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Copyright by Allison Rebecca Wente 2016 The Dissertation Committee for Allison Rebecca Wente Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Magical Mechanics: The Player Piano in the Age of Digital Reproduction Committee: James Buhler, Supervisor Eric Drott Edward Pearsall Byron Almén Charles Carson Karl Miller Magical Mechanics: The Player Piano in the Age of Digital Reproduction by Allison Rebecca Wente, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2016 Dedication In loving memory of my spitfire of a role model, grandma Rose. Acknowledgements I am forever grateful to James Buhler for his advice, guidance, support, and patience throughout this project. I would never have been able to do this without his willingness to entertain my endless questions and his aid in developing my writing and thinking outside of the box, for encouraging my less traditional thought processes, for helping me set boundaries that kept this dissertation from being double this size, and for never losing interest even when reading the umpteenth draft of something. For additional feedback, thoughts, opinions, and encouragement, I would like to thank Byron Almén, Charles Carson, Karl Miller, Edward Pearsall, and especially Eric Drott. Thank you to Brian Hyer and Leslie Blasius for giving me my first glimpse into what music theory is, transforming my writing, and gently shepherding me into academia. Many thanks go to Ted Conner and Diane Follet as well, my first academic role models and forever friends. Thank you to G. Schirmer, Inc. (ASCAP) and the European American Music Distributors Company, sole U.S. and Canadian agent for Schott Music for the copyright permissions necessary for various examples. Thank you to my colleagues and friends at the University of Wisconsin and The University of Texas, without whom I never would have survived graduate school. To my fellow Badgers, Garreth Broesche, James Bungert, April Dannelly-Schenck, Amanda Horn-Gunderson, William O’Hara, Tom Scahill, and Caitlin Schmid: thank you for all of the cool kid lunches, student union work dates, and Fri-coffs. Thank you for helping keep me sane at the very beginning, and most importantly, thank you for still providing endless support all these years, degrees, spouses, and even a few babies later. To my Longhorns, especially Matthew Bell, Eloise Boisjoli, Eric Hogrefe, Cari McDonnell, and Scott v Schumann: thank you for helping form our writing group, for the endless professional and personal support, for the fun, productive, and collegial atmosphere, and for all of the laughs, barbeque, and tacos. Many, many thanks to my friends Caitlin Hawley, Tiffany Reilly, Rebecca Pittman, and April Dannelly-Schenck for always listening, and for always being willing to bake delicious treats and chat for hours over a cup of tea (or coffee, I suppose). Thank you to my family for your constant love, wisdom, guidance, and encouragement. Special thanks to my Gram and my parents, who shuttled me to and from countless music lessons and endured many torturous performances through my formative years, and to my sister who had to grow up with my musical noise. Thank you for never doubting me and for always understanding and supporting my love for music. Finally, thank you to my husband, Alex, for always being there for me, and for providing a limitless supply of feedback, ice cream, and emotional support. Getting this degree wouldn’t be half as much fun without you. vi Magical Mechanics: The Player Piano in the Age of Digital Reproduction Allison Rebecca Wente, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2016 Supervisor: James Buhler By the early twentieth 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. 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 dissertation is an exploration into that shift, examining the rise and fall of the player piano in early twentieth-century society. 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. vii Through eighteenth- and nineteenth-century examples of mechanical sounds in music, and of music imitating or scoring machines, along with a cultural historical overview of the player piano and its environment, Chapter 1 explores the background information necessary for an analysis of mechanical music. Chapter 2 organizes mechanical music into three categories: (1) music written to sound like or imitate the machine; (2) music written to record and reproduce the skills of virtuoso performers; and (3) music written specifically for machines. This chapter addresses a diverse variety of audiences and spaces to make clear the widespread influence of the machine on musical culture. Chapter 3 includes a sonic analysis of two 1919 recordings Rachmaninoff made of his C# Minor Prelude, one roll one record, framed within a broader theory of memory based on Henri Bergson’s Matter and Memory (1896). Chapter 4 steps away from the notes on the page and instead includes several examples of player piano advertisements from 1900-1930, organized into categories based on themes like labor, gender, and education. Finally, chapter 5 touches on the ways in which machine music converges with or diverges from theories of absolute music. viii Table of Contents List of Examples .................................................................................................... xi List of Figures ..................................................................................................... xiii Preface .....................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1 Introduction ..........................................................................................13 The Basics: The Player Piano Mechanism and Methods of Roll Production 16 War and Labor ..............................................................................................22 A Pianolist’s Work........................................................................................28 Chapter 2 Music Imitating Machines, Machines Imitating Humans ....................32 Introduction...................................................................................................32 Scoring the Machine in the Twentieth Century ............................................41 The Machine on Screen ................................................................................45 Modern Metropolis: Music Written to Sound Like or Imitate the Machine.49 Mechanical Novelty: Music Written to Highlight the Skills of Virtuoso Performers While Showcasing the Machine........................................71 The Unskilled Ballet: Music Written Specifically for Machines..................84 Unplugged.....................................................................................................97 Conclusion ..................................................................................................100 Chapter 3 Stockpiling Memories: The Player Piano, the Phonograph, and Bergson’s Two Modalities of Musical Memory ..........................................................103 Introduction.................................................................................................103 Editing Memory..........................................................................................107 Modernizing Musical Labor .......................................................................121 Rachmaninoff .............................................................................................130 Conclusion ..................................................................................................136 Chapter 4 Phantom Fingers at Work: Selling the Player Piano in a Changing Musical Marketplace.................................................................................................138 Introduction.................................................................................................138 ix Perfect Labor...............................................................................................146 Gendered Labor ..........................................................................................156 Educational Labor.......................................................................................165 Stored and Reproduced Labor ....................................................................172 Conclusion ..................................................................................................187 Chapter 5 "So Old it’s New":