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From Machine to Musical Instrument

The Life and Workings of the Metrostyle Pianola

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  • cris.virtual.author-orcid
  • cris.virtual.department
    University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna
  • cris.virtual.orcid
  • cris.virtualsource.author-orcid
    3c7f072f-cba6-4b75-aa25-0e26d4eec348
  • dc.contributor.author
    Probst, Stephanie
  • dc.date.accessioned
    2024-05-28T16:32:21Z
  • dc.date.available
    2024-05-28T16:32:21Z
  • dc.date.issued
    2021
  • dc.description.abstract
    Media histories of music often frame technological innovation in the early twentieth century within a general zeal for automated musical reproduction. The engineering efforts of the Aeolian Company and its Pianola counter such narratives by fostering active music-making rather than passive listening. As a pneumatically powered attachment to a piano, the Pianola was initially limited to reproducing strictly mechanical renditions of music from perforated paper rolls. But the invention of the Metrostyle in 1903, a hand lever to achieve tempo-specific effects, significantly refined the musical capacities of the instrument. It allowed for inscribing onto the music rolls authoritative performance instructions that could be enacted by the player. Revisiting the various places that the Metrostyle Pianola inhabited, from the manufacturing site to the concert hall and the bourgeois living room, I illuminate the different sociocultural relationships and musical experiences that it mediates. By relegating certain tasks of conventional piano-playing to the mechanical workings inside the instrument, the Pianola was marketed as facilitating simplified music-making in ever wider parts of society. The Metrostyle annotations served as a pedagogical device for instructing novice players in principles of nuanced and tasteful interpretation. My analysis exposes the reciprocal relationships between the instrument and its human players, from attempts to adapt the physical interface to human physiologies, to the ways in which the instrument, in turn, imposes certain mechanistic affordances on its players. Citation: Probst, Stephanie (2021). "From Machine to Musical Instrument: The Life and Workings of the Metrostyle Pianola." Journal of Musicology 38 (3): 329–363.
  • dc.description.provenance
    Submitted by repo admin (repo-admin@mdw.ac.at) on 2024-05-28T16:32:21Z workflow start=Step: checkcorrectionstep - action:noUserSelectionAction No. of bitstreams: 0
    Made available in DSpace on 2024-05-28T16:32:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2021
  • dc.identifier.doi
    10.1525/jm.2021.38.3.329
  • dc.identifier.uri
    https://dspace.mdw.ac.at/handle/123456789/4872
  • dc.language.iso
    en
  • dc.relation.journal
    The Journal of Musicology
  • dc.subject
    player piano
    musicology
    Musikwissenschaft
  • dc.title
    From Machine to Musical Instrument
  • dc.title.subtitle
    The Life and Workings of the Metrostyle Pianola
  • dc.type
    text::journal::journal article
  • dcat.theme
    EDUC
  • dcterms.publisher
    Journal of Musicology
  • dcterms.rights
    All rights reserved
  • dspace.entity.type
    Publication
  • mdwlis.institutionalBibliography.citation
    Probst, Stephanie: From Machine to Musical Instrument. The Life and Workings of the Metrostyle Pianola. In: The journal of musicology 38 (2021) H. 3, S. 329-363 [online verfügbar: https://doi.org/10.1525/jm.2021.38.3.329].
  • mdwlis.institutionalBibliography.publicationType
    erstveröffentlichte Beiträge in SCI, SSCI und A&HCI-Fachzeitschriften
  • mdwlis.institutionalBibliography.subject
    Kunstwissenschaften
    Kunstwissenschaften
  • mdwlis.institutionalBibliography.subject3
    604
    604
  • mdwlis.institutionalBibliography.subject4
    6040
    6040
  • mdwlis.institutionalBibliography.subject5
    10042
    10042
  • mdwlis.institutionalBibliography.year
    2021
  • mdwlis.mdwonline.identifier
    84088
  • mdwlis.publication.firstRelease
    Ja
  • mdwlis.publication.focus
    wissenschaftlich
  • mdwlis.publication.internationalCoPublication
    es handelt sich um keine internationale Co-Publikation
  • mdwlis.publication.mdwAttribution
    Ja, mdw wird im Kontext der Publikation genannt
  • mdwlis.publication.status
    veröffentlicht
  • mdwrepo.ancestors
    LIS > Publikationen > Bibliographischer Nachweis
    LIS > Publikationen > Publications
  • mdwrepo.hasTopCommunity
    LIS
  • oaire.citation.endPage
    363
  • oaire.citation.issue
    3
  • oaire.citation.startPage
    329
  • oaire.citation.volume
    38
  • oairecerif.author.affiliation
    University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna