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Save an old player piano!

MannyE

MannyE

Exterminate!
https://vimeo.com/137725210

mannye said:
https://vimeo.com/137724918

This is a video of the tuner playing this 105 year old player piano I wanted to restore. It is a wonderful instrument but sadly, the restoration is way too expensive for my budget. I needed a player piano and not a regular piano so I got another, working player and this one is sitting in my ante-room. But not for much longer. If I can't get someone to take it, it's going to have to go to the big concert hall in the sky. I know it's a long shot but if anyone knows anyone that wants an upright with a great sound, here it is for free!


Sent from my TARDIS at the restaurant at the end of the universe while eating Phil.
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Sent from my TARDIS at the restaurant at the end of the universe while eating Phil.
 
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I don't know if the post worked I copied from my original post over at gotmead.com.

Anyway, it would make a great piano if the player mechanism is removed. Or if you have a working mechanism, you could put it in this one.

SAVE THIS PIANO!


Sent from my TARDIS at the restaurant at the end of the universe while eating Phil.
 
Sigh... My neighbour had her family's ancient Player Piano shipped from Ireland ~25 years ago. Then It sat in her basement .
It didn't need restoration.. But years of disuse took a toll.
'Restoration' fees were laughable. A couple of years ago she moved house.
The Piano was too heavy and not worth the cost to move further.
Subsequently the Movers reduced it to movable size pieces using Sledge hammers.
 
Some are more worthy than others and some are despised by the trade and disparigingly referred as PSOs, piano shaped objects. Brit pianos excepting some Broadwoods tend not to be held in high regard. Water and fire damage as well as pegboard problems that prevent holding tune are some of the kiss of death problems that can occur to any piano, tho heroic measures have been done to save great or significant examples.

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Advertise it in the paper. Free to good home etc. Someone might want it to restore as a hobby. I've done a few, but it isn't a money making hobby.
 
Both the piano and player mechanism were made by Aeolian American in the East Rochester NY factory.

The Aeolian player mech is probably the simplest and most straightforward to rebuild requiring no special tools, sawing, or metalwork.
 
Aeolian made a lot of pianos and players fwiw, parts may be found with some looking. The actions and player works were generally standardized items.
Aeolian pianos seen to be not highly regarded in spite of their association with the Pianola players and Duo Art reproducers, so don't put a lot into it expecting an investment.

Acoustic pianos are bulky relatively high maintainance instruments, making them somewhat white elephants in today's marketplace and hard to sell or place. Otoh, nothing beats the tone and tactile response of a good acoustic piano in good order.

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A friend moved into a house with a ca 100 yr old Fischer upright the previous owner couldn't move after filling in the French doors during a reno'. My friend's wife wanted it gone, but after looking it up I told her not to break it up as it was a very good if not great instrument and not junk.

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Pio1980 said:
Aeolian made a lot of pianos and players fwiw, parts may be found with some looking. The actions and player works were generally standardized items.
Aeolian pianos seen to be not highly regarded in spite of their association with the Pianola players and Duo Art reproducers, so don't put a lot into it expecting an investment.

Acoustic pianos are bulky relatively high maintainance instruments, making them somewhat white elephants in today's marketplace and hard to sell or place. Otoh, nothing beats the tone and tactile response of a good acoustic piano in good order.

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Click to expand...


Before I realized that it would take thousands of dollars to hire the work out I had it tuned just to be sure it was worth the effort and even despite being moved its holding its tune beautifully.

I prefer it to the working one I bought which is a much newer and frankly, shoddily built instrument compared to the tank that is the Stroud. But it just shows that WAF has been alive for at least 100 years when it comes to audio reproduction.

But for less than $1000 including cost of moving and 50 rolls I got this:

https://vimeo.com/137955666




Sent from my TARDIS at the restaurant at the end of the universe while eating Phil.
 
Updates and pix of the recent acquisitions please.

I remember a boy in the neighborhood during the mid 1960s acquiring a 1920s Gulbranson upright player and patiently redoing it, fixing leaking bellows and replacing a myriad of petrified hoses. First roll we tried after the job was Sousa's King Cotton March, iirc. We collapsed into piles of uncontrolled laughter on the floor as it became immediately obvious he'd unintentionally transposed the hoses to the tracker bar by one space, the strange melody and the sour harmonies were otherworldly.

Fwiw, I think it was Gulbranson that made the servo-grand pianos used with theatre organs during the silent era. The Atlanta Fox has one installed during the renovation from a theatre in Chicago, and the Visalia Fox also has a Gulbranson grand on their organ, either are played from the organ console as a piano stop.

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A further note on Aeolian, between ca 1880 and ca 1940, Aeolian was the 800 lb gorilla of mechanical music making with parlor organs, pipe organs for church and theatre, pianos, player pianos, full expression reproducing pianos with their acquisition of Duo Art, and during the "Guilded Age", fabulous large Aeolian and Skinner residence pipe organ installations that were played either from the console or by rolls cut by prominent organists of the day, as were the rolls for the Duo Art players cut by prominent pianists of the day. A competitor for the full expression piano market was Ampico, which is another story in itself. A friend has a Chickering Ampico model 'A' grand on which I've heard the famous 4 hands version of Rhapsody in Blue cut by George Gershwin himself in two passes. This roll was used for the 1970s Gershwin concert band version recording by Michael Tilson Thomas with the 2nd hand harmony holes meticulously plugged after restoration of the roll, Gershwin playing principal by proxy.

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Mantra for cell-phone video novices: Horizontal, not vertical. Horizontal, not vertical...
 
EchoWars said:
Mantra for cell-phone video novices: Horizontal, not vertical. Horizontal, not vertical...
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Lol. True.

Doubly shameful as I am a professional videographer.


Sent from my TARDIS at the restaurant at the end of the universe while eating Phil.
 
No one? I posted on the MMD but nothing. Talk about your outdated format! The Mechanical Music Digest is doing its best to stay true to the outdated form of players they focus on! If any of you ever played those old computer games where you MAILED in your moves and then got a printout of your results, that's what this board feels like! Lol.


Sent from my TARDIS at the restaurant at the end of the universe while eating Phil.
 
May end up being DIY after online research if no helpful response.

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If by DIY you mean "scrap" then yes.


Sent from my TARDIS at the restaurant at the end of the universe while eating Phil.
 
MannyE said:
If by DIY you mean "scrap" then yes.


Sent from my TARDIS at the restaurant at the end of the universe while eating Phil.
Click to expand...

Not really, go online for info on eval and possible renovation if interested. I see a fair number of old players stripped of the playing mechanism, usually done to remove the distraction from young students, and coincidently to open the tone chest space for fuller sound.
Our family player was thus mod'ed for those reasons many decades ago.
Aside from the novelty factor becoming passe, radio and the phonograph won the home music market. QRS however continued providing up to date music rolls until relatively recently.

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Until actually still now. I just bought some brand new rolls from them including Piano Man and Bohemian Rhapsody.

I get what you're saying, but my goal was to have a player piano as an example of music reproduction equipment.

One can't have a collection of "players" that doesn't include a piano, a music box and an Edison cylinder machine.

I already have a working player which I bought after I realized this one was beyond my current circumstances to restore. So I now have TWO huge pianos in a house that can only hold one!

This one has got to go.


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