Tag Archives: reproducer piano

Recent Drawings by George Gershwin, 2011

The player pianos in old western movies were hardy and inelegant. Shown scrolling punched paper rolls through their mechanisms, they automatically plunked out popular melodies for the saloon patrons. By the early 1900s however, player pianos had evolved into quite sophisticated instruments. The reproducing piano played rolls that recorded,  not simply the sequence of notes…