The Piano Rolls

Piano rolls are early musical recording devices that capture and store performances of piano music. They are long paper or plastic strips with perforations (holes) arranged in patterns that represent different notes and rhythms. When inserted into a player piano, the perforations trigger mechanisms that activate the corresponding keys, reproducing the original performance automatically. Essentially, they function like a physical recording of a piano piece, allowing the music to be played back without a live performer. Piano rolls were widely used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries before the advent of electronic recordings.