Clarendon Player Piano (c)1901 - Tain't No Sin

The story as I understand it...
My great-grandparents were given this player piano secondhand in the early 1900's. It passed to my grandparents then my parents. We've tried to get a solid date for it, but the best we can get is an agreement from multiple sources that it is likely to be very early 1900's.

Song Details:

'TAIN'T NO SIN
(To Dance Around In Your Bones)
Words by Walter Donaldson, Music by Edgar Leslie - 1929

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• player
• piano
• clarendon
• tain't
• no
• sin
• donaldson
• lesley
• 1929

[AAErikCO]

Eskimo babies in those south sea tropic zones, Ice cream cones and all that :)

I've got this on roll, and it gets play frequently. If I can offer help on how to align the tracking unit on your piano so you don't have to continually adjust the roll I'd love to help.

Erik

Thanks for the vid!!

PS - Can you tell me the roll brand and performer please?

[widdowwebb]

I've asked my mom to have a look at the roll and box to check for brand/performer and unfortunately the box is not original and the roll had been re-cropped after the beginning of the roll was badly damaged. (See the tape along the edges as the roll starts?) The piano has survived 5 generations of my family so far - including a dozen grandkids - unfortunately not all of the rolls & boxes held up to playing and replaying (especially by youngsters.) She'd love to hear your tips on tracking.

[luvebug21]

i adore this tune wow

[jonycuddlesgert]

THIS. IS. WOnderful. ThankTHANKyou, widdowwebb! Lovely old novelty song... and you DONE GOOD, as they say... with all that footwork AIRpumping... to get this purely LOVELYdear old machine going. Note: I belong to MBSI (Musical Box SOciety, International)... Great group of dearfolks. ALL good wishes, widdowwebb... I am ... jonycuddlesgert... =Johnny. Hug! to you. ...

[envisionelec]

I have this SAME piano - but not a player. Sounds amazing. I wish it could play for me as I'm not quite that good. ;)

[KawhackitaRag]

One thing I find teriffically interesting is that in your video, the piano is playing this tune in the key of D major, but in the Steck baby grand video, the roll is in the key of G! (a perfect fourth higher).

Now, this might mean the two otherwise identical roll arrangements are in different keys, OR that your piano is simply a couple steps flat, and is playing the roll transposed down a couple more steps for good measure! Regardless, it is neat to compare the two piano sounds.

[KawhackitaRag]

If it is the Imperial roll, it is # 07516. If it is the QRS roll, it is # 4906.

The Imperial roll (arranged by J. Lawrence Cook) has no performer listed on the label. The QRS roll says "played by Max Kortlander". Although Max was running Imperial Industrial/QRS at that time, and had made hundreds of rolls prior to this, it is popularly believed that he gave up roll arranging around 1931, and all subsequent rolls with his name are the work of Cook. It is possible some earlier ones were too.

[KawhackitaRag]

I can help you date your piano.

From what I can see in the video, it probably dates from between 1915 and 1930. These were the peak years of player piano production. Before about 1910 or so, inner-player pianos were extremely rare, at least home models.

Those that were around mostly used 65-note rolls, because the regular 9 holes per inch 88-note roll only became the standard in 1908.

[KawhackitaRag]

compare this with the video entitled "Player Piano - George Steck Baby Grand" which I believe is playing the same roll.

That would make this either a late-period Imperial roll, or a QRS roll. Both were made by QRS, since QRS bought Imperial in 1922, and this roll is from 1930.

[AAErikCO]

Hi,

You have mail :)

Erik