Hi everyone.  Gordon Stelter wrote in 060810 MMDigest ["1923 Laffargue
Amphion in Australia"], "Please don't call it a 'Pianola'..."

I am afraid that Pianola stands for "player piano" in some countries.
That is its "official" name.  In Australia and other places like South
Africa, nobody will know what a player piano is.  It is a "pianola"
instead.

In the 1930s or 1940s(?) song from Marlene Dietrich, "Lola", she already
sings,

  "They call me naughty Lola...,
   ... at home my pianola
     is playing night and day..."

I guess it is a bit like "to hoover" means "to vacuum" in the UK;
different countries, different expressions.  I now wonder if Aeolian
came up with 'Pianola' or if they took it from somewhere else?

Interestingly, in a newspaper advert on the front page of a South
African newspaper dated Thursday, October 23, 1924, it was still
called a player piano.

Kind regards,
Bernt Damm