The photoplayer is an automatic mechanical orchestra used by movie theatres to produce photoplay music to accompany silent films.
The photoplayer is an automatic mechanical orchestra used by movie theatres to produce photoplay music to accompany silent films.
The central instruments in a photo player were a piano and percussion; some machines also added pipe organs and methods for manually creating sound effects. Like a player piano, the photo player played music automatically by reading piano rolls (rolls of paper with perforations), but the photo player could hold two rolls: one that would play while the other was prepared. Common sound effects included gunshots, bells and drums, which were generated by pulling chains called "cow-tails". Some photo players feature electric sound effects, such as sirens, automobile horns, and other oddities. A photo player operator had to load the paper rolls, start the machine and add the manual sound effects and percussion using the cow-tails. [1]
Approximately 8,000 to 10,000 photoplayers were produced during the boom era of silent films, between 1910 and 1928. [2] Around a dozen manufacturers produced the instruments, including the American Photo Player Company, which made the Fotoplayer; the Operators Piano Company of Chicago, which made the Reproduco; The Bartola Musical Instrument Company of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, maker of the Bartola; Seeburg; and Wurlitzer. [1] The popularity of the photoplayer sharply declined in the mid-1920s as silent films were replaced by sound films, and few machines still exist today. [1]
A sound effect is an artificially created or enhanced sound, or sound process used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media. Traditionally, in the twentieth century, they were created with foley. In motion picture and television production, a sound effect is a sound recorded and presented to make a specific storytelling or creative point without the use of dialogue or music. The term often refers to a process applied to a recording, without necessarily referring to the recording itself. In professional motion picture and television production, dialogue, music, and sound effects recordings are treated as separate elements. Dialogue and music recordings are never referred to as sound effects, even though the processes applied to such as reverberation or flanging effects, often are called "sound effects".
A player piano is a self-playing piano, containing a pneumatic or electro-mechanical mechanism, that operates the piano action via programmed music recorded on perforated paper or metallic rolls, with more modern implementations using MIDI. The rise of the player piano grew with the rise of the mass-produced piano for the home, in the late 19th and early 20th century. Sales peaked in 1924, then declined, as the improvement in phonograph recordings due to electrical recording methods developed in the mid-1920s. The advent of electrical amplification in home music reproduction via radio in the same period helped cause their eventual decline in popularity, and the stock market crash of 1929 virtually wiped out production.
In music, the organ is a keyboard instrument of one or more pipe divisions or other means for producing tones, each played from its own manual, with the hands, or pedalboard, with the feet.
A piano roll is a music storage medium used to operate a player piano, piano player or reproducing piano. Piano rolls, like other music rolls, are continuous rolls of paper with holes punched into them. These perforations represent note control data. The roll moves over a reading system known as a tracker bar; the playing cycle for each musical note is triggered when a perforation crosses the bar.
An electric organ, also known as electronic organ, is an electronic keyboard instrument which was derived from the harmonium, pipe organ and theatre organ. Originally designed to imitate their sound, or orchestral sounds, it has since developed into several types of instruments:
A theatre organ is a type of pipe organ developed to accompany silent films, from the 1900s to the 1920s.
The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to as simply Wurlitzer, is an American company started in Cincinnati in 1853 by German immigrant (Franz) Rudolph Wurlitzer. The company initially imported stringed, woodwind and brass instruments from Germany for resale in the United States. Wurlitzer enjoyed initial success, largely due to defense contracts to provide musical instruments to the U.S. military. In 1880, the company began manufacturing pianos and eventually relocated to North Tonawanda, New York. It quickly expanded to make band organs, orchestrions, player pianos and pipe or theatre organs popular in theatres during the days of silent movies.
Orchestrion is a generic name for a machine that plays music and is designed to sound like an orchestra or band. Orchestrions may be operated by means of a large pinned cylinder or by a music roll and less commonly book music. The sound is usually produced by pipes, though they will be voiced differently from those found in a pipe organ, as well as percussion instruments. Many orchestrions contain a piano as well. At the Musical Museum in Brentford, London England, examples may be seen and heard of several of the instrument types described below.
M. Welte & Sons, Freiburg and New York was a manufacturer of orchestrions, organs and reproducing pianos, established in Vöhrenbach by Michael Welte (1807–1880) in 1832.
The term color organ refers to a tradition of mechanical devices built to represent sound and accompany music in a visual medium. The earliest created color organs were manual instruments based on the harpsichord design. By the 1900s they were electromechanical. In the early 20th century, a silent color organ tradition (Lumia) developed. In the 1960s and 1970s, the term "color organ" became popularly associated with electronic devices that responded to their music inputs with light shows. The term "light organ" is increasingly being used for these devices; allowing "color organ" to reassume its original meaning.
Photoplay music is incidental music, soundtrack music, and themes written specifically for the accompaniment of silent films.
A fairground organ is a French pneumatic musical organ covering the wind and percussive sections of an orchestra. Originated in Paris, France, it was designed for use in commercial fairground settings to provide loud music to accompany rides and attractions, mostly merry-go-rounds. Unlike organs for indoor use, they are designed to produce a large volume of sound to be heard above the noises of crowds and fairground machinery.
The Bartola Musical Instrument Company of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, USA, was a producer of theater pipe organs during the age of silent movies.
A street organ played by an organ grinder is a French-German automatic mechanical pneumatic organ designed to be mobile enough to play its music in the street. The two most commonly seen types are the smaller German and the larger Dutch street organ.
Pearl White was an American silent-era theatre organist and piano player who worked in the Chicago area.
The American Fotoplayer is a type of photoplayer developed by the American Photo Player Co. between the years of 1912 and 1925. The Fotoplayer is a type of player piano specifically developed to provide music and sound effects for silent movies.
Gulbransen Company was a musical instrument manufacturer of player pianos and home organs in the United States. It also made reed organs. It was originally established in 1904 by Axel Gulbransen as Gulbransen Piano Company.
The Link Piano and Organ Company was an American manufacturer of pianos, orchestrions, fotoplayers, and theatre pipe organs.
The American Treasure Tour is a tourist attraction established in 2010 and opened to the public for guided tours. Visitors travel through a large private collection that encompasses an eclectic variety of smaller collections. Included is one of the world's largest private collections of automatic music machines: nickelodeons, band organs, calliopes, photoplayers and music boxes. There are also classic cars, circus art, dolls and dollhouses, and a large assortment of popular culture miscellania. It is located in the 422 Business Center in the community of Oaks, Pennsylvania, west of Valley Forge National Historical Park just off of U.S. Route 422.
A digital accordion is an electronic musical instrument that uses the control features of a traditional accordion to trigger a digital sound module that produces synthesized or digitally sampled accordion sounds or, in most instruments, a range of non-accordion sounds, such as orchestral instruments, pipe organ, piano, guitar, and so on. Digital accordions typically encode and transmit key presses and other input as Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) messages. Most digital accordions need to be plugged into a keyboard amplifier or PA system to hear their sounds.
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