The most commonly found older player pianos are pneumatic, powered by a vacuum which is created via foot-powered bellows or electric motors. There are two main types: one fully automatic which faithfully reproduces a pianist's interpretation of the music, and one which lacks the nuance of live performance.

Nowadays, these are usually known as the reproducing piano and the pianola respectively, though there are also instruments that cross this exact division. Originally, the Pianola (with a capital 'P') was a registered tradename of the Aeolian Company, but became a generic name associated with the player piano.

Many companies marketed the player piano with different names, most commonly with the suffix OLA or with the word TONE incorporated into it, but Pianola was the name that stuck.
The most familiar type of pneumatic player piano looks like a normal upright piano, but has a mechanism controlled by a paper music roll contained within the cabinet of the piano itself.

However, the original pneumatic players were constructed in a separate cabinet, which was placed in front of the keyboard of an ordinary piano. This unit was positioned in such a way that a series of felt-covered wooden or metal "fingers" were located above each key of the piano and struck the corresponding note as indicated by the perforations in the music roll; most include one or more moving "feet" to control the piano's pedals as well. These early instruments came to be known as cabinet players or vorsetzers. From around 1908, the roll mechanisms were also built into grand pianos.