Hello Terry and Troy,

Your notes stirred my interest in this subject so today I visited my Melville Clark player (currently in  storage) to obtain what data I could.  The piano appears to be of the type which Troy describes with two rows of tracker holes.  Here are what pertinent facts about this which I can add:

Melville Clark Apollo Player Piano

Serial No. 10909  (below this number is written the date "1906," probably by a former owner)

Two rows of holes on the tracker bar, which is made of wood, not brass.

Lower row of holes: 88 square holes spaced 9 holes per inch and centrally justified, very similar to a standard 88-note player in appearance.

Upper row of holes: 88 rectangular "slit" shaped holes, spaced 6 holes per inch and spanning the length of the tracker bar.  These holes appear to be of the standard 65-note width, but they're only a fraction of the height, perhaps less than even half the standard value.  I've never seen this on a 65-note tracker bar.  The only possible reason I can imagine for this is that the smaller tracker hole height would improve note repetition.  (I know this works because it's a trick I used years ago to get better repetition out of an 88-note player.  I would very carefully cover the entire lower half of the 88-note row horizontally with Scotch Magic Tape, such that the hole height was approximately bisected.  You need to pump a bit harder of course, but repetition improves quite dramatically).

Above the tracker bar is a slide switch which is inscribed "Trackerboard" at top.  At the left is inscribed "upper" and at the right "lower."  Obviously this switches between the 9/inch and 6/inch rows.

Below the tracker bar is another slide switch which has three settings; from left to right "88," "65," and "58."

There is no provision for playing a 134-note roll. The system which you gentlemen have uncovered is a new one on me, and extremely interesting to say the least.  I have absolutely no idea as to what function all those other tracker channels served, except to speculate as you already have that it was to operate an early (but potentially elaborate) expression mechanism.

I have seen many of the Apollo Grand rolls, these being the  88-note 6/inch 15.25-inch-wide format variety, and also those inscribed "Solo Apollo," but until now I had not differentiated between them, nor did I know that the latter rolls were spaced 9 per inch.  Any QRS roll inscribed "Tempograph" is very rare.  I've only come across two or three of these in 35+ years, and they were of the 11-1/4" variety if memory serves correctly.

Isn't it great that there are still things about the antique musical world that we haven't yet come across?  I hope it will always be that way.

Congratulations on your discovery of this, and please do keep me in the information loop as I'm quite interested and of course willing to help in whatever way I can.

All best,

Frank Himpsl
14 Dec 2005

Terry,

Melville Clark and his brother Ernest G. Clark were pioneers in player piano development in Chicago.  While Melville was introducing new push-up piano players, and then player pianos, Ernest was responsible for a lot of developments in the music roll business.

I believe the first Melville Clark Apollo pianos used 6 per inch tracker bars, as did several common brands of 58-note player reed organs.  65-note piano players and player pianos used 11-1/4" wide 6-holes-per-inch rolls.  Certain early 88-note players used 15.25" wide 6-per-inch rolls. The roll in your attachment with the label "88 note" is simply an early 15.25"  wide 6-per-inch 88-note player piano roll.

When the 9-holes-per-inch standard came about, two more standards evolved: 88-note 11-1/4" wide 9-per-inch rolls, and 134-note 15.25" wide 9-per-inch rolls. Now QRS had four standards, using two hole spacings and two widths, and it would surprise me if they didn't have four perforators for these styles set up at the same time. One of the early multi-roll Apollo pianos could play all four of these roll types. I once saw one in Colorado Springs, among other Apollos -- every one of which was different from the others!

The Art Apollo player piano (a.k.a. Apollo X, QRS Red X, QRS Autograph Automatic, Price & Teeple Art Symphonola, and Seeburg XP) played rolls 11-1/4" wide with 9 holes per inch. It had perforations in both margins for controlling expression automatically. Here's the tracker scale:

        1 Full vacuum to stack (crash)
        2 Sustaining pedal
        3 Expression soft, 4-step ratchet
        4 Expression loud, 4-step ratchet
        5 Rewind
        6 Shutoff
        7-92: 86 playing notes, B to C
        93 Bass hammer rail up (soft)
        94 Treble hammer rail up (soft)
        95 Accent
        96 Play (cancel rewind)

The Solo Apollo player piano had two pneumatic stacks, one for accompaniment and the other for solo. The accompaniment notes are perforated toward the center of the roll, and the solo notes are to the left and right of the accompaniment notes. This piano had manual expression controls that enabled the operator to bring out the theme notes louder than the accompaniment. The roll in your first two attachments, labeled "Solo Apollo", is for one of these pianos. There is no automatic expression.

The Solo Art Apollo player piano also had two pneumatic stacks, with automatic expression similar to that of the Art Apollo described above, but with separate mechanisms for each stack. Here's what I was able to figure out by looking at one roll. I've never had a chance to examine a complete piano, although several exist.

        1 ?
        2 Expression soft (in steps: i.e., softest, soft, loud, loudest)
        3 Expression loud (in steps, ditto)
        4 Expression soft (ditto)
        5 Expression loud (ditto)
        6-31 Solo stack notes 1-26
        32-102 Main stack notes 1-71
        103-128 Solo stack notes 27-52
        129 Solo stack note 53?
        130 and 131 Lock and cancel?
        132 Rewind
        133 ?
        134 Sustaining pedal?

I don't know the note compasses of the two pneumatic stacks. You can compare holes 32 through 102 in a Solo Apollo or Solo Art Apollo roll to the identical arrangement on a more standard type of QRS roll and figure out what notes they are. From that, you can extrapolate 6-31 and 103-128 or 129.

Holes 2 and 3 are a pair for one ratchet-controlled expression device, and 4 and 5 are for the other, providing separate automatic expression for each stack. Theoretically, this system can play any note or group of notes at a different solo volume level than the accompaniment, overcoming the basic shortcoming of every other reproducing piano.  However, based on the sluggish expression system that must step through a series of levels with the ratchet mechanism, it was less responsive than the other systems. Good in theory, cumbersome in practice, and with very fragile rolls.

Most of this information is in my earlier book "Treasures of Mechanical Music" on page 98, except that I mistakenly said Solo Apollo Rolls are the same as Solo Art Apollo Rolls. I did know the difference when I wrote that, but didn't catch the mistake in proofreading.

Incidentally, all four standards were used for coin piano and orchestrion rolls:

        6 per inch 11-1/4" wide 65-note: A, G, 4X
        6 per inch 15-1/4" wide 88-note: Seeburg H, Berry-Wood
        9 per inch 11-1/4" wide 88-note: Marquette M, Operators C, O, OS, NOS, others
        9 per inch 15-1/4" wide 134-note: Empress L, Nelson-Wiggen Selector Duplex

The most complex use of the 134-note scale was for the Cremona photoplayer, using style "S" rolls. These did have a solo section for the treble pipes. They could also be transferred via a pneumatic coupler to play from the regular piano scale. That way, when the arrangement called for doubling of piano and pipes, they didn't have to punch whole choruses of redundant holes. When solos were desired, a control hole switches the coupler to play the pipes from the solo holes in the tracker bar.

Hope this helps.

Best regards,
Art Reblitz
9 Dec 2005