Your Player Piano and You

Everything You Need To Know About The Player Piano

This book is meant to give you an idea of how to work the player piano.

Basics

Your player piano takes raw text that you input through the interface and turns it into notes!

A note will play approximately every half second.

You can enable looping on the piano by using the piano key!

The piano key will also let you reset everything on the piano (like a factory reset) if something goes really crazy.

A "note" in the player piano has four parts, each separated by a comma:

• The Note Name
• Accidentals
• Dynamics
• Octave

Each note "cluster" needs to be separated by a vertical pipe, like so: A,B,F,3|B,B,F,3

Note Name: Either A,B,C,D,E,F or G if you want to play a note, or R if you don't. (IMPORTANT: READ FURTHER FOR HOW TO REST)

Accidentals: B for flat, S for sharp, N for natural.

Dynamics: P for piano (quietest), MP for mezzo piano, N for neutral, MF for mezzo forte and F for forte (loudest).

Octave: Notes can be on one of three octaves: 3, 4 or 5. 3 is low, 5 is high. The only exception is G Sharp, which can only be 3 or 4.

Limitations

• If you want a note to be a rest, you'll need to put an R in for every field on the note: (R,R,R,R|)
• You cannot change the duration of a note.
• If you want to play notes at the same time, you will need to link multiple pianos together. Input notes, make one piano play, and electronics will handle the rest.
• BE SURE TO LINK ALL PIANOS TOGETHER. IF YOU HAVE THREE, YOU WILL NEED TO LINK THE FIRST AND SECOND, SECOND AND THIRD, AND FIRST AND THIRD.
• You cannot play below octave 3 or above octave 5 (Including C6)
• Even though it's not likely you'll run into it, there is a limit for the number of characters you can input (2048 characters, 256 notes.)

Maintenance

• You can use your piano's key to activate a built in factory reset.
• You can use your piano's key to enable or disable the looping circuit.
• You can use your piano's key to set the interval of notes from 0.25 to 0.5 seconds. The default timing is 0.5 seconds.
• You can access your piano's internal workings by prying off the front panel.
• You can use a multitool to reset the piano's memory once you have access to its insides.
• You can use a multitool to link player pianos together like you would a mechcomp component.
• If your linked pianos sound weird, you may have linked a set of pianos together multiple times. Use a multitool or key to reset and relink carefully.
• You can use a wirecutter to disable looping. (WARNING, THIS IS PERMANENT, DON'T LOSE YOUR DAMN KEY)
• You can use a screwdriver to raise and lower the wheel bolts, making the piano moveable.

Understanding Your Piano's Language

Your piano will often make noises. But don't worry! It's just communicating with you. And if you can't speak piano, you have this handy little book to help.

• An angry sounding beep means that the piano is busy and you can't interface with it.
• Whirring followed by a complete shutdown means that your note input was too long for the piano.
• A lot of horrible mechanical noise followed by a complete shutdown means that the tempo you tried to input was too fast or slow.
• Ratcheting followed by a complete shutdown means that you forgot to input a piece of a note cluster somewhere.
• A lot of noise followed by a count of beeps means that a note you tried to play doesn't exist. The number of beeps is the position of the note.
• If the song ends earlier than expected, make sure that you don't have any double vertical bars in your input.
• And remember, if things are funky and not working, use your piano reset key!

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