Pianola Museum

A piano that plays itself

The Pianola Museum is a small museum on the Westerstraat, in the Jordaan, and the main thing it shows is sound. A pianola is a piano with a mechanism inside that reads a perforated paper roll. Felt-covered fingers press the keys, and the player works the pedals to drive the air. Instruments like this were built between about 1900 and 1935. Here you hear them working, on a guided tour that explains the history and how the machines run.

The museum owns more than a hundred instruments. Around fifteen stand out on display: pianolas and so-called reproducing pianos. The archive holds more than 35,000 music rolls, from classical music and ragtime to operetta, marches and dance tunes. It counts among the largest collections in the world.

A trade town and a police station

At the start of the twentieth century Amsterdam was an important centre of the pianola trade. Well-known dealers were Duwaer en Naessens, Goldschmeding, Bender and Kettner. Most buyers were private households, but the instruments also went to many places of entertainment around the city.

The museum grew from a foundation set up in 1981 by Theo de Boer and Kasper Janse. They opened the museum in 1994 on the ground floor of a former police station from 1905, at Westerstraat 106. Since 2017 it has worked closely with the Geelvinck Muziek Museum.

The story of the pianola runs alongside that of silent film. The museum has shown old film footage for years, and the music in those evenings often comes from the instruments themselves. Concerts also take place here, with classical piano, jazz and tango, and the pianola often plays a part.

What to look for

Watch the roll. As the paper unwinds, the holes pass over the mechanism and the keys move on their own. It is odd to see a empty stool and hear a full piece of music.

Listen for the difference between a plain pianola and a reproducing piano. On a plain pianola the person at the pedals shapes the expression. The reproducing pianos were made to capture the touch of the pianists of the day, so their rolls still play the way those pianists did, a century later. Ask your guide to show you the difference side by side.

Outside, look at the building too. It still has the look of the police station it was in 1905.