A01=Allison Rebecca Wente
Absolute Music
Aeolian Company
Author_Allison Rebecca Wente
automated musical instruments
Category=AVRG1
Clock Store
Conlon Nancarrow
early recording devices
Edward Scissorhands
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_music
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Ernst Toch
Hindemith
industrial era sound studies
labour in musicology
Mechanical Instruments
Mechanical Music
mechanical music history
Mechanical Piano
mechanised performance analysis
Melodic Voices
MIDI
music technology evolution
Musical Labor
Party Game
Paul Hindemith
Petrushka Chord
Phonograph Record
Piano Roll
Piano Roll Editors
Player Piano
Player Piano Rolls
Rachmaninoff
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Vladimir De Pachmann
Young Men
Product details
- ISBN 9780367553876
- Weight: 371g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 15 Jun 2022
- Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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By the early 20th century the machine aesthetic was a well-established and dominant interest that fundamentally transformed musical performance and listening practices. While numerous scholars have examined this aesthetic in art and literature, musical compositions representing industrialized labor practices and the role of the machine in music remain largely unexplored. Moreover, in recounting the history of machines in musical recording and reproduction, scholars often tend to emphasize the phonograph, rather than player piano, despite the latter’s prominence within the newly established musical marketplace. Machines and their music influenced multiple areas of early 20th-century musical culture, from film scores to popular music and even the concert hall. But the opposite was also true: industrialized labor practices changed the musical marketplace and musical culture as a whole. As consumers accepted mechanical replacements for what previously required an active human laborer, ghostly, mechanical performers labored tirelessly in parlors, businesses, and even concert halls. Although the player piano failed to maintain a stronghold in the recorded music marketplace after 1930, the widespread acceptance of recording technologies as media for storing and enjoying music indicates a much more fundamental societal shift. This book explores that shift, examining the rise and fall of the player piano in early 20th-century society and connecting it to the digital technologies of today.
Allison Rebecca Wente is Assistant Professor of Music at Elon University, where she teaches Music Theory. Her research focuses on mechanical music, especially the role of the player piano in the early 20th century.
