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A player piano doesn’t necessarily have to sound bad. Back in 1993 Yamaha built a device that could read piano rolls personally “recorded” by Gershwin by hand

A player piano doesn’t necessarily have to sound bad. Back in 1993 Yamaha built a device that could read piano rolls personally “recorded” by Gershwin by hand (he would hammer them out for money in his spare time), and then played back on a modern player piano. The resulting album is one of my all-time favorite albums. Yamaha still sells these “scans” (on 3.5” floppy!) for their player pianos, and they could certainly be reverse engineered, but I imagine they are considered derivative works and covered by their own copyright. https://apnews.com/fb3f8c3bc3305506f57120df0755f9d8 https://apnews.com/fb3f8c3bc3305506f57120df0755f9d8 https://youtu.be/_kIpr6nSvjI https://youtu.be/_kIpr6nSvjI

crazygringo 7y ago
Interesting! Well, if you perform intentionally without dynamics, the player piano is certainly a valuable artistic choice in its own right. More like a harpsichord, in a way. But I'll point out that the YouTube performance you linked to isn't a player piano at all -- it's an actual recording, which Gershwin overdubbed to be two pianos. While player pianos that could incorporate dynamics existed, I'm not sure they were common, and I'm also not clear if there were any that incorporated playtime "per note" dynamics as opposed to generally "overall" dynamics that were added in via a separate mechanism. But nevertheless yes -- there did exist some player pianos that had the capability of being more expressive than the normal single-volume ones!
- yesenadam 7y ago
  >I'm also not clear if there were any that incorporated playtime "per note" dynamics This[0] is a reproducing piano recording Ravel made in the 20s and was recorded from a Duo-Art piano in the 60s. Hearing Ravel play his own stuff a few years ago radically changed my idea of how Ravel's music should sound. (Pianist, I'd been playing Ravel for a couple of decades before that) This[2] has Prokofiev playing his own music. "Many famous composers from around the world played their own works for the reproducing piano: Edvard Grieg, 1906 in Leipzig; Alexander Scriabin, 1910 in Moscow; Gabriel Fauré, c. 1913 in Paris; Nikolai Medtner, c. 1925 in New York."[1] "This video is a practical demonstration and overview of how the Aeolian Duo-Art pneumatic reproducing player piano works, including how the system plays expressively by controlling the loudness of notes played with perforations on the roll."[3] [0] https://archive.org/details/RavelPlaysRavel https://archive.org/details/RavelPlaysRavel [1] https://www.allclassical.org/player-piano-rolls-listening-to-history/ https://www.allclassical.org/player-piano-rolls-listening-to... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uMRD2o6dJo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uMRD2o6dJo [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-XrDw04P2M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-XrDw04P2M
- Eric_WVGG 7y ago
  I’m pretty sure “overdubbed” in this case meant “playing over the piano roll a second time.” Not an actual recording. This YouTube rip sounds a little crummy to me, though, I’d suggest finding Gershwin Plays Gershwin on Spotify or your streaming service of choice...
  - crazygringo 7y ago
    They're drastically different, though. The YouTube link you referenced is an actual recording -- the notes are all distinctly different dynamics, and there's plenty of background hiss. It's a real recording, full of life, on a real piano, and genuinely overdubbed. It's not "a little crummy" -- to the contrary, it's an invaluable historical record. On the other hand, the "Gershwin Plays Gershwin" album is a genuine player piano, but the Rhapsody in Blue is totally different -- it has zero dynamics, everything is exactly the same volume. [1] It's interesting to hear, for sure -- but more as a historical curiosity, since no pianist would ever perform everything at the same volume unless limited technologically. Your original link is Gershwin's full interpretation. In contrast, his player piano version is nothing like what he would have performed live, but rather adapted to the technological limitations. [1] https://open.spotify.com/track/2XSBXz4uDvx1PQPYJWQpcK?si=EO3o4ILlSHqfjvRI-3twDw https://open.spotify.com/track/2XSBXz4uDvx1PQPYJWQpcK?si=EO3...
eitally 7y ago
And here's the researcher discussing the project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqOtLSuPCJY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqOtLSuPCJY
andrewaylett 7y ago
Telarc have a number of albums of music reproduced from piano rolls -- this https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000009RCS/ https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000009RCS/ is one of my favourite collections of classical works. The sleeve notes tell of how modern scanning allowed a more complete reproduction of the notes played than contemporary players allowed, which by all accounts were already pretty good.

crazygringo 7y ago

Interesting! Well, if you perform intentionally without dynamics, the player piano is certainly a valuable artistic choice in its own right. More like a harpsichord, in a way. But I'll point out that the YouTube performance you linked to isn't a player piano at all -- it's an actual recording, which Gershwin overdubbed to be two pianos. While player pianos that could incorporate dynamics existed, I'm not sure they were common, and I'm also not clear if there were any that incorporated playtime "per note" dynamics as opposed to generally "overall" dynamics that were added in via a separate mechanism. But nevertheless yes -- there did exist some player pianos that had the capability of being more expressive than the normal single-volume ones!

yesenadam 7y ago
>I'm also not clear if there were any that incorporated playtime "per note" dynamics This[0] is a reproducing piano recording Ravel made in the 20s and was recorded from a Duo-Art piano in the 60s. Hearing Ravel play his own stuff a few years ago radically changed my idea of how Ravel's music should sound. (Pianist, I'd been playing Ravel for a couple of decades before that) This[2] has Prokofiev playing his own music. "Many famous composers from around the world played their own works for the reproducing piano: Edvard Grieg, 1906 in Leipzig; Alexander Scriabin, 1910 in Moscow; Gabriel Fauré, c. 1913 in Paris; Nikolai Medtner, c. 1925 in New York."[1] "This video is a practical demonstration and overview of how the Aeolian Duo-Art pneumatic reproducing player piano works, including how the system plays expressively by controlling the loudness of notes played with perforations on the roll."[3] [0] https://archive.org/details/RavelPlaysRavel https://archive.org/details/RavelPlaysRavel [1] https://www.allclassical.org/player-piano-rolls-listening-to-history/ https://www.allclassical.org/player-piano-rolls-listening-to... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uMRD2o6dJo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uMRD2o6dJo [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-XrDw04P2M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-XrDw04P2M
Eric_WVGG 7y ago
I’m pretty sure “overdubbed” in this case meant “playing over the piano roll a second time.” Not an actual recording. This YouTube rip sounds a little crummy to me, though, I’d suggest finding Gershwin Plays Gershwin on Spotify or your streaming service of choice...
- crazygringo 7y ago
  They're drastically different, though. The YouTube link you referenced is an actual recording -- the notes are all distinctly different dynamics, and there's plenty of background hiss. It's a real recording, full of life, on a real piano, and genuinely overdubbed. It's not "a little crummy" -- to the contrary, it's an invaluable historical record. On the other hand, the "Gershwin Plays Gershwin" album is a genuine player piano, but the Rhapsody in Blue is totally different -- it has zero dynamics, everything is exactly the same volume. [1] It's interesting to hear, for sure -- but more as a historical curiosity, since no pianist would ever perform everything at the same volume unless limited technologically. Your original link is Gershwin's full interpretation. In contrast, his player piano version is nothing like what he would have performed live, but rather adapted to the technological limitations. [1] https://open.spotify.com/track/2XSBXz4uDvx1PQPYJWQpcK?si=EO3o4ILlSHqfjvRI-3twDw https://open.spotify.com/track/2XSBXz4uDvx1PQPYJWQpcK?si=EO3...

eitally 7y ago

And here's the researcher discussing the project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqOtLSuPCJY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqOtLSuPCJY

andrewaylett 7y ago

Telarc have a number of albums of music reproduced from piano rolls -- this https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000009RCS/ https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000009RCS/ is one of my favourite collections of classical works. The sleeve notes tell of how modern scanning allowed a more complete reproduction of the notes played than contemporary players allowed, which by all accounts were already pretty good.