1928 Themola London Pianola - Cowboy Saloon Roll
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- Опубликовано: 28 июл 2012
- Roll: QRS XP-513-C Played by J. Lawrence Cook
Piano: Themola (circa 1928) / Tuned 6/22/2012
Piano Action: Langer #13632
Sound Board: #1027
Keys: #5260 Shenstone & Co. LTD / British Manufacture
Player Piano Mechanism: Otto Higel / Tracking Bar Patent: #267228-25
Camera: Kodak PlaySport Zx5 / MP4 / 720p / 60fps* 
Видеоклипы
These types of pianos should be mandatory in every bar
Absolutely love these machines, technological marvel then and even now.
So true!
There are 3 songs...
1. Camptown Races
2. O'Susanna
3. Buffalo Gals
Can any human play this? I wanna learn this.
@@thetoycollectorofseville6428 Nope... or you would need an extra hand or two! ;)
I never knew the names of these songs until now, ngl
@@elevatorfan7568 actually, there's nothing exceptional about these three arrangements - any good pianist could play them.
@@origamiswami2275 I assume most parts of this would most likely be playable, however there may be some intervals that are too wide of a stretch for one hand to do at a time.
It's such an odd (but satisfying!) feeling to hear an old piano play effortlessly considering it was made the year my late granny was born in. Also, the best speed to watch this in is 1.25x.
But the sound quality gets messed up
@@mlgspongebob5385 that's only if it's at 1.5 or 0.5. The 1.25 and 0.75 speeds are close to the original quality. 😀
I am impressed by how well this player still trills great music
It’s so lovely. Makes me think to many years gone by and how this was entertainment in homes across the USA 🇺🇸
I find these more interesting for the historic value. These piano key strokes were played exactly as a guy played them back 100 or so years ago. He is long dead but his key presses live on. I know there is audio and video, but there is something about capturing his movements that is interesting.
that is absolutely incredible I had no idea ... wow...
Somewhere I have a recording of Scott Joplin that he actually recorded onto a pianola roll...
Well, yes and no. If you watch the keys, you might see that there are more than two hands worth of keys being hit. A roll creator, i.e., the pianist could have several passes through the song in which additional fill notes or cords could be added. In addition, much of the fast "tremolo" efffects were something that were mechanically added atop the original recorded notes when the roll was made, it is not necessarily the pianist moving his hands quickly.
The roll was actually arranged on a stop-tab punching piano, there was no actual playing involved.
@@rangerbud Overdubbing, as such, was not possible during the making of a piano roll in the old days.
Without computers, there was no way to get any additional 'tracks' overlaid or recorded onto the same 'marked master' roll as the original performance, to line up properly with what had been done before, even if it had been punched out in the meantime and the recording apparatus had a way of reading the roll and playing a piano along with the recording piano so that the artist could duet with themselves.
This is because pneumatic players have a slight time lag or delay between the hole appearing and the note playing, although if a note is repeated quickly, pulses of air etc will make for good repetition and space the notes out in a very similar rhythm to how the pianist played them.
Since the same basic system was used for most recording apparatuses as for playing the roll back (a pneumatic system, but this time with a piano key triggering a pen, inked roller, carbon rod or pencil over the recording roll to mark it), this built-in lag, although carefully calibrated to give the best possible effect for a SINGLE PASS hand played performance, would simply not work when trying to run it through again.
I have never heard or seen a roll where this seemed to have been done, and I've heard and seen (and owned) thousands of rolls.
A few roll companies used an ALL ELECTRIC system for roll recording (like Welte in Germany; Standard in Orange, NJ; and Mills Novelty Co. in Chicago), which must have been a bit faster and maybe(?) more reliable than the pneumatic system for recording, but I still have no evidence that real-time overdubbing was ever done or could have been reliably done with these systems.
What ACTUALLY happened was: the earliest hand-played rolls, recorded 1904-c. 1915 or so (depending upon the roll company) were basically production copies of what the pianist recorded onto the 'marked master', either 'warts and all' (wrong notes left in) or else with the wrong notes carefully edited out on the roll master by an editor (on the arranging table), before the production master was made from the marked master. These rolls have uneven rhythm groupings (when examined up close, like with a magnifying glass) and a characteristically 'jerky' sound when played at a tempo too far from the pianist's original tempo (so you couldn't slow them down or speed them up too much without them sounding really jerky). However, being non-quantized, these rolls also have a wonderful LIVE sound when played at the right tempo.
However, a lot of the public used player pianos for dancing in their front parlor / living room (as well as of course dancing to coin pianos and orchestrions in roadhouses, dance halls etc), and so for this, the music needed to be as metronomic as possible with no sloppiness, to keep the beat steady for the dancers.
So, most roll masters made after about 1915 or so by most roll companies were ARRANGED by a person at the roll firm, like the older arranged rolls (on the drawing board) BUT were often arranged BASED UPON a hand-played master that the pianist had recorded (uneven but lifelike rhythms and all) which would be chucked up in front of the arranging table, so the music roll arranger could copy down the actual notes / create a new mathematical (gridded) approximation of the original rhythms, creating a new 'metronomical' master, which while having elements of the pianist's hand-playing (ESPECIALLY their basic arrangement / musical ideas / figurations etc), was totally laid out on a grid with no uneven rhythm formations. This is the way most companies' "hand played" rolls, at least by the 1920s, were made.
While arranging the new production roll master from the marked master of the pianists' performance, the person making the arrangement could add, subtract or move any notes they wanted, compose and add extra countermelodies, trills etc. right there on the roll master on the drawing board. It is in THIS way that many "impossible to play" roll arrangements were made.
The companies in those days didn't worry about the end-user caring about how close a roll got to the way a pianist actually played (usually), they wanted to make a distinctive product to sell and keep each arrangement of each tune as interesting as they could make it. So, the companies were unafraid to let their music arrangers imitate the sounds of the local ragtime orchestras, etc and let them double or triple melodies to strengthen them; add new countermelodies, etc etc.
This is mostly how it seems to have happened. Sometimes it was the pianist themselves doing the editing and making changes, but just as likely it was often someone from the staff of the roll company, who may or may not be credited on the resulting roll "played by so-and-so; ASSISTED BY joe blow" with the person doing the "assisting" really being the roll arranger,
I HAVE heard a few 'authentic' duets recorded in the early days, for example, Mabel Cripe and Sollie Heilbronner (duet);
Albert Gumble and George Botsford (or Albert Gumble and Frederick Arno); and in later years, James P. Johnson & Fats Waller (although those latter two rolls are mathematical masters). The early duets really sound live and they could have either had the artists playing one piano, four hands, with a carefully worked out arrangement, or else two recording pianos simultaneously hooked up to ONE recording apparatus.
"We've bought a pianola because the player was always shot dead"...
sounds like an old joke (in a good way)
@@mr.engineear0987 Maybe it is.
@@epiculo2 yeah but i like old jokes better than the new generation jokes so..
Pianolas, saving one life at a time
Just scared the sh** out of my kids with this "ghost" playing piano
I once did that with my younger cousins a couple years ago. They were 13 and 11 then, and we were in Virginia City. We watched this old player piano (or pianola) and the song was Clementine. I told them a made up story about a young cowboy named Lonesome Luke who's girl (named Clementine) had died, and he himself died shortly of heartbreak. It scared the crap out of my cousins when the barkeep played along with it, especially when it was in the Washoe Club, the home to the Virginia City Haunted Museum.
Cornelia Nöbauer u go girl
Watch the ghost and Mr chicken, hilarious movie that scared me to death when I was a little kid.
omg thats sooo funny
@@georgewashington6225 i watched that movie just this evening, funniest thing ever!
LAWRENCE COOK WAS BUILT DIFFERENT HIS ROLLS ARE SO FUCKING GOOD
MIDI track with lyrics :D Don't we make some remarkable machines :)
There were mechanical pianos that were driven by hands. There was a large handle on the side (like a meat grinder or a hurdy-gurdy), which could be rotated at any speed. The speed had to be observed correctly, otherwise it led to a rapid breakdown of the strings and damage to the hammers.Such a piano quickly went out of order, and drunken saloon patrons gave out very funny accelerated music. The high speed produced a very percussive "metallic" sound, like a damaged harpsichord. There were also mechanical pianos with a coin receiver.
Interesting sound! Sonorous and reminiscent, the sound of a banjo.
loved every minute
4th Jan 2019 1928 Themola. Tune Superb Played on upright Piano. Old but very Famous. Thank you.
Sounds great! I’ll be getting a Gulbransen Pianola on the 12th. Thank you for posting!
This is great, I wish there was a bar with one of these marvels around :D
There probably is somewhere out in the big bad world. These are so useful if you don't have or can't afford a pianist.
There's one at one of the bars in Virginia City, Nevada I believe. Can't remember which one.
@@AverageJoExplorations That's cool. I wonder if they run it at all?
@@PiotrBarcz I haven't been to Virginia City in a long time, but last time I went I remember they had it up and running. Hopefully it's still there and playing the joyful saloon tunes it had when I went.
@@AverageJoExplorations That's nice that they have it working and not on display just for looks.
Loving these Pianola songs, sound so old fashioned, :D
Glad you like it...thanks.
There aren't alot of people in the world who like this kind of music!
Absolutely great. I need this
midi that actually sounds good
Ha ha! true
Most player pianos have a metronome setting that lets you speed up or slow down. Some are able to transpose by shifting the tracking rail to the left or right. My niece's husband has a player piano that doesn't transpose. It's electrified, but you can manually pump the exhaust bellows, if desired.
This one can transpose and it has a great bunch of controls as well!
A joy to hear.
If you want water go dunk your head In the horse trough
In here we pour WHISKEY
I love this song!!
Great choices of music
My favorite songs!
Quick draw carl always had a love for the piano.... too bad he was killed in a duel... thankfully his ghost still remains and graces our ears with his music :)
Woah! That’s so cool!
I like this song and this video
Thanks.
Love the piano i love pianos since i was 5.
As a kid I used to think this was a ghost playing
Amazing!
Yeah it is!
this is soooo coooool
Everything is fine until you put the video in 2x speed, the chairs begin to fly, the pistols to shoot and the bottles to break in the heads ..
Often the musical part in four hands was recorded on punched tapes. Some versions were of such complexity that one person (even a virtuoso) is unlikely to cope alone with ordinary hands. Original (extended) versions of ragtime. Many professional pianists were at a loss when they saw the originals (and not simplified versions) of ragtime. Scott Joplin (for example, the Entertainer) contains complex chords for three or four hands. He wrote difficult-to-perform versions based on himself (he easily coped with his tall stature and his big hands), and even more complex versions for punched tape on a mechanical piano. And simpler ones for ordinary musicians. Recording on punched tape allows you to add additional notes to the original work.
yes your machine has a great tone oh my
the trills are making me want to play
Bravo!
Espetacular.
Que legal adorei 🎶🎹🎹🎶
Grandparents had aSteck pianola with 80 rolls I miss it it was fun
Cool.
Excellent
This is like guitarhero, only that the instrument plays it self! ;)
TREMENDOUS
Thanks.
Thank you! I tried to find right tone to my original music ''Old West Saloon.
Thanky!!!:)
i like old fashion music
Me too! I can't listen the new garbage that's out there now days.
OOPS...forgot to mention...glad you like it...thanks.
thanks.
I got this roll for christmas from my mom :)
"Oh! Suzanne"❤❤❤
nice music
I love Camptown Races
me too...thanks.
#.1 is Loghorn leghorns theme song!
Join Player Piano Talk on FB to see much more!
So, in future youre home will be my bar, i kinda heard of ;P
1928 here I’ll turn on the radio
These songs are way before 1928 kid....
Funnily enough, both amplified radio and also the new phenomenon of electrically-recorded 78s (and for rich people, electrically-amplified or really high-end acoustic phonographs) helped sound the death knell of the player piano market a few years before the Depression even hit in the USA. But in the middle 1920s, sheet music, 78s, piano rolls, and live radio broadcasts of tunes all each helped the same pop tunes (and in some cases, the same performers) get nationally famous and widely played and sung.
love it!!
now, where is the dancers?
👍!
What's the name of the song?????? It's fantastic!!:)
I know these songs! Camptown Races... Oh! Suzannah... Buffalo Gals...🎶🎵 "Won't you come out tonight and dance by the light of the moon!"🌝❤
It seems that this piano has hammers specially glued with tin..
Best played back at 1.15
Sounds like miss Kittys piano on Gunsmoke.....
+ChucklesKeys cool...thanks.
'GET ON YOUR HORSE AND GET OUT OF DODGE, NOW! IF I SEE YOU IN HERE IN THE LONGBRANCH AGAIN, YOU'RE GOING TO JAIL. NOW MOVE!'
Mr Dillon...MR DILLON!
OMG
Yeeeee Haaaah!
Czy na tym da się normalnie grać jak na pianinie?
Wait shouldn't the title be camptown races?
galway bay albums by russ conway also one of cowboy saloon music
20s FL Studio! ;D
1880s 😂
West world !!!
What scroll are those
Hey. Odd question - What is "Themola"? Is that a old piano manufacture? or is that a type of piano? @Miligatz
You're guess is as good as mine. Originally, it had some impression equipment, I think.
your guess is as good as mine
I would guess that "Themola" was this maker's own version of the famous Aeolian Themodist system, which was a special accenting system invented in 1900 by James W. Crooks, and patented for the Aeolian Pianola push-up piano players and built-in player pianos.
Some explanation and pictures of it can be found here:
pianola.org/history/history_pianoplayers.cfm
The Themodist system has two extra "theme" holes in the bass and treble ends of the tracker bar (outside the note field of the note holes) which connect to a special Themodist accenting device which is installed in-between the suction pump and the piano's 'stack' (the part with the valves, pouches and pneumatics that actually reads the music roll and plays the piano).
The Themodist 'stack' has a divider wall on the inside between the bass and treble halves, in the middle, so each half can operate on a different level of suction(vacuum) without it affecting the other side.
The piano normally plays at a slightly softer 'accompaniment' level of playing volume, with the suction shunted through a special regulator that keeps it at a constant level (although I think this dynamic level can be manually adjusted by a lever in the piano's keyslip in front of the keys, by the person pumping the piano).
When a "bass theme' hole comes over the tracker bar, just a fraction of a second before the corresponding note holes, this triggers a pouch to open which bypasses the suction regulator for the bass half of the piano, and instead shunts it to full suction so the bass will play loudly (for a bass solo / melody).
When there is a melody in the treble that needs to be brought out, a similar shunt will open to allow full suction to flow from the treble half of the piano stack, so that plays loudly.
How loud the 'theme' dynamic level will be, is determined by the person pumping the piano, just as the entire overall dynamic level is for most regular player pianos.
This shunting 'theme' pouch can work so quickly that it can pick individual notes or simultaneously-played chords out of a fast passage of consecutive notes and chords, and accent ONLY those ones, similar to how good live pianists play. It's fascinating to watch one of those rolls go over the tracker bar and see the corresponding theme holes on each side pick out the melody wherever it occurs to highlight it. (click the above link a few paragraphs up and see the picture of part of a roll with the theme holes and correspondingly accented notes highlighted)
This helps bring the music to life and make it sound more realistic, than non-accenting player pianos which usually have a more homogenous all-soft-at-once or all-loud-at-once sound (although with a well restored regular player piano, you can still create good accents thru the pumping pedals, and use the 'soft bass' and 'soft treble' hammer rail controls to subdue or bring out half of the piano over the other, although of course that's a bit more work for the pianolist).
Rolls punched with the Themodist-type accents (mostly made by Aeolian in the USA; and by a larger variety of firms in the UK and in Continental Europe) are usually labeled, for example: "Themodist-Metrostyle"; "Uni-Record Melody"; "Metro-Art", or one of several other names.
Many pianos were built with this kind of system, either by Aeolian, to under license to them, especially in England and Continental Europe where the system was wildly popular and various other firms came out with their own versions of it (called, for example, "Melodant" or "Solodant" etc etc since "Themodist" was trademarked. I imagine the "Themola" was another variant of this).
In the USA, player pianos with the Themodist action were usually under one of the Aeolian Co's stable of brands such as Aeolian, Stroud, Wheelock, Technola, Steck, or Weber; they also had a contract with Steinway and most Aeolian actions installed in Steinways, if not full Duo-Art, were at least Themodist foot-pumped systems.
The full-reproducing Aeolian Duo-Art rolls also sound great played on a Themodist player piano, since the more sophisticated Duo-Art reproducing system is based, in design, on the older Themodist system, although things that are manually controlled by the person pumping in the Themodist (like the accompaniment and theme expression levels) are automatically set by the Duo-Art for fully automatic, operator-free playing, to sound as close as possible to a live pianist.
Hope this helps a bit.
Does anyone else get reminded of Foghorn Leghorn when you heard this tune? I did.
LMAO!! absolutely!!
That's because the first song is camptown races.... That's what he was always humming. Do dah do dah.
What this song called
Sounds like a vacuum cleaner when it first starts up
Could you post a vid on how to properly load the roll?
Try this link ruclips.net/video/Ej922_bxx8gh/видео.htmlttps://ruclips.net/video/Ej922_bxx8g/видео.html
If it doesn't work just do a search for "How to load a pianola roll"
リンガーハットで料理ができた時なってる気がする😂🥰
I love the richness to this piano. It's sad that they are so much money these days.
John Carcher So much money? You can pick up player pianos for under £100 on e bay! Most need a degree of restoration, but not beyond anyone with a little common sense and some mechanical understanding, plus tuning of course.
@@spencerwilton5831 I have found a selection of player pianos under £100, all long gone. Tuning is a nightmare as there are 3 tuning pegs per note. Restoration is another night mare as you have to buy bellow replacement and other annoying things. Delivery for these pianos is another nightmare as I live at least 1-2 hours from where the piano is. That can add up to quite a hefty price point.
@@johncarcher It's only a "nightmare" if you don't buy one already fully restored and don't call the piano tuner twice a year to keep it in tune and the technician about once a year for an annual checkup. And keep them exercised. If you don't play them for a long time, the rubber cloth and leather parts of the pneumatic system can harden up and crack from lack of use and lack of exercise. The longest lasting player piano restorations I know about were of pianos that were never disused for a long period of time, were played quite a lot and received regular care. But to folks who love these, even buying an unrestored instrument and restoring it themselves, is a joy.
@@johncarcher It's really funny that you think tuning is a 'nightmare' of a player piano, since there are '3 tuning 'pegs'[pins] per note' in the 'pegboard' [pinblock]. That's how MOST pianos are made! Player, non-player, vertical, grand etc etc they are generally built like this!
You buy a 9' concert grand piano... it also has 3 strings / pins per note in the treble and midrange as well... almost all modern (victorian and later) pianos do, except for some small ones and a few odd varieties. Usually, there are single strings in the lowest few bass notes (typically the lowest 10 or so); then double bass strings for the upper bass and low tenor; and then finally triple strings throughout the midrange and treble up to the top.
All this was done both so that the piano, an acoustic instrument, could produce a good degree of volume (since 3 strings are louder than 1), and also, so if a string breaks (a rare but possible occurrence), the piano will still have at least one other string for that note, allowing it to be able to be played until the technician can get there to put on a new string.
1:20 its oh susanna!
Go home Luther...:) let's see if there are some old timers that pick up on that reference.
I tried searching all over the internet, still cannot find an explanation for the keys pressed down by itself.
+Duncan Ng try this video: ruclips.net/video/i3FTaGwfXPM/видео.html
+Duncan Ng The roller mechanism uses vacuum to power the hammers.
The keys just fall on their own.
Here's a good diagram explaining how the player piano works:
www.pianola.com/ppworks.htm
It is a suction system, with suction created by either a foot pump or an electric pump or suction unit, and an intermediate valve and pouch (small disc of leather) which act as a relay system to switch on and off suction to each note pneumatic (small rubber-cloth-covered bellows for each piano note) so they will play the piano action from the inside.
Each pouch-valve responds to the faint air currents rushing down the tracker bar tubes through open holes in the piano roll; each time a note hole passes by and breaks the suction, a pulse of air can rush down and trigger the valve action to play that note.
This system can operate very fast when well restored and a typical player piano can repeat the same note as fast as 10 times per second if necessary, which is faster than many live pianists can repeat the same note.
As the piano wippen for each note is pushed up by the note pneumatic each time the note is played by the player mechanism, the piano key (on most USA player pianos) will fall down in the front due to gravity, since most American player piano keys are weighted slightly in the front.
This gives the 'ghost keys' effect, although certain USA player piano makers also included a control underneath the keys called the 'key lock' which prevents them from going down, if people don't like that effect.
In most European pianos, the keys are weighted more heavily in back like in most other normal non player pianos, so when the piano action for that note is lifted off the key by the player action, the key doesn't move or drop.
This is why most USA player pianos have 'dancing keys' or 'ghost keys' and most European player pianos have motionless keys while the player is operating (although, very early or unusual design player pianos with the 'stack' under the keys, will always move the keys regardless of how they're weighted, since they have to push up on the back of the keys in order to play the piano).
However, the way the keys are weighted affects the 'touch' and 'feel' of the piano for live pianists playing it by hand, and some people like the lighter touch of the USA player pianos while others prefer the heavier touch of the European ones, which is more like most non-player pianos.
Hey I kinda want to read the lyrics
AH SAY PAY ATTENTION BOY!
What makes such a "metallic" sound? Sounds like a "tack piano"?
that piano is demoned
2:16
When I have online piano lessons:
Camptown Races.
may i know the price this piano?
It's not for sale...sorry!
Camptown races
Guess they had to use a crank in the 1860’s and 1870’s before the invention of electricity
Steve..Steve..STEVE!! Who gets it?
Didn't know John Cena was this good at piano
Buffalo gals
1:20
Can this take on sheet music boss impossible songs
Since I have known certain brands and types of player piano, well restored, to be so airtight and with enough suction reserve to able to play all 88 notes of the piano at once with the roll off the tracker bar, I would say yes, definitely, depending upon the piano. If a player piano can handle Circus Galop it can surely handle one of those.
When I imagine this sound in a saloon, I smile. When I imagine Baptists playing like this in church, I cringe. LOL!
This fracking crap is awesomely savage