This piano was built in 1919 and was one of the very early models of reproducing piano’s built by the American Piano Company, called the STODDARD AMPICO. I have only had this particular instrument since June ‘95, it is yet to be restored and still in it’s original condition. This is not a project for the faint hearted as there are many hours of painstaking restoration work to be done (see other sections on this homepage).
The piano is 6’6” in length, it has an absolutely wonderful sound and just about sings in your ear. The treble is very strong and bright (I do play myself to varying degree’s) . I do have my push up playing on it at times, it certainly enhances the music with a good instrument upon which to play the rolls.
The history of the piano is interesting in itself ,as I am only the third owner since new. It was sold for 1000 guinea’s new, (from what I have been told) at Carnegie’s in Melbourne Australia, it took two years to sell:
The story goes that the chemist who invented Herns cough mixture bought it and took it to his home in Mossman (out of Sydney) where it resided until he died and was later sold in a deceased estate auction (1962) to a gentleman from Kogarah (Sydney) for 85 guinea’s. This gentleman finally parted with it when I purchased it last year.
If you’ve never heard of , or even seen one these type of players I’m afraid I can’t explain in words what they sound like . It’s nothing short of absolutely amazing , it’s just like the artist sitting in front of the piano playing for you. Every nuance in the music is faithfully reproduced to give you an exact interpretation of the original recording. In other words all the soft and loud passages in the music are duplicated.
This is all done by extra perforations in the margins in the music roll, in the case of the Ampico it is capable of 7 different levels of loudness in the bass and the treble as well as doing crescendo and decrescendo. In short it has been said to be the worlds first computer.
If you are a musical person and in particular like classical piano I would encourage you to seek out and find someone close to you who has one of these instruments, so that you can have a first hand experience to what they sound like.
If this is out of the question then there are CD’s available of many
of these rolls . With names such as Horowitz, Gershwin , Granados, Rachmaninoff,
etc. “And this is them actually playing”. Please feel free to e-mail
me if you would like more information.