I received an E-Mail to one on my recent articles on Nickelodeons with
questions I thought I would answer in the digest.

"Nickelodeon" is an American slang term for the coin-operated player
piano.  Nickelodeons, as a word used by many American collectors,
encompasses just about any coin-operated player piano, from the basic
player operating only a piano and often a mandolin rail.  A mandolin rail
adds a different sound to the piano and can be found as a strip of cloth
or leather with metal paper fasteners that hangs between the hammers and
the strings.

There were different types of mandolin rails made over the years
including one that had little strips of wood that mounted to the hammer
spring rail that when the hammer struck the strings the little piece of
wood also hit the string such as Coinola and Cremona used.  These were
also used in a very few home players.

The term Orchestrion usually applies to coin operated player pianos
having drums in addition to an extra instrument such as pipes or
xylophone.  These can range all the way up to a machine having many ranks
of pipes, xylophone, drums, and other effects.

The best book is still the Bowers Encyclopedia of Automatic Instruments
available from several booksellers including those in the past MMD
articles.  There are several other good books which unfortunately are out
of print.

As to the question which roll is best?  That is a Million-Dollar
question.  If possible seek out some collectors that have pianos you can
hear.  The "A" roll is for players with mandolin and one extra
instrument.  It is the most common of the coin piano rolls.

The "G" roll used the same tracker bar, and in order to have drums and
controls for extra instruments, it had to use the some of the note holes
for these functions.  The "G" roll operated two ranks of pipes, snare
drum, bass drum with tympani, triangle, and mandolin.  It had 48 playing
notes, but in an actual instrument the  bass notes are coupled to play
octaves.  This gives you a full bass sound.  (If only some others had
done this. ...)   Several manufacturers used the "G" roll, which many
historians believe was originally intended for the Seeburg style "G"
piano.

In the twenties a new version of this roll appeared, known as the "4X"
roll.  The "4X" roll was the same as a "G" roll, but when the xylophone
is called for by the roll, the arrangements go nuts.  These roll
arrangements are for single stroke xylophones so they reiterate the
playing notes.  "G" rolls after number 600, cut on the Automatic label,
are "4X" arrangements.

Probably the most commonly used roll for new nickelodeons is the Coinola
style "O" roll.  They were easy to obtain and an ordinary 88-note home
player piano tracker bar could be used by drilling one extra hole in the
tracker bar usually.  They have plenty of holes for percussion effects
and the top two octaves play a solo on the extra instrument.  These rolls
played pipes, xylophone or bells, snare drum, bass drum, tympani, wood
block, triangle, tambourine, and crash cymbal all with its own tracker bar
hole.

The bottom octave in the bass is also coupled in the full size piano
models.  The cabinet models (not the SO model) used two different plates,
each with different number of playing notes.  The larger of these played
all the notes on the roll and the other one left the top octave off.
Many of these rolls had excellent arrangements as they were mostly made
by the Capitol Roll Company.

Capitol also made "A" rolls and "G" rolls.  Unfortunately Capitol "G"
rolls are very hard to find and very few are known to collectors.  Any
Capitol roll usually has the excellent arrangements collectors seek.
Capitol also sold 88-note rolls for home player pianos.  Many of the
"Silvertone" rolls which Sears-Roebuck Co. sold were made by Capitol.
There were also "C" nickelodeon rolls by Capitol for certain Coinola
pianos but these are rare.

Wurlitzer made their own rolls for the different instruments they sold.
Many of the later Wurlitzer "APP" rolls are made from Q.R.S. masters.
Wurlitzer "APP" rolls were the most common of the Wurlitzer rolls and can
be found with almost every tune known in their day and all kinds of
Mexican, Cuban, Polish, Greek, or you-name-it type of music.  The "APP"
roll was also used on their Caliola organ, which was the Wurlitzer
version of the calliope.  When sales for the *huge* Style 180 band organ
slowed, many of these band organs were converted to "APP" rolls.  The
"APP" roll has anywhere from excellent arrangements to some
not-so-excellent.  These rolls operate drums and two extra instruments.
One instrument is always on as the machines were made to have one
instrument on while the other was off.  In late rolls they used a
multiplex system that enabled the machines to have a third instrument
such as bells or xylophone.   These rolls also have to have a special
tracker bar that generally has not been readily available at a cost
compared to 88-note tracker bars (O roll) or 65 note tracker bars (A and
G roll).

There were other types of excellent rolls used on nickelodeons that the
home builder might want to try his hand at.  I have only mentioned the
more common rolls and tried to be brief.  There was a book on this
subject at one time, but it too is out of print.  I know I have left out
someone's favorite roll type or something about a roll that someone
likes, but then this is my response to a couple of E-mail questions and
not a book.

By the way if anyone would like to share their Capitol A or G rolls with
a few of us collector types then contact me or Rob DeLand.

Don Teach
Shreveport Music Co.
1610 E. Bert Kouns
Shreveport,  LA  71105
dat-smc@juno.com