merrit Gally.

Aeolian’s first Pianola was released in 1895, the Pianola Institute describes this as the first truly musical Piano Player.

Even though Piano Players were at first more successful than Player Piano’s it should be noted that, the latter were released onto the market first.
(I’m not making this any less confusing am i???)

The player piano had the edge initially because many of those interested in the technology already had a piano and were loath to throw it out to replace it with what at the beginning was an unproven product.

The Piano Players were a less expensive addition.

The Pianola was a huge hit, and were shipped all round the world, Queen Victoria was even known to have one!

The Pianola stayed as Piano Player until 1903 when the now very successful Aeolian Company bought the well very respected Weber Piano Company.
This meant for the first time the Aoelian Company could build both pianos and piano players, the result was the release of  Pianola as a Player Piano.
Now The Aoeloan Company and Player Pianos had the two factors they needed to become popular:
1) It had been around and was a proven technology
2) It could be installed into a piano with a good reputation.

This was improved further,  after January 1909, when The Aeolian Company signed an exclusive deal with Steinway to be able to install a foot operated Pianola mechanism into their Pianos.

To give you an idea just how seriously these instruments were taken; in 1908 the piano industry got together and worked out a universal standard (like mp3, or midi today) that they could all agree on that got rid of the biggest weakness of both Player Pianos and Piano Players.
Previously the maximum range of notes that could be played from the scrolls were 65, now thanks to advancements in hole punching technology (heh what a funny statement) they could read and play the full piano scale of 88 notes.

The Guy at the Pianolo is controlling the tempo and the pedals (well he's not really he's a just an illustration)

The Guy at the Pianolo is controlling the tempo and the pedals (well he's not really, he's a just an illustration)

For some the other major flaw of the scrolling music players were it’s lack of automatic tempo. I say for some, because many players believed and still believe today, that controlling the tempo, interpreting the flow of the music, much like a conductor does, is the art of playing these instruments.
This is an important point. Even though many would see the pumping of pedals and slight adjustments by hand as a passive interaction to music, for Pianola Players of then and now it’s anything but.

Player Piano players and Piano Player players (another great statement) were all seen as musicians of sorts. These technologies were still active – they required interaction, there was a human performer between the instrument and the audience.

These magic playing pianos effectively increased the distribution of music throughout the western world, and much of the rest.

Look thats how it works.... sort of.

Look that's how it works.... sort of.

Like all inventions in this series it changed the way we relate to music, it changed what we heard, and how we heard it.

It wasn’t until the decline in popularity of this technology, that the phonograph and radio emerged to change our relationship with sound even more permanently.

But we’re not finished with these automatic keyboards players yet. There is one more important step to cover with these Majestic Music Roll machines.

Find out what in PART 19  CLICK HERE

CLICK HERE for the previous chapter

CLICK HERE for the INDEX of History Of Electronic Music


THE HISTORY OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC: Part 17. Finally Everyone Could Have Their Own Phantom Of The Opera!

Part 17:  Finally Everyone Could Have Their Own Phantom Of The Opera!

Welcome to part 17!

Last installment we explored the strange portable world of the Organette, today we’re going to find all about one of it’s bigger siblings, the Player Organ.

As the table top Organettes had become popular enough to become established, people started to discover their faults.

Most had an average range of fourteen notes, once the composer you used the notes for the melody there were normally only enough notes left for are very basic accompaniment.

As the richer folk had already been investing in barrel mounted flute organs for a while it was a natural evolution for the roller operated organ to be produced.

Even though historically the player Organ developed roughly in tandem with Organettes, they were aimed at a richer more musically discerning demographic.

This thing was the cats PJ's..

This thing was the Cat's PJ's..

The differences that made the Player Organs far superior became very obvious very quickly, especially on models that were released after 1890.
The larger models had a range of 58 notes, and often had many different ranks of reeds (timbres of sound).

They attracted the respect of famous musicians who had them installed into their homes, and the adulation of the rich and famous were given, Pope Leo XIII himself granted a private audience to the technological marvel.

The best of these roll operated reed organs was the Orchestrelle created by the leading maker of Player Organs, the Aeolian Company.

It was capable of playing the two manual 116 note rolls of it’s  ultimate Big brother the Aeolian Pipe organ.

more fancy than the fancy silver on the fancy tablecloth...

more fancy than the fancy silver on the fancy tablecloth...

The Orchestrelle was designed to reproduce the tones of different orchestral instruments, enabling those that could afford it, the incredible luxury, of playing whole symphony arrangements in their own home.

It’s ultimate bigger brother the Aeolian Pipe organ, as the name suggests, was not a reed organ but a pipe organ.

It could play rolls that had a range of 116 notes it could manage 2 manuals and even control pedals.
Unfortunately it wasn’t until the devolpment of the reproducing organ in the 1920 that automatic tempo was added.

The Aeolian Pipe organ caused a pretty big stir on the professional music scene, with famous composers writing specifically for it.
The Aeolian Company used this publicity to sell these incredibly expensive machines to the very wealthy and apparently even managed to get some of these buyers, to invest back into the company as they attempted to get into the mass market with what became their most famous and successful venture.

The Pianola. (More on that in part 18).

The Player Organ was important not only as a much needed step in the refinement of automatic music, but also raised the bar far above the novelty music of it’s predecessors, turning  an automatic music maker into a serious musical instrument to be respected.
It’s technological advances also meant parallel advances in the ability to create sophisticated musical instructions.

In our next installment Part 18 we look at another way that solved the riddle of automatic music playing… CLICK HERE

CLICK HERE for the previous chapter

CLICK HERE for the INDEX of History Of Electronic Music