The player piano (or pianola) is not, as many people believe, a
self-playing instrument.  Perforated rolls furnish the technique,
but the player action requires an interpreter, called a pianolist,
to create the finished musical performance.

Pedal players employ the feet, usually in rhythm to the music, to
establish the dynamics, while the left hand operates the sustaining
pedal and the soft pedal levers (bass and treble).  The soft pedals are
often used in 'halves', since a foot stroke will create two striking
forces at the same time, when only part of the scale is suppressed.
The right hand controls the tempo and the rewind gears.  (These
functions vary on player actions, so can be buttons and other controls,
but the basic elements of vacuum regulation are the same.)

Electrically-pumped expression players, called reproducing pianos,
played only 80 keys of the piano scale, on the average, using the
marginal perforations for running built-in pneumatics which operated
the same levers, described above.  While these reproducing players,
like the Duo-Art, supposedly played rolls and recorded by famous
pianists, the truth is that the instruments played the same rolls, but
equipped with extra perforations which varied the vacuum levels and
operated the pedals through pneumatic means.  Most reproducing pianos
had Pianola controls for manual interpretation.

This 1929 Story & Clark "Reprotone" is a rare and late instrument,
being designed for the full-scale 88-note music rolls (which it can
transpose in 5 keys) as well as the 80-82 key reproducing rolls (that
can be played in 3 adjacent keys, if the pianolist so desires).  We
play 88-note and reproducing rolls interchangeably, for this reason.

What makes Artcraft rolls, arranged and published in Wiscasset, Maine,
so different from the old, mechanical-sounding and repetitive player
rolls, is the perforating method, developed by L. Douglas Henderson,
almost 50 years ago.  These are called Interpretive Arrangements, and
they are cut for musical performance (often from audio recording
analysis) and not assembled by sheet music notation standards.
Graduated staccato, for example, helps achieve a sense of "keyboard
attack", often recognizable for specific keyboard artists.  Artcraft
rolls are virtuoso arrangements.

Here's our web site, in case you want to discover more about the
misunderstood yet magnificent instrument, the pianola:
http://www.wiscasset.net/artcraft/

Regards,
Douglas Henderson