My friend told me about an early player contraption he saw. It was a device meant to make a player piano out of a regular one. You wheeled this thing up to any piano, put the piano roll in it, and then it played your piano for you. He said the thing was super ancient, and he’s only ever seen one of them. Doesn’t even know what it was called! He said he thinks it might have been an early prototype for a player piano, or was sold as a cheaper alternative to a player piano. Wild.

@@fourlightsorchestra I am intrigued. I want to know what that is.

This

@@japanfanatic1415 I believe it could be this thing: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/nppmacyTmdfSZqM.html

In the 1920’s they had pedals to power it. Not an electric motor.

thats because these rolls are made by having someone play it on a piano modified to cut the rolls. so what you're hearing is literally someone playing it, just "recorded" onto paper. there's a couple rolls out there played by scott joplin himself

@@rexjolles Wow. That is literally the analog origin of MIDI recording

@@rexjolles one of my favorite rolls is debussy playing claire de lune. beautiful recording

@@tokiWren always finish on de bach, never finish on debussy

I enjoyed that. Play it again, Sam.

They were very popular, before 78rpm records took the market it was hard to find a piano without a player mechanism, sadly the pnumatic rubber tubes were prone to dry rot especially in smoggy city's like Los Angeles so many were thrown out by the 40s.

​@@johnkuzma7066 Oh that's why all the ones my family had when I was little in LA never worked.

W

@@johnkuzma7066 Incorrect. Victrola's have a wind up mechanism that makes the record play, player pianos have an electric motor. Considering that 2/3rds of the country did not have electric at the time, doesn't it make sense that the Victrola came before the player piano?

@Bee Enn most players were foot pumped mechanisms it wasn't until the 20s (30 years after they started to become popular) that they got electric vacuum pumps and even then they had auxiliary foot pumps for people that didn't have electricity. In fact, pianolists prefer foot pumps as you can make a more hand played sound by varying the vacuum going to the keys (to make hard and soft notes).

TAKE THAT BACK!

i didn't know League of Legends Players' fathers could play the piano!

John Cena can really play, cain’t he?

Yoooo i didn’t know my dad could play piano much less play it all the way from las vegas!

This piano is a stripped out Welte Mignon, it never had pedals and the motor and everything else is original as there's no way to practically replicate them.

It is sort of fascinating watching that big pulley cranking away on the vacuum pump that powers the whole system.

Early MIDI

Want a portable version? step one:find a surprisingly huge metal plane, make sure it is thick and large enough to fit and get to withstand the weight of an piano. step 2: add wheels and a seat (make sure the seat cannot move and looks like 🪑 or 💺to avoid calling off. (armchair is recommended) ) Step 3: enjoy! just paddle or push to move

There used to by a really good one in San Fracisco in the USA. It was called "The Cliff House", but it burned down many years ago.

I was about to try and get my video linked as a comment and say about this piano. Nice item. Then found your comment. It has gone. The old boy died. Found local paper pieces on it linked. My video in days without the current camcorder 2017. This video earlier. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/jNFljLVk1KudfH0.html

@@frazzledude As in 'Ferries and Cliff House'?

@@tooleyheadbang4239 That sounds about right. My mom and dad took me there in 1962 for my 6th birthday. Many years ago I saw on the local news that it had burnt down.

There is something similar to the cliff house called Musée Mécanique

Yeah, because it was already pretty outdated at the time

Thank you! Cheers!

Yes, so beautiful!

I wondered why it sounded similar.

I could see the writers doing a black & white silent film type episode. all of the music would sound like this

i dont even remember this song in spongebob lol

@@specialaccount7631I think they changed it up a bit but they kept a lot so I can see why. It was common for SpongeBob to use really old songs even from the very beginning. When the narrator says “Ah the sea” in the first episode the song playing while he says it is actually way over 100 years old. It was written by the Queen of Hawaii who was leaving her country at that time so the song was a goodbye song, but in SpongeBob it’s more of a “waking up” song. It’s called Hola Oe and when you look it up on KZfaq you get Leo and Stitch for some reason lol. Anyway that concludes my long ass essay on SpongeBob Music that isn’t even related to the comment I’m replying to.

@bridgtonandsacoriver7 I mean I knew Spongebob had a lot of sailor songs and some inspiration from 60's cartoons but I didnt know the music went that far back. I think it was interesting to learn ty for comment

It wasn't made for public use, it's a stripped out Welte Mignon that had the expression system removed by the looks of things as the pump is normal far off center. It could be an old Ampico as well with the expression system and the bottom half of the piano removed and built so that there's only a suction reservoir way up inside.

A few years ago, possibly the 1980s, I saw a description of a digital version of a player piano mechanism. Interesting reading.

MIDI

Got it now?

Do you have it yet

Got it now?

@zaijian4377 Your grandfather clearly knew his money xD

What??

@@toptengamermoments probably a bot

@@cloudysaturnn He's referring to player pianos at one point being the only way to listen to music for a lot of people and they wiehg a good 700 pounds so they can't be carried around

@@captaincheeky3956 A bot can't write comments that actually make sense.

The trick is to mount the vacuum cleaner on the other side of the wall from the piano!

@@tooleyheadbang4239: Nah, it's still gonna sound annoyingly like someone stuffed an obnoxious vacuum cleaner in the coat closet on the other side of the wall, to just happen to be sititng there running stationarily without cleaning anything... while we play the piano.

This player is a rebuild, not a retrofit. The original electric motor could not be rebuilt and at the time a replacement was not available.. A washing machine motor was selected with an RPM that matched closely to the original motor and the pully was sized to operated the pump at the proper RPM.

@@TheRVCouple: Oh, with that pullEy and flywheel there -- at least with the flywheel right in the way of where the pump pedals would go -- it looked like a retrofit to me, because I didn't think they would be made originally for the motor unit to take up the space where the pedals go. Thanks for your reply.

@@TheRVCouple That's the motor and pump arrangement I would expect to see on an electric player, from new. Vacuum cleaner conversions are definitely 'after-market'. Does it have a reproducing mechanism? These are almost always electrically-pumped, to avoid the pressure fluctuations of pedal operation. They usually have an end-of-roll stop too.

Bellows, the holes in the paper open bleed tubes that allow air to inflate a pouch which pushes a valve open admitting suction to striker pneumatic bellows that collapse and actuate the piano action.

I believe this roll is QRS #1188, by J. Lawrence Cook.

AJ Hornig Of course, I read once he had made rolls who where marketed as been played by Fats Waller. Thanks!

If you're interested, I found this site: www.pianola.com/fatsw.htm According to that, "1. QRS 1188 September 1920 12th STREET RAG [35] The 1920 version was played by Max Kortlander, a rearrangement credited to Cook was issued later under the same catalog number."

Thank you very much! interesting reading

@@AlexJames-mj1bz And then there was a THIRD rearrangement xD