For some time, I've seen a series of postings devoted to the "why" of the Player-Piano industry decline, which began after World War One and then accelerated with the development of radio (especially the alternating current models, which apparently began with the Atwater-Kent receivers). Crystal sets and batteries didn't really fit into the parlour, as did the Victrola or the Pianola. Once a wooden cabinet and a "plug in" cord were available, radio became a sensation with the average household.

While there are many reasons for this industry decline, all valid in special ways, my opinion is that "bad rolls" (that is, unimaginative formula arranging) were the chief cause of the total demise, prior to the Great Depression. Otto Schulz - of the Auto-Typist and the 'Aria Divina' players, previously - wrote me on several occasions, variations of this statement, "After I got out of college and joined the family's piano business, the player market declined 30% a year, until - by the late 1920s - there was just about nothing left." He remarked that Schulz used to sell Bloomingdale's and other department stores 2 of their small 'Marionette' player grands per crate, at approximately $700.00, in the latter part of the decade. "I wish I could get one of those back, today, at that price," he wrote - in the late 1960s.

I have long felt that the Player-Piano and the expression models, the so-called "Reproducing" Piano, could have downsized as an industry and survived, as they did in Europe, right up to World War II - and possibly beyond, as a postwar phenomenon, if the music rolls had been better.

Remember, that the decline of the player instrument came along just as fantastic piano solos were being published by the Robbins Co., and when the entertainment industry featured highly skilled keyboard performers of popular music, such as Pauline Alpert, Arden & Ohman, Lee Sims, Eddie Duchin, Zez Confrey, Roy Bargy, Vincent Lopez, Dana Seusse and many more. The music was there - and fresh. The artists were to be heard on broadcasts, via the phonograph and also in talking pictures, especially Vitaphone shorts.

What happened? The names of these celebrated artists were used on stock music rolls, releases which just "played the tune" and contributed nothing of their virtuoso performance styles - which these pianists - from approximately 1925 to around 1936 - all possessed. One commercial roll was just like another, but an artist's logotype on the music rolls would be changed to suggest variety.

The player roll industry was a labour intensive, low paying manufacturing exercise.. It attracted many people who could, for a variety of reasons, not gain a steady income in the world of vaudeville, radio broadcasting and the many traveling dance orchestras. There were, among the staff arrangers, women ... blacks ... and alcoholic males - all of whom could be used, inexpensively, by the player roll factories. Many of these arrangers would probably had not the skills, the time (this being piecework!) or the resources (such as phonograph records) to participate in the "musical analysis" necessary to suggest a sense of 'keyboard attack' and artist's 'individuality' for the Master Roll - even if it were published in the names of distinctive popular pianists.

The trick here is to convey the idea of the artist's performance through arranging, and using techniques which are particularly suited to the Pianola. This is a creative approach, something apart from a hack job, where the music is forced into striking-and-stepping formulae established by the factory "rules".

Advertising, which previously promoted home musicales, with the Player-Piano and its operator as the center of attention, now engaged in decorative interior scenes, where the electric player grand, especially, became "furniture that played". If you look at the typical Ampico advertisement of this later period, the decor predominates in many of the visuals. Kohler & Campbell went the "ghost route" in their later ads for the Welte-Mignon Licensee player, using not the interior decorating avenue, but the "recorded history" approach; one of the typical phrases involved de Pachmann and the headline puffery entitled, "Through You I Live Forever." (The fact that rolls on the expression players have to be monitored, and corrected for tempo after approximately 2 minutes of playing time, never seemed to enter into the litany of claims for the later instruments.)

Even Story and Clark - promoting their line of Miniature Player-Pianos (50" high) - went so far as to suggest that the family take it out of doors on a Spring day, set it on the lawn and let the children enjoy a Maypole Dance. (My '29 Reprotone is one of these instruments - merely having a cut out control for transposing full-scale 88-Note rolls and 80 key expression rolls ... and it's not something you'd wish to transport from the parlour, down the front steps and set up in the front yard! Today, my example of this Miniature Player-Piano, rests in a custom built steel piano tray with rubber wheels and brakes - being used for concert hall appearances. The richly-toned piano is not so portable as claimed in the Story & Clark advertising texts ... which were refinforced by outrageous illustrations of, in this case, a "Summer Garden Party with the Miniature Player-Piano".)

Stock rolls by Frank Milne which were supposedly "Gershwin", "Duchin", "Edythe Baker" and "Pauline Alpert" were the norm at Aeolian - later "Arden & Ohman" for Aeolian-American in the 1930s. Delcamp and/or Susskind churned out rolls in the names of "Reichenthal/Rainger", "Friml" and even "Hoagy Carmichael". QRS drew upon the services for Max Kortlander and later J. L. Cook for their rapidly made get-the-notes-to-play-the-melody releases.

Had the player industry opted for less rolls, but more exciting arrangements - which used graduated striking and carried the essence of performance individuality - I'm certain that a dedicated nucleus of enthusiasts would have kept the downsized industry going. A return to the involvement and participation by the owner should have been in order, while the falsehoods about "record/playback" could have been phased out ... along with the "tasteful decor" advertising campaigns.

During all of these events, Howard Lutter - the Kohler/Autopiano musician behind most of the brown box Welte-Licensee rolls in some capacity - continued to make sparkling commercial arrangements and bestowed on real artists a sense of "performance shape". His expressive Welte arrangements didn't sound like Vee Lawnhurst or Harry Perrella - when compared to their phonograph records of the same day - but almost every Lutter-based arrangement had something to say musically and a sense of the "style" which was missing from the typical QRS, Ampico and Duo-Art rolls of that pivotal period. If the Licensee player had been heard by more people, at that time, history might have been altered in this regard.

Music rolls are what the player was all about. If they been better and featured a performance sparkle, the destiny of the instrument - in its many forms - would have been quite different. Of that, I'm certain.