The invention of the player piano is usually put down to several people
in a gradually evolving series of patents of many years.  An oversight
of the main milestones can be found at the Player Piano Group web site
(http://www.pianolasociety.com/) under the History section from the
"Early technicalities" through to the decade-by-decade pages.  All the
patents are well-known and nowadays you can follow these up by searching
online to see the full original patents, etc.

It is worth mentioning at this point that there are too many inaccurate
old tales in certain books but people strangely persist in perpetuating
this junk by unquestioningly repeating it verbatim.  The rise of the
Internet has compounded the problem with numerous nobodies cut-n-pasting
inaccurate lines from here and there which in turn also get copied ad
infinitum.

I've lost count of how many places you can read that the first internal
player piano was invented by Melville Clark or that he invented the
player grand.  Yet another brand new and ostensibly reputable jazz
compendium I read the other day would have you believe that Edwin Votey
invented the player piano in 1896.

For the record: Votey patented "a" piano player, not "the" original
first-ever pneumatic piano player, and certainly not the internal
player piano.  There were other pneumatic piano players on the market
before his.

Melville Clark may well be credited with marketing the first full-scale,
i.e. 88-note compass, player instruments but there were internal players
being sold as far back as at least 1896, as is evidenced from photographic
advertisements showing the Aeolian Company marketing the "Aeriol" internal
player piano prior to Votey's piano player, neither of which were
initially manufactured by Aeolian themselves, of course.

On the Pianola Institute's web site is a photo from an advert of around
1896 showing a Mathusek grand fitted with Wilcox & White's first player
system with the spoolbox under the treble end of the keyboard.  The
patents for this go back to 1896 with viable upright versions of the
same being shown in additional patents going back to 1891.

The early development of these instruments is, for me at least, their
most fascinating facet.  Amongst gramophone and phonograph collectors
early instruments are highly sought after.  For piano player and player
pianos it appears the opposite is true.  Should it be this way?

Regards,
Adam Ramet
www.themodist.com

 [ I don't know about the gramophone collectors, but the pianola
 [ collectors I know focus on musical qualities, not age!
 [ -- Robbie