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Artifact Spotlight - Ampico A Reproducing Piano

Artifact no.: 1969.0699
Reproducer Manufacurer: American Piano Co., New York, USA
Piano Manufacturer: Wm. Knabe & Co., Baltimore, MD, USA
Date: ca. 1924 Source: Public Works Canada

Ampico A Reproducing Piano

The Ampico reproducing piano, believed to have come from Rideau Hall, the official residence of Canada's Governor-General, automatically plays back music stored on perforated paper rolls.

The reproducer is driven by an electric suction pump that draws air into the device, creating a pressure differential that triggers the key action. Air is admitted by the perforations in the paper as it is pulled over a tracker bar, with the position of each row of holes corresponding to a note on the keyboard. Additional sets of perforations enable reproducing pianos to capture the elements of expression, or dynamics (the varying loudness or softness of individual notes or chords), that define a pianist's style and interpretation of a musical piece.

Nearly all the major pianists of the early twentieth century made rolls for the reproducing piano. Sergei Rachmaninov first issued music rolls for Ampico in 1919. For this reason, the Ampico collection of music roll recordings form an important historical repertoire of romantic piano music - an era which effectively ended with broadcasting, electric recording, and the Great Depression.

This is not a player piano. Player piano mechanisms lack the expression controls that reproduce the subtle dynamics of the pianist's original performance. In addition, the suction pumps on player pianos are foot-operated.

Music roll playing machines borrowed their technology from industry, most notably the Jacquard loom of the early 19th c. century, which used punched paper cards to determine the design woven by the machine.

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