When I was a child visiting a great uncle’s house, he’d let me pump his player piano, a curious machine where songs were coded in rolls of paper, the notes and their duration punched as holes. Different rolls had different sequences of holes, giving different songs. I assumed they were made by imitating, note for note, a person playing the piano. Once the holes were put in a master roll, mass duplication followed, like the printing press except not type but holes. Now, Sauntering in a book by Charles Susskind I learned there is more to it. The holes can be punched anywhere; music can be written for machines that no person could play.
Mechanical means of producing music have a long history. The barrel-and-pin music box dates back to the 18th century. The barrel organ and perforated-roll pneumatic instruments (of which the player piano, the calliope, and the merry-go-round orchestrion are more recent examples) are not much younger. In 1813, Beethoven composed The Battle of Vittoria (also known as the “Battle Symphony”) for the panharmonium, a mechanical orchestra constructed by his friend Johann Nepomuk Malzel (1772–1838), who later invented the clockwork metronome still used by musicians to fix tempi; and in the 20th century, ranking composers such a Paul Hindemith (1895–1963) and Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) have written for the player piano, fascinated by the possibilities of piano music for an unlimited number of fingers.
(Quoted from page 73 of Understanding Technology, by Charles Susskind. The John Hopkins University Press, 1973.)
For a brief biography of Charles Susskind, click here. For images of or relating to Charles Susskind, click here.
To hear the orchestrion (it plays like an orchestra) programmed by Pat Metheny, click here.
Mechanical means of producing music have a long history. The barrel-and-pin music box dates back to the 18th century. The barrel organ and perforated-roll pneumatic instruments (of which the player piano, the calliope, and the merry-go-round orchestrion are more recent examples) are not much younger. In 1813, Beethoven composed The Battle of Vittoria (also known as the “Battle Symphony”) for the panharmonium, a mechanical orchestra constructed by his friend Johann Nepomuk Malzel (1772–1838), who later invented the clockwork metronome still used by musicians to fix tempi; and in the 20th century, ranking composers such a Paul Hindemith (1895–1963) and Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) have written for the player piano, fascinated by the possibilities of piano music for an unlimited number of fingers.
(Quoted from page 73 of Understanding Technology, by Charles Susskind. The John Hopkins University Press, 1973.)
For a brief biography of Charles Susskind, click here. For images of or relating to Charles Susskind, click here.
To hear the orchestrion (it plays like an orchestra) programmed by Pat Metheny, click here.
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