TY - BOOK AU - Wente,Allison Rebecca TI - The player piano and musical labor: the ghost in the machine SN - 9780367553876 AV - ML1070 .W45 2022 U1 - 786.6/6 23 PY - 2022/// CY - Abingdon, Oxon, New York PB - Routledge KW - Music KW - Labor productivity KW - History KW - Phonograph KW - Player piano music KW - History and criticism KW - Player piano N1 - P.B; P.B; Includes bibliographical references and index; Queue the Roll : Taylorized Labor Practices and Music of the Machine Age -- Unveiling the Editor's Hand : A Sonic Comparison of Rachmaninoff's C# Minor Prelude on Roll and Record -- Phantom Fingers at Work : Selling Mechanized Musical Labor in a Changing Musical Marketplace -- Absolute Music and the Player Piano -- The Player Piano, Revisited N2 - "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. Machines and their music influenced multiple areas of early twentieth-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 twentieth-century society and connecting it to the digital technologies of today"-- ER -