Hi all,  I think the modern electronic player pianos can be adjusted
to play in the background very quietly for background music.  The early
reproducing pianos and most other instruments were not for background
music; they were to show off the pianist skills and put the attention
to the instruments.  I think people who placed them in their living
rooms wanted concerts and wanted to show them off to visitors as to
what they could do.

The only exceptions were probably the orchestrions and violin players
which were for restaurants and ice cream parlors, etc., and these did
play a little quieter as background for the patrons, but still loud
enough that the patrons could hear them.

Now, musical boxes are quiet and can play in the background, providing
you get up now and then and crank them up, and put them to continuous
play, and also change the discs or cylinders if you have that type of
music box.

Hope everyone has a very Happy Holiday and that the New Year will be
a change for the better, for everyone all over the world.  We all need
to learn to get along with one another.  Music seems to do it quite
well in bringing many of us together.  Maybe we need more music?

Musically,
Larry Norman - from the rainy and maybe a few flakes of snow in
the Blue Ridge parkway of Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee.
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~rollertunes/