Player Pianos
The first player piano was invented in 1896, in Detroit, MI. It initially took the form of a large wooden cabinet that stood in front of any ordinary piano. From the rear of the cabinet protruded a row of wooden fingers that were aligned with the keyboard of the piano and activated the keys in the same manner as a human pianist.
Shortly after the turn of the century, Melville Clark founded the QRS company and introduced a piano with a built-in player mechanism. Thus was born the player piano. This concept, quickly adopted by other manufacturers, ultimately led to the demise of the external player. Early instruments could only play a range of 58 or 65 notes from the music roll, whereas the piano typically had 85 or 88 keys. This prevented the accurate rendition of many classical pieces, some of which were specially adapted to accommodate the reduced musical scale. In addition, a number manufacturers developed their own design of music roll, usually incompatible with other makes of instrument. Melville Clark of QRS, then developed the standard format for piano rolls, namely the 88-note roll, subsequently adopted by all manufacturers. A number of fledgling companies who had invested in design and tooling for production of 65-note systems, were literally put out of business by this important development. A player piano could of course be played by hand in the normal way, as the piano action and keyboard are entirely conventional. In fact, it was usually possible to play the keyboard while the roll mechanism is in operation, should any additional notes or harmonies be desired.
The player piano enjoyed its peak of popularity between 1900 and 1930. During these first three decades of the twentieth century, a substantial number of famous pianists committed their performances to music roll, by means of special recording pianos. The rolls recorded by George Gershwin, Rachmininoff and Paderewski are now available on CD or floppy disk to meet the demand from collectors and all music enthusiasts. Q.R.S. (Quality, Reliability and Service) Music Technology was purchased in 1986 by the Dolan family. Once again, QRS set the standard for the new technology. In 1987, Q.R.S. invented the cutting edge disc playing system, PIANOMATION, that fits any acoustic piano, and enables any new or used piano to be retrofitted with a modern player system that can play wireless from any normal CD player. Contact our Sales Department for in-depth information on any piano.
