A visitor to the MMD web site asked:

> Subject: self playing instruments???
> Please explain how or what?? (used for seniors)

I agree, the term seems awkward.  It's an attempt at a concise
name for our hobby concerned with "traditional musical instruments
fitted with a mechanism that plays music stored as binary data."

The high-tech phrase, "stored as binary data", is intended to exclude
phonographs, which reproduce sounds stored as analog data.  Not that
we at MMD hold anything against old phonographs and old records; it's
just that other mature societies and web sites and discussion forums
already exist for the fans of old phonographs and old records :

  http://www.78online.com/forum/
  http://www.garlic.com/~tgracyk/
  http://www.proaxis.com/~settlet/record/record.html
  http://www.proaxis.com/~settlet/record/links.html

Q. David Bowers entitled his big reference book "Encyclopedia of
Automatic Musical Instruments", but when you mention "automatic
musical instruments" to most folks, the first thing they think of
is a juke box (drop in a coin and it plays automatically) or a
phonograph (like an automatic record changer).  So "self-playing
musical instruments" is a little bit better than "automatic musical
instruments".

This generous invitation appears on the MMD web site pages:

  To post a message in the MMD related to self-playing musical
  instruments, please send your message via email to: rolls@foxtail.com

The qualifier "self-playing" is often ignored or not understood,
therefore every week I get a handful of emails concerning the writer's
old phonograph, old phonograph records, old electronic organ or new
Japanese keyboard synthesizer <Ugh!>, old piano, old reed organ or
old accordion.

Sometimes, happily, the message is about a self-playing instrument such
as an old (or modern) player piano, old piano rolls, old organette or
old musical box.

More often than not the question is "How much is it worth?"  Less
frequently it's "Who can repair it?"  Thus I get the feeling that
the writers simply hope that they own a rare collectible, and they're
not really interested in the instrument for the music it produces.
That's sad...

The expert collectors and restorers of Musical Box Society
International (MBSI) are very helpful with musical box questions;
Matthew Caulfield calls on them for answers to questions sent MBSI
via email, and he helps me with similar questions sent to MMDigest.
Visit http://www.mbsi.org/

Otherwise I sigh and politely reply to every email with some sort
of helpful advice.  I steer the phonograph inquiries to the antique
phonograph societies around the world, and the pump organ inquiries
to the Reed Organ Society :

  http://www.oldcrank.com/links/index.shtml
  http://sponsor.globalknowledge.nl/ros/

Writers who ask about the history of a piano and its repair are
directed to the web site of Piano Tuners and Technician's Guild
(PTG)  http://www.ptg.org/  If a player piano technician is needed
I suggest searching the list at John Tuttle's Player-Care web site:
http://www.player-care.com/playtech.html

To the question, "What is the value of my old instrument," I reply,
"I don't know.  Ask a piano dealer or an antique dealer.  That's
their business."  In all likelihood (especially when piano moving
expenses are considered) the answer is "Nothing -- Nada -- Nichevo."

But I can't be the bearer of that disappointing truth, can I?!

Robbie Rhodes
Mechanical Music Digest
http://mmd.foxtail.com/Archives/