Player Pianos and the "Younger Generation"
By Bryan Cather
Troy Taylor's comments concerning player pianos and the younger generation struck a chord with me. I am 30 years old and am often amazed at how many people of my generation not only have never heard a player piano, but never even knew they existed.
I do volunteer work at our local historical museum, which has a player piano. Most of the third-graders in our school district come through the museum, and I always play a roll for them. The look on their faces begins with a sort of detached curiosity as I talk about the player and show them a roll. However, as the first few notes play, a look of awe and wonder flashes over them. They grin from ear to ear, focusing their entire attention to the instrument, something they rarely do while touring the other exhibits. Many of their teachers have them write us thank-you notes, and they seldom fail to mention the piano as one of their favorites.
I try to play the piano for all our visitors. Many of the adults over 40 or so make comments like "You know, when I was a kid my great aunt Edna had one of these; we used to pump like crazy to make it play." When the generation encompassing their parents hear me "interpreting" an 88-note roll, they often remark that they never knew you could do that, and that it sounds so nice.
But it is those of us under 40 or so who concern me most. I have talked to many of them who have no idea that there ever WAS (or is) such a thing as a player piano. For them, it is completely foreign (regardless of what music it plays). For the most part, too, they are fascinated by these instruments when they hear one for the first time. There is a terrible public misconception that player piano are loud, tinny noisemakers -- something we all know is not true. I'd venture to say that most people don't think of player pianos as serious musical instruments.
If our precious hobby is to continue _after_ the present generation of player owners and restorers, we need to take a serious look at getting these instruments into the public mind-set as being capable of artistic performances. Historical museums many times have a player in the collection. Also, in my area there are a lot of antique malls with tea rooms. For years, one of the antique malls here had a completely restored pumper near the tea room, but nobody in the mall had rolls, so it sat there, silent, until it finally was sold. I kick myself for not arranging to provide music on Saturday afternoons.
On vacation a few years ago I found a restaurant in Colorado with a perfectly functional player in the dining room, and one roll. The roll was a fairly new one, but the piano sat idle because the tab had torn off and nobody had tried to fix it. I can see why: with only one roll to play, I'm sure everyone was sick of it.
There are opportunities out there to generate public interest in players, but we have to be alert to them. Otherwise we are to die on the vine. The artists who recorded their generation's hopes and dreams into their music rolls deserve not to be forgotten. As collectors we have the awesome responsibility to keep their memory alive.
Bryan Cather
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(Message sent Sat 8 Feb 1997, 04:07:09 GMT, from time zone GMT-0500.) |
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