Hello MMD readers,  For some time, I've seen a series of postings
devoted to the "why" of the Player-Piano industry decline, which began
after World War One and then accelerated with the development of radio
(especially the alternating current models, which apparently began with
the Atwater-Kent receivers).  Crystal sets and batteries didn't really
fit into the parlour, as did the Victrola or the Pianola.  Once a
wooden cabinet and a "plug in" cord were available, radio became a
sensation with the average household.

While there are many reasons for this industry decline, all valid in
special ways, my opinion is that "bad rolls" (that is, unimaginative
formula arranging) were the chief cause of the total demise, prior
to the Great Depression.  Otto Schulz, of the Auto-Typist and the
previously the 'Aria Divina' players, wrote me on several occasions,
variations of this statement, "After I got out of college and joined
the family's piano business, the player market declined 30% a year,
until by the late 1920s there was just about nothing left."  He
remarked that Schulz used to sell Bloomingdale's and other department
stores two of their small 'Marionette' player grands per crate, at
approximately $700.00, in the latter part of the decade.  "I wish I
could get one of those back, today, at that price," he wrote me in the
late 1960s.

I have long felt that the Player-Piano and the expression models, the
so-called "Reproducing" Piano, could have downsized as an industry and
survived, as they did in Europe, right up to World War II and possibly
beyond, as a postwar phenomenon, if the music rolls had been better.

Remember, that the decline of the player instrument came along just as
fantastic piano solos were being published by the Robbins Co., and when
the entertainment industry featured highly skilled keyboard performers
of popular music, such as Pauline Alpert, Arden & Ohman, Lee Sims,
Eddie Duchin, Zez Confrey, Roy Bargy, Vincent Lopez, Dana Seusse and
many more.  The music was there, and it was fresh.  The artists were
to be heard on broadcasts, via the phonograph and also in talking
pictures, especially Vitaphone shorts.

What happened?  The names of these celebrated artists were used on
stock music rolls, releases which just "played the tune" and
contributed nothing of their virtuoso performance styles, which these
pianists, from approximately 1925 to around 1936, all possessed.  One
commercial roll was just like another, but an artist's logotype on the
music rolls would be changed to suggest variety.

The player roll industry was a labour intensive, low paying
manufacturing exercise.  It attracted many people who could, for
a variety of reasons, not gain a steady income in the world of
vaudeville, radio broadcasting and the many traveling dance orchestras.
There were, among the staff arrangers, women, blacks, and alcoholic
males, all of whom could be used, inexpensively, by the player roll
factories.  Many of these arrangers probably had not the skills, the
time (this being piecework!) or the resources (such as phonograph
records) to participate in the "musical analysis" necessary to suggest
a sense of 'keyboard attack' and artist's 'individuality' for the
Master Roll, even if it were published in the names of distinctive
popular pianists.

The trick here is to convey the idea of the artist's performance
through arranging, and using techniques which are particularly suited
to the Pianola.  This is a creative approach, something apart from a
hack job, where the music is forced into striking-and-stepping formulae
established by the factory "rules".

In other words, "quickly done and cheaply made" was the concept lurking
behind most of the rolls made during this period of industry decline.

Advertising, which previously promoted home musicales, with the
Player-Piano and its operator as the center of attention, now engaged
in decorative interior scenes, where the electric player grand,
especially, became "furniture that played".  If you look at the typical
Ampico advertisement of this later period, the decor predominates in
many of the visuals.  Kohler & Campbell went the "ghost route" in their
later ads for the Welte-Mignon Licensee player, using not the interior
decorating avenue, but the "recorded history" approach; one of the
typical phrases involved de Pachmann and the headline puffery entitled,
"Through You I Live Forever."  (The fact that rolls on the expression
players have to be monitored, and corrected for tempo after
approximately two minutes of playing time, never seemed to enter into
the litany of claims for the later instruments.)

Even Story and Clark, promoting their line of Miniature Player-Pianos
(50" high), went so far as to suggest that the family take it out of
doors on a Spring day, set it on the lawn and let the children enjoy
a Maypole Dance.

(My '29 Reprotone is one of these instruments, merely having a cut out
control for transposing full-scale 88-Note rolls and 80 key expression
rolls.  It's not something you'd wish to transport from the parlour,
down the front steps and set up in the front yard!  Today, my example
of this Miniature Player-Piano, rests in a custom built steel piano
tray with rubber wheels and brakes, being used for concert hall
appearances.  The richly-toned piano is not so portable as claimed in
the Story & Clark advertising texts, which were reinforced by
outrageous illustrations of, in this case, a "Summer Garden Party with
the Miniature Player-Piano".)

What would one play on the late electric players or the
allegedly-portable uprights, like the Reprotone described above?

Stock rolls by Frank Milne which were supposedly "Gershwin", "Duchin",
"Edythe Baker" and "Pauline Alpert" were the norm at Aeolian, later
"Arden & Ohman" for Aeolian-American in the 1930s.  Delcamp and/or
Susskind churned out rolls in the names of "Reichenthal/Rainger",
"Friml" and even "Hoagy Carmichael".  QRS drew upon the services for
Max Kortlander and later J. L. Cook for their rapidly made
get-the-notes-to-play-the-melody releases.

Had the player industry opted for less rolls, but more exciting
arrangements, which used graduated striking and carried the essence of
performance individuality, I'm certain that a dedicated nucleus of
enthusiasts would have kept the downsized industry going.  A return to
the involvement and participation by the owner should have been in
order, while the falsehoods about "record/playback" could have been
phased out, along with the "tasteful decor" advertising campaigns.

During all of these events, Howard Lutter, the Kohler/Autopiano
musician behind most of the brown box Welte-Licensee rolls in some
capacity, continued to make sparkling commercial arrangements and
bestowed on real artists a sense of "performance shape".  His
expressive Welte arrangements didn't sound like Vee Lawnhurst or Harry
Perrella, when compared to their phonograph records of the same day,
but almost every Lutter-based arrangement had something to say
musically and a sense of the "style" which was missing from the typical
QRS, Ampico and Duo-Art rolls of that pivotal period.  If the Licensee
player had been heard by more people, at that time, history might have
been altered in this regard.

Music rolls are what the player was all about.  If they been better and
featured a performance sparkle, the destiny of the instrument -- in its
many forms -- would have been quite different.  Of that, I'm certain.

Regards from Maine,
Douglas Henderson - Artcraft Music Rolls
Wiscasset, ME 04578 USA
http://www.wiscasset.net/artcraft/