Jim Canavan asks about playing Themodist rolls on a non-theme
player:

> When "SOLO" appears on the roll, I normally hold the Bass
> slider over to dampen the bass line. Once "NORMAL" appears,
> I release it. My reasoning is that since I can't increase
> vacuum to the theme half of the keyboard (as I could with a
> expression or reproducing piano), it makes sense to "quiet"
> the bass line. Does this make sense?

The situation with SOLO on the rolls is more than a little
strange. The original patentees of the system in Europe were
Hupfeld who called it Solodant and used it on their 73-note rolls
with the theme down the middle. The original form of this had bass
and treble subduing using buttons with a left thumb lever enabling
you to increase the overall subduing relative to the theme (which
was as loud as you were pedalling). So you could subdue bass or
treble individually, but not by different degrees. Aeolian somehow
managed to weasel round the patents with Themodist by giving you
double thumb levers which gave (if you were good enough to use
them that way) different subduing for treble and bass, except when
pressed hard over, they just allowed a two-note chord to speak
when you were pedalling fit to burst - a very good system indeed
which I think could only have been improved by making the levers
work backwards so that you had to use them to get any sound at all
and so would have had to learn how to use them. As it was, most
beginners with no tuition simply ignored them and the pianola got
a junk reputation amongst piano lovers as a result.

Other makers bought Solodant licences and those using the Standard
action gave you two subduing buttons which shut down the playing
to a fixed degree, sometimes by choking one half of the stack and
sometimes using pneumatics driving divided half-blow rails, and
instead of Hupfeld's differentiation slider, a nasty little toggle
lever (I'm being partisan here to gee up the discussion a bit)
which turned the Solodant on. This merely gave you two power
levels, your pedalling power when a theme hole was open and a
halfway-down power (something like both Aeolian levers two-thirds
over) when it wasn't. If you put SOLODANT on when there was no
theme on the roll, it made playing unexpressive and difficult, so
following the tradition on the original 73-note rolls, all
Solodant rolls said SOLO and NORMAL as appropriate so you could
switch on Solodant when needed.

Two amusing things then happened (this would have in the fluid
years around 1906-8 when Metrostyle, Metro-Art, Themodist and
88-note all came in together). Aeolian found it couldn't sell
rolls to non-Aeolian customers if they weren't marked the same as
Solodant ones, and Hupfeld found that its new 88-note players,
despite being made a lot better, weren't selling as well as
Aeolian's via the Choralion Co in Berlin. So while Hupfeld then
weaseled round the Themodist patent by changing the Phonola
controls so they gave graduated accompaniment on both treble and
bass (you got sustaining pedal on a button under your left little
finger and treble/bass subdue on two levers which you squeezed
together with left forefinger and thumb), Aeolian turned out rolls
with SOLO and NORMAL on them. In the end Hupfeld stopped doing
this, as with experience they began to "theme" bits of the
accompaniment to help the phrasing and by the era of the
English-language-market "Animatic" rolls post-1919, theme
snakebites rarely stopped. For seasoned pianolists, Animatics are
a total delight.

So, if you're playing themed rolls on a non-theme piano, I'd
suggest the following rules.

Ignore SOLO and NORMAL except as a prompt that helpful snakebites
are/aren't around.

Achieving a very soft touch on the player and learning to accent
just the right amount is actually just as important as
distinguishing the two hands. For very quiet sections, use no
subduing unless the action is shot and won't play softly without.
The treble will stand out enough. Use the soft (half-blow) pedal
if available to help the action, and for very soft playing indeed
you can lift the dampers ever so slightly, again to help the
action. (If this is pneumatically done, lift to strike, then drop
again.)

Ordinary p or mf playing: a bit of treble emphasis. Except for
pre-1919 slot-cut rolls which give you no clue, nearly all themed
rolls and certainly the Aeolian ones give a visual clue as to
which notes are important by slotting them for quarter of an inch
or so, where accompaniment is all chained. I think it's an urban
myth that this actually makes pianos play louder there, but it
needs testing by someone. Sometimes this happens in the bass so
the rules then become reversed. Watch for this slotting and the
theme snakebite positions. Heavy accents can be helped by a bit of
sustaining pedal ahead of the chord. (QRS usually supply this for
you.) If there is one fault consistently displayed by very good
foot players, it is failure to lift the treble a bit.

If the music becomes intense, you'll need to approximate to the
way Themodist can really pick out the right hand. Summon all the
bass/treble differentiation your instrument can muster. I've never
tried to play the penultimate Symphonic Study by Schumann on a
non-theme player, but I would imagine this would be one for your
passing-out examination as a pianolist. Ultra-soft in bass,
wistful but strong in the treble.

When playing ff, the music should not be loud, but a strong mf
with the important chords of the phrases very loud indeed,
including the bass components. Thus you get no bass/treble
difference at top and bottom of the dynamic range.

Regarding rubato, and sharpening up jazz performance by
anticipating the beat with the tempo lever, that's another story.

Dan Wilson