Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE:
ter very much, except in so far as we vkw it
this way or that way. But the fact is that what
does matter—and matter tremendously—is whether
the view-point be a good view-point or not. The
reality behind the perception may be never so ex-
cellent, never so benevolent. But if we look at it
with a spiritual squint, its benevolence ceases to
exist—at least so far as we are concerned. This
is a very profound truth, and is worthy of more
than our passing consideration.
And the reflections thus set down have also a
signilicance of their own, very much to be consid-
ered by us who write and read these columns. The
position of our player-piano in the world of music
remains, unhappily, somewhat equivocal. ~We have
not yet obtained for it a certificate of character
from the musical world, meaning by the term the
great body of music teachers and musicians in gen-
eral, and excluding the minority of exceptionally
intelligent persons from within that body who
have seen the player-piano and know its true worth.
We are moved to this by considering once more
the words which some time ago were spoken by
the president of George Washington University,
Dr. Needham, before the Music Teachers' National
Association. The doctor is quoted as having said :
'"You can photograph the human face, but not the
soul; you can copy sounds, but not interpretations.
These inventions (player-pianos) are wonderful as
inventions, but I have yet to hear machine-made
music which moves us like music that comes direct
from the human mind." Here is a perfect illus-
tration of what was said above regarding the in-
fluence of view-point or perception upon reality.
The whole thing is so very apt for our thesis, and
withal so funny, that readers will pardon some
little discussion of it.
We shall be forgiven for not making the obvious
quibble that soul and mind are not demonstrably
the same, and that the worthy doctor's logic is
therefore distinctly fallacious. For we have some-
thing better than that to do. Happily, the wild
absurdity contained in the quoted statement may be
better and more legitimately revealed. Music and
MUSIC
TRADE:
9
REIVIEIW
interpretation are, of course, in principle, just ex-
actly the same thing, i'or music exists only 1;:
and tnrough interpretation. Hence there can be
no music except interpreted music. And the very
baldest, crudest, most •"mechanical" (if you will;
ot musical renditions is interpretation; though not
good interpretation. The mere tact that the novice
at the player-piano moves the pedals up and down
is the external indication that an interpretation of
a sort is being made. But the fallacy of the doctor
lies deeper than this. He assumes, without proof
or attempt at proof, that the fact of the player-
piano being inclusive of a mecnanism for doing tne
mechanical work of the lingers is also implicit of
its being a machine for "mechanical 1 ' interpreta-
tion. In other words, because the player-piano
sounds tones through a music roll, therefore the
i-nterpretation of the raw musical material thus
furnished must also be included in the machine.
Because a player-piano is a player-pi.ino, therefore
it cannot possibly permit personal control over
interpretation.
Why a man who pretends to authority should
talk in such an utterly absurd manner is beyond
the understanding. It is possible to assume for
the sake of argument that a player-piano might
conceivably be built so as to be insusceptible of
personal control. But to assume that it must be so
insusceptible is nonsense. Of course, we know
better. We know well that the player-piano is
susceptible of a very advanced kind of personal
control, and that so far as concerns phrasing,
dynamics and tone-color, we have already little of
which to complain. We have yet to solve, from
a commercially practical point of view, certain de-
tails of accentuation and color control. But these
have already been solved experimentally, and' will
soon be solved commercially. Moreover, the music
roll is being so rapidly and vastly improved thai
what might have been true a year ago could not be
said to be true to-day. And so it goes.
The plain fact is that the talk about "machine-
made music" is four-fifths nonsense. It arises al-
most entirely from the fact that most people who
have player-pianos misuse them, and have little or
no idea as to their possibilities. In fact, most
owners of player-pianos unhappily care nothing
about artistic music or artistic playing. But this as
not the fault of the instrument. Actually it is the
fault of those who for years have had the keeping
of our musical conscience. If the public prefers
rag-time, don't blame the player-piano, but blame
those who should have taught the public better.
No! the blame is not to be put on the instrument,
and conversely that instrument is not to be blamed,
either, if people use it to pound out bad music. For,
if they did not have player-pianos, they would
have "mechanical" music from bad pianists, who,
for that matter, are the most conspicuous of the
products turned out annually by the music teachers.
And so we get back to the place whence we
started. The music teachers are all wrong. They
have assumed a certain point of view and are get-
ting a thoroughly distorted perspective. The worst
thing about their mistaken view is to be found in
this talk of "machine-made music." All music is
"machine-made," to the extent that all music must
be expressed through mechanism. The voice itself
is expressed through a complicated mechanism,
which must not only be developed but kept in the
most careful order continually. The concert grand
piano is a mechanism. "Machine-made music" is
a term that might be applicable to something which
was deliberately interpreted by an ingenious semi-
human mechanism designed for the purpose ot
bringing forth its own mechanical interpretation
from its own mechanical brain. But the fact is
that no such thing exists or ever will exist. The
player-piano does not interpret "mechanically." It
performs certain mechanical functions, which arc
but an extension of those performed by other
musical instruments. If the performer upon the
player-piano desires to go no further than to allow
these functions alone to be performed, that is his
affair, and not chargeable against the player-piano.
The latter instrument permits personal control in
every detail of interpretation, and within wide lim-
its surpasses the possibilities of the average pianos
in every sort of way.
(Continued on page 11.)
MEMZIE,
CIA&TSA
Player Piano
Net Procurable Retail Price
$700 to $2400
Melville Clark Piano Company
Fine Arts Building
*
#
*
Chicago