The photoplayer is an automatic mechanical orchestra

Orchestrion

An orchestrion is a generic name for a machine that plays music and is designed to sound like an orchestra or band. Orchestrions may be operated by means of a large pinned cylinder or by a music roll and less commonly book music. The sound is usually produced by pipes, though they will be voiced...

 used by movie theatres to produce photoplay music

Photoplay music

Photoplay music is the term given to music written specifically for the accompaniment of silent films.-Early years:Early films merely relied on classical and popular repertory, mixed usually with improvisation by whatever accompanist was playing .Around 1910, folios of photoplay music began being...

 to accompany silent films.

Operation

The central instruments in a photoplayer were a piano

Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

 and percussion; some machines also added pipe organs and methods for manually creating sound effects. Like a player piano

Player piano

A player piano is a self-playing piano, containing a pneumatic or electro-mechanical mechanism that operates the piano action via pre-programmed music perforated paper, or in rare instances, metallic rolls. The rise of the player piano grew with the rise of the mass-produced piano for the home in...

, the photoplayer played music automatically by reading piano rolls (rolls of paper with perforations), but the photoplayer could hold two rolls: one that would play while the other was prepared. Common sound effects included gun-shots, bells and drums, which were generated by pulling chains called "cow-tails". A photoplayer operator was necessary to load the paper rolls, start the machine and add the manual sound effects and percussion using the cow-tails.

History

Approximately 8,000 to 10,000 photoplayers were produced during the boom era of silent films, between 1910 and 1928. Around a dozen manufacturers produced the instruments, including the American Photo Player Company, which made the Fotoplayer, the Operators Piano Company of Chicago, which made the Reproduco, and Seeberg

Seeberg

Seeberg is a municipality in the Oberaargau administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.-Geography:Seeberg has an area of . Of this area, 58.8% is used for agricultural purposes, while 34% is forested...

 and Wurlitzer

Wurlitzer

The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to simply as Wurlitzer, was an American company that produced stringed instruments, woodwinds, brass instruments, theatre organs, band organs, orchestrions, electronic organs, electric pianos and jukeboxes....

. The popularity of the photoplayer sharply declined in the mid-1920s as silent films were replaced by sound films, and few machines still exist today.

See also

• Theatre organs: played by an organist, they could produce a wider range of sound and were popular in larger theatres

External Links

A photoplayer in action

Photoplayer & Silent Film projector