"Nickleodeons"

[Robert Goodale]

The term "Nickelodeon" is arbitrary and has no direct association with
"movie houses" as they were called.  Coin pianos were made for profit, thus
the coin slot.  Most coin pianos where in ice cream parlors, restaurants,
and speakeasies of the prohibition era.  Coinola was a leader in the
business but had many competitors including Wurlitzer, Link, Engelhard,
Seeburg, and others.  Original coin pianos are quite rare today and highly
collectible.

Movie houses were a much different story.  Inexpensive theaters typically
featured an ordinary piano.  The pianist was issued music intended to
accompany the particular film being shown.  More elaborate theaters however
had very sophisticated accompaniment provided by a "photoplayer".
Photoplayers were very elaborate player pianos typically with two separate
music rolls and two tracker bars.  Each roll would contain music for
specific parts of the film.  The "operator" was responsible for changing and
synchronizing the rolls with the film.  The premier feature of photoplayers
however was that they also included one or more detached cabinets.  These
contained a variety of percussion instruments and sound effects that were
operated from the main console.  On cue the operator was able to add
appropriate effects to the film.  Sadly when the silent era ended there was
little use for these machines.  Thus they were rapidly destroyed in favor of
additional theater seating.  Only a few photoplayers exist today.  They are
highly regarded and coveted items by serious collectors of mechanical music
machines.

Rob Goodale, RPT
Las Vegas, NV


> Dear List,
>     As we all know, a "Nickleodeon" is a theater which
> costs a nickle to get into, such as the early movie
> houses of the 1890's-1900's era. Sometimes these
> theaters used an automatic, coin-operated piano to
> provide accompaniment ( of varying appropriateness )
> to the silent films. For this reason the term
> "Nickleodeon piano" became "common usage".
>     It is very doubtful, though, that any company used
> this term to describe itself "back in the day'.
>    "Coinola" was as close as it got, methinks.
>     Thump