O/T Aeolian pianola

[gramophoneshane]

I finally got my push-up piano player back last weekend, after having all the internal mechanisms restored, and tonight uploade my first video of this awesome little machine playing.
The pianola was made by The Aeolian Company of New York, and dates from 1901. I previously thought it dated from 1902, but the restorer found a hand writen mid 1901 date in one of the bellows, and I believe that Aeolian also changed the wooden tracking bar from wood to brass in 1902.
This one is a 58/65 note player, but 88/65 note players were also made.
The piano is a Hapsberg Beale, and dates from the late 1880s or early 1890s, and has been in our family since the first world war. It was bought second hand by my grandfather for his first wife, who died in 1921 from pneumonia. My grandmother apparently hated the thing, but my grandfather refused to get rid of it, so my mother was forced to learn to play it as a child in the late 30s, so she's had a bit of love-hate relationship with it ever since lol. Even as recently as 2 days ago, she still was telling me I should just rid of "that thing"
I like it's long, and somewhat comical family history too much to get rid of it though, and not being able to read or play music was the main reason I got the Aeolian in the first place.
The history of Beale is a little more interesting though.
In 1884, Octavious Beale started importing "Hapsberg Beales" from Germany, and in 1893, Beale established Australia’s first piano factory in Sydney. In 1902, Beale opened a new factory at Annandale, which went on to become the largest piano factory in the southern hemisphere.
Everything was made on the premises, including the veneer, and they also became the largest veneer manufacturing plant in the southern hemisphere, supplying most of the world with Australian timber veneers well into the 1950s. Chances are, if you have an old Zenith or Philco radio in Queensland (Australian) walnut, the veneer was supplied by Beale.
With the onset of radio & the depression, the piano side of the business suffered, but veneer supplies kept them afloat, as well as manufacturing radio cabinets for other companies, and their own line radios & radiograms, which are usually very high end and used the very best cuts of veneer.

Anyway, here's the video.
I senserely hope it doesn't offend anyones ears, but the poor old piano hasn't been tuned since 1972, and barely survived a major flood we had here in 1974. Getting it tuned is next on my to do list.
I must say pedalling the Aeolian is much harder work than winding a crank handle, but I could do with the exercise.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGhUsplXGEg[/youtube]

[Victor78]

I know I dont post a lot here anymore, but after seeing your video, I had to I really like the sound of this! Im not really into pianos, but this one is interesting. Do you have any other pics to show. Cool!!

[Swing Band Heaven]

LOL! After 2 minutes 28 seconds of furious peddeling I bet you could really "feel the burn" - as Jane Fonda would say!

The current tuning of your piano is something Winfred Atwell would be proud of - although I guess it could do with a tweak or two It would be great if you were able to post a pic or 2 of just the Aeolian as ive never seen one - I guess it just straps onto the front of any piano? From the video it looks like it.

Great video.

S-B-H

[gramophoneshane]

I know I dont post a lot here anymore, but after seeing your video, I had to I really like the sound of this! Im not really into pianos, but this one is interesting. Do you have any other pics to show. Cool!!

Not at the moment, but I'll take a couple tomorrow & add them. I'd actually like to do some videos showing the little hammers hitting the piano keys etc, but I probably should leave that until after it's tuned
There doesn't seem to be many videos of this type of player on youtube. I suppose with the Aeolian plus piano taking up floor space, they're not a popular choice with most collectors. They dont take standard pianola rolls either, so that kind of limits the choice of titles too.

[gramophoneshane]

LOL! After 2 minutes 28 seconds of furious peddeling I bet you could really "feel the burn" - as Jane Fonda would say!

The current tuning of your piano is something Winfred Atwell would be proud of - although I guess it could do with a tweak or two It would be great if you were able to post a pic or 2 of just the Aeolian as ive never seen one - I guess it just straps onto the front of any piano? From the video it looks like it.

Great video.

S-B-H

I get a bit puffed after 2 or 3 rolls, but I used play one at our local museum when I was in high school for an hour at times, so hopefully I get back to that with some practice.
I bought myself a push bike about a month ago to get some exercise, but with this thing I doubt I'll need the bike now

I'll post a few px tomorrow, but here's an ad for the first 1898 model. Mines basically rhe same, but has sliding doors for the pedals instead of the swinging type pictured here.
They're on adjuxtable casters, so you push it up to the key board, wind the casters down with a small crank to bring the hammers down on the keys, and you're good to go.
I'm in the process of making an external bar that operates the soft pedal of the piano, which was missing when I got it, so hopefully soon I'll be able to play the rolls how you're supposed to, with loud and soft variations. That might take some practice though, but I'll have to learn how to read the rolls properly first.

[estott]

I wonder how many people aren't aware just how old "You Made Me Love You" is- far older than the Garland version. I've come across only one period recording on a Blue Amberol, one of the sort that wears badly.

I had a similar machine once, the soft control was a bleed valve & there was a lever to press the sustain pedal.

[larryh]

Shane, its a wonderful and rather rare machine. The 88 note ones are pretty scarce over here, but sadly not to many people exactly want them either. The first one I had was a 65 note Hardman my grandmother bought me at a farm auction when I was a teen. We restored the thing and it actually played pretty well. Before that I had a Stark Upright player that she also bought because I loved not only victrolas by player pianos as well. Eventually I ended up with a 1911 Weber Themodist and had it rebuilt. It was the most favorite thing in my life for many years and I had over 1,200 themodist rolls for it when I parted with it after it quit working and I couldn't get anyone to fix it properly out here. I replaced it with a Yahama disc player which is an upright and good quality, but I sure miss pumping those rolls. Which if the machine is properly rebuilt should be quite easy. When mine was working right you could get the most impressive expression out of it and I had a lot of symphonies and other classical things which I have always liked. The 65 note rolls are really fun to me. I know they can sound rather clunky, but something about the early attempts at serious music fasinated me. The only roll player we have left is the last known Steinway Reproducing Piano built in about 1942 three years after they officially went out of business. Aeolian purchase American Piano and combined the roll production and when the Duo Art Factory Burned in the late 30's, 38 rings a bell?, the only Steinways that could be reproducing pianos then had to be retrofitted with Ampico systems which are B types and considered the finest of the reproducing players. We got ours from the original owners though a dealer. They had bought it new and sent it to what was left of the Ampico Factory where it was modified with Mason and Hamlin legs and skirt to cover the mechanism. Some of the parts were actually found to be Model A parts since evidently they had run out of B parts. They modified them to work as B ones with slight differences and plugged holes. I will add a couple shots of it. I may have posted it before, but with this being a Player thread it seems appropriate to those who may not be familiar with them..

Larry

[Edisone]

Normally, I would think: "Egads! Tune that thing!". but your piano is so far off that it's not painful anymore, just funny! My Uncle Jim (tunes the pianos for the Buffalo Philharmonic) could make it sound beautiful again, but his travel fee would be a bit much.

You might need to have that tuned 2 or 3 times, to slowly bring it back to pitch - that's what I had to do, with my very unimpressive 1917 Foster player.

Very nice, really - and thanks for sharing !

[Kirkwood]

About the same time as I started collecting vintage phonos and records during Junior High school, I was also smitten with player pianos and mechanical music machines. My parents took me to a nearby museum of such instruments, blissfully unaware of what such a visit would do to me. (After one or two player pianos had found their way into the garage, the edict was issued: No more!) I was befriended by a local piano tuner that rebuilt a number of pianos and players. As a matter of course, whenever he got just such an Aeolian push-up player, he'd remove the original wooden tracker bar, install a new brass tracker bar, swap out the roll chucks, and adapt it to play standard 88-note rolls. He'd install a Y-joints in the tubing so that notes that would be missing at either end of the 88-note scale would still play via the 65-note "finger" assembly, albeit an octave higher or lower. At that time (1970s), this was regarded as "clever", thus permitting modern re-use of a "worthless" old push-up player. It looks like your technician has left the original format intact, which is wonderful. Your find of such a great roll and fine arrangement of "You Made Me Love You" on a 65-note roll was indeed very lucky. The piano looks like beauty too---if you post more videos after the tuner has come around, please let us know!

[Kirkwood]

And to larryh---what a magnificent piano! And a great story and history as well. If I could only have one player piano, I'd somehow muddle along through life with that Steinway grand~!

You're right about the 88-note push up players being rare around here. I had one some years ago, from a local antique dealer, this was an Artrio Angelus electric push-up player. Yep--88-note too. I understood the Artio to be a short-lived reproducing system. I had zero luck finding even one proper roll to play on it (yes, it would play the usual QRS 88-note rolls) and sold it to a technician friend who eventually restored it. It used pillow-like pouches glued edgeways onto a deck that he assured me were a whole barrel full of fun to work on.

As I type this, I seem to remember that once I saw a push-up player that also had one or two sets of reeds built into the unit. I think the idea was that it could play the reeds, via the rolls, in unison with the piano. Can't remember which company made it, but I always wanted to hear one of such players in action. So---does one tune the piano to the reeds, or tune the reeds to the piano?.....