1914 Player Pipe Organ

In 1913, Helen Gould Shepard, heir to Jay Gould, ordered two pipe organs from the Aeolian Company.  One for her city residence in New York City, and one for her country home.  The city organ was the larger of the two.  It was installed in 1914 and cost $21,700.

In every respect, it is a normal pipe organ, but with the added capability to be operated by player rolls.  Wind created by a 2 horse power blower causes the pipes to create sound.  The operating action of the organ is called “electro-pneumatic”.  This means that low voltage electricity is used to switch the pipes on and off through pneumatic operated valves.

Some of the wind pressure is used to make the paper roll travel across a  brass tracker bar.  In the tracker bar are two rows of holes.  Each row has 58 holes.  When the roll is played,  the spool box housing the tracker bar is pressurized with wind from the blower.  As a hole appears in the paper, the wind passes through the corresponding hole in the tracker bar and causes an electrical contact to close.  The closing of the contact triggers a pneumatic valve to open, admitting the wind to a specific pipe.  

The two rows of holes control  two keyboards on the console.  Since the total number of holes in the tracker bar is  2 x 58  = 116, the rolls are called 116 note rolls.  The 58 hole scheme comes from earlier Aeolian reed organs.  The player roll does not play the top three notes of the 61 note organ keyboard.

The player mechanism on this organ activates only the music notes.  None of the other normal pipe organ controls are activated.  The user must sit at the organ console and set the stops and move other controls as the roll plays.  Instructions are on the roll indicating when stops are to be turned on and off.   The roll looks like this.

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