Our very own Gabriel J.

[ardcarp]

Did anyone hear the player piano concert on R3 tonight? It was a most enjoyable and informative concert featuring expert pianolist Rex Lawson. Gabriel Jackson's Airplane Cantata is a most original piece. How clever of you, Gabriel, to write idiomatically for the pianola! And the BBC Singers did what they are best at....giving new and somewhat challenging works a good showing.

My only disappointment was the Brahms Liebeslieder Waltzes at the end...spoiled by the soprano line reverting to type, i.e. shrieking anything above an F. Maybe the pianola accompaniment didn't work so well here either...however clever the 'player' there is inevitable lack of subtlety.

But a great evening's entertainment, greatly enhanced by Radio 3's best presenter Catherine Bott (a closet pianolist!)

[DracoM]

Yes, I did listen. BBC Singers on cracking form -THIS is their repertoire, although they might have 'danced' a bit more. Airplane Cantata was eclectic, inventive, joyous and finely played and sung.

[DracoM]

Wonder if GJ has landed yet?

[Gabriel Jackson]

Thank you very much. I'm glad it sounded OK. Rex Lawson is amazing and the Singers did a fantastic job. There are an awful lot of notes (the score is 132 pages long)!

[pianolist]

I don't see why Gabriel should have all the fun, so I thought I would join as well. Hello Gabriel. What lovely music you write, with conveniently timed rests so that the pianola player can change rolls! It was a real joy to play, and thank you.

I was struck by the warmth of the audience, and indeed the size, and it says something for the BBC Singers and you that such an appreciative crowd should turn out to support you.

Catherine Bott told me that she has a Broadwood player piano, and readers of this thread might be interested to know that Captain Scott took a similar Broadwood to the Antarctic on his ill-fated second expedition. Researchers from the Antarctic Heritage Trust recently found some bits of its pneumatic motors at the old base camp at Cape Evans. You can read more about the instrument and see a picture of it on the web, and the easiest place to start is on the Pianolists page of the Pianola Institute website.

As you know, Gabriel, I also have information about the ways in which airplane and pianola mechanisms sometimes overlapped, but I'll wait to see whether anyone else is paying attention before I open that can of worms.

[french frank]

As you know, Gabriel, I also have information about the ways in which airplane and pianola mechanisms sometimes overlapped, but I'll wait to see whether anyone else is paying attention

Hanging on your words ....!

[pianolist]

My goodness, you read quickly! I'm just emailing Gabriel, who I could imagine is cooking his dinner, to alert him to the fact that I've dipped my toes in. I thought it would be polite that way round. Give me five.

[pianolist]

It isn't so strange. Early airplanes used a lot of wood, and some metal rods and brackets, which is just the same as pianos really. During the First World War, a number of piano companies ended up making aircraft parts for the war effort. Years ago I was told that the Aeolian Company factory in Hayes, Middlesex, made the wings for De Haviland 9s. The most detailed record I have found is of the Kettering Bug, a bi-plane that was essentially the earliest guided missile, developed by Charles Kettering at the Wright Brothers airfield in Dayton, Ohio. It first flew in 1915, I seem to remember, and was developed further up to the early 1920s, but it was never used in anger.

It was launched from a short railway track, and it flew up to a pre-programmed altitude, and in a fixed direction. The direction was controlled by a gyroscope, and the altitude by an aneroid, which is the small airtight metal concertina that one finds in an old barometer. Allied to these were two mechanisms based on an Aeolian music roll tracking mechanism. 88-note rolls have the note pitches spaced at nine to the inch across the roll. That's quite a narrow pitch, and mechanisms were soon developed to keep the perforations properly centered over the holes in the tracker bar. On my concert Pianola, I have to track by hand, which can be a nuisance in complex music, but on the other hand it will cope with more or less any type of roll I throw at it.

The most common Aeolian automatic tracker mechanisms of First World War vintage use two "triggers", one at each side of the roll. If the edge of the roll pushes against a trigger, it opens a small signal hole and allows air to pass to a pneumatic valve. There is a double pneumatic motor (imagine a large capital V with a capital I down the middle of it) and the outsides of the pneumatics are joined together by a thin metal bar, so that they move together, and in this way a lateral movement can be caused to occur in either direction. Then by means of a cam on the roll gearing, the top roll can be moved to the left or right, centering the perforations as necessary. Got that? It's really an early form of automatic feedback.

If you want more, look at the original patent, US 1623121, which is available on line. I find the most user-friendly source to be the German patent office website. Here ends the lesson.

[french frank]

Not sure whether this is the Kettering bi-plane or the pianola

but thank you for the lesson.

(I think I remember reading that the first Chinese space rocket was constructed largely of wood - don't know if it was successful or not)

[french frank]

By the way, just so that GJ and RL don't miss the nice comments on the Performance board, there is also the thread 'Player piano evening on 3'.