American Fotoplayer

[2] The Fotoplayer is a type of player piano specifically developed to provide music and special sound effects for silent movies.

Before movies had sound, it was discovered that playing background music during a film could aid in developing a particular mood for a certain scene.

The appeal of the Fotoplayer to theatre owners was the fact that it took no major musical skill to operate.

The Fotoplayer would play the piano and pipe organ mechanically using an electric motor, an air pump, and piano rolls while the user of the Fotoplayer would follow the onscreen action while pulling cords, pushing buttons, and pressing pedals to produce relatable sounds to what was occurring onscreen.

[4] These actions could create sounds such as a steamboat whistle, a bird chirp, wind, thunder, a telephone bell, a drum, castanets, cymbal, tambourine, bass drum, klaxon, triangle, siren, horn, train whistle, as well as many others.