Player Piano
Thomas Patteson · Oxford University Press eBooks · 2014
Abstract Despite falling out of widespread use after the end of the 1920s, the player piano remains one of the most important technological innovations of the twentieth century. The instrument, in its various forms, has been a lightning rod for vigorous debates about the nature of music, performance, and the ethical status of technology itself. Yet the player piano remains deeply misunderstood in both its cultural and technological workings. This article surveys the course of the instrument’s development, distinguishes its various manifestations, and charts its varied and unforeseen uses. It shows how the instrument served a variety of cultural ends, from the immortalization of great pianistic interpreters, to leisurely domestic entertainment, to experiments in modernism such as “mechanical music.” The player piano serves as an example of the seemingly unlimited potential for creative appropriation and a warning against the pitfalls of technological determinism.