Tim Baxter wrote:

> I have heard that during the player piano's hey-day, there were
> instruction booklets on how to make a plain ol' 88-note player sound
> more musical, by judicious use of the separate bass and treble levers,
> pumping more or less intensely, creating accents in proper places,
> etc.

The snag with this is that the controls on players are so different.
Some subdue the treble and bass by progressively cutting off the suction
and some just lift one half of a divided hammer-rail.  Some use buttons
and some use levers.  On the Cecilian and Angelus, there's a rocking
tablet under the right hand to control tempo.  And the systems that use
the "snakebite" theme perforations on rolls, like Hupfeld's Phonola, the
Solodant version of the Standard action and Aeolian Co's Pianola, all
require different hand actions to achieve the same effect.

(Actually, the Hupfeld is very close to the Pianola except for the
"treble-subdue" which works the other way round so you squeeze the
subdue levers together for whole-keyboard themeing and move the squeezed
pair left or right for biasing the accompaniment powers.  I sometimes
think the two companies employed industrial spies to pinch each others'
ideas.)

Aeolian Co. in the UK did put out a fair little booklet which often comes
up in roll auctions here, but it doesn't describe what is needed in
really customer-friendly terms.  It went with an instruction roll which
is moderately helpful (and also comes up often in auctions).  But of
course it refers all the way through to their five-lever standard layout
which isn't much use for anyone trying to learn a Higel or a Standard,
though the tempo lever is in the same place.

I have a 1960s Aeolian-American instruction roll for their "spinet
player" and it's tellingly primitive.  You emote with the pedals and the
tempo lever and that's it !

It might be an idea to solicit submissions from MMders on playing their
own instrument, to be edited for the web site.

Dan Wilson, London