The player piano or pianola is a regular piano that plays by itself with the help of a mechanical system. This mechanism operates by reading a perforated paper roll that unwinds, onto which the music has already been encoded. An operator seated at the piano controls levers to adjust tempo, dynamics, and volume. Initially, the perforation of the paper rolls was done manually by technicians with musical training. Toward the end of the 19th century, the first recording pianos were introduced. These allowed for the direct capture of a pianist’s performance – a primitive form of recording that documented the playing in real time via a device connected to the keyboard. This machine used inked styluses to record playing data on a special paper roll that moved at a constant speed while the pianist played (a process somewhat reminiscent of a seismograph's function). The pianist typically had to perform each piece twice: the first time to record the notes themselves (pitch, attack point, and duration – thus rhythm and tempo) along with pedal usage, and the second time to separately capture the dynamics. In a subsequent step, the ink recordings were manually translated by a specialized technician into perforations on a master roll. The pianola of the Athens Conservatoire is of the Pleyel brand. It dates to the early decades of the 20th century and came into the Conservatoire’s possession through a donation from the family of Pericles Theocharis.