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Tech Talk:
Play it again, MIDI! 
by Shelley Blancaneaux Price
The house is beautifully adorned with holiday finery. The caterers and bartenders have prepared marvelous refreshments, and the gaily dressed guests are having a grand time. This could be a scene from a Hollywood film, but this is your home, your party. And setting the mood for it all is the music from your grand piano with the PianoDisc, one of the most modern player-piano systems in existence today.
The technology behind the PianoDisc player system is the Musical Instrument Digital Interface contained within it. The MIDI allows one electronic machine to communicate with another through an electronic language. With a MIDI-capable piano, the possibilities are endless. It can accept your favorite CDs, allow you to attach an iPod, MP3 player or even stream music via the Internet to be played through the piano. If you happen to be a pianist, you can record yourself and then listen as the piano plays your tune back. The full orchestration of each song is reproduced in rich, tonal quality.
This is not the usual image of a player piano. In the nostalgia of our mind’s eye, we may picture a huge upright machine with barrel-shaped spools turning music rolls made of perforated paper. The piano would be playing a snappy ragtime tune by Scott Joplin or something jazzy by Jelly Roll Morton or Fats Waller. Fast young women in shimmering flapper dresses and bobbed hair dancing the latest steps complete the picture. Pneumatic foot pedals that were difficult to pump activated this type of player piano. Though the idea of a player piano had been around for many years, and several awkward versions were produced in limited quantity, this was the first practical version to enjoy success in the 20th century.
We associate this jazz-age image with the instrument because the popularity of player pianos climaxed during the Roaring 20s. The player piano reached its top year of production and sales in 1925, when more players sold than regular (silent) pianos. Production tapered off from there and, following the Wall Street crash of 1929, sales declined dramatically. That left just a tiny number of manufacturers in business during the 1930s. A 1960s revival of interest resulted in the resumption of player piano production by a handful of manufacturers. However, production of roll-operated instruments soon ceased, to be replaced with modern systems such as the PianoDisc and Yamaha Disklavier.
Lance Lafargue, a registered piano technician and member of the Piano Technician’s Guild, is an expert on pianos. Owner of Mandeville’s Lafargue Pianos LTD, he has been in the business for more than 20 years and has seen first-hand the evolution of the player piano. “The old players sounded very mechanical and wore the actions out prematurely, but the modern player systems have the same subtlety of touch and sound as human hands.” Lafargue suggests that if you are in the market for any type of piano, whether player or silent, you should first do your homework. “Educate yourself about the product so you can make a wise purchase and get your money’s worth,” he suggests. “The Piano Book by Larry Fine, with a foreword by jazz pianist Keith Jarret, is a good beginning for this educational process.”
If you currently own a regular silent piano, don’t fret! Any piano can become a player piano with the addition of the PianoDisc system. Parts within the system tell the keys when, how long, how fast and how hard to play as it weaves a tapestry of sounds. Now—whether there’s a talented pianist in your family or no one to tickle the ivories—beautiful piano music can be a part of your holiday and year-long entertaining!
