Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
11
The Third of a Series of Articles, Written in Collaboration With a Music
Lover, Wherein Is Described How the Player-Piano Awakened in Him a
Desire for Good Music, and Some of His Experiences While Selecting Rolls
[Editorial Note.—As indicated last month, these "adven-
tures" have been set down as re-told to the Editor of the
Player Section hy the amateur music lover who underwent
them. Not only are they interesting and valuable in them-
selves, just as a sort of study in musical development, but
in addition they convey a very practical and extremely use-
ful series of hints, directly and indirectly put forward, for
the benefit of retailers and manufacturers of player-pianos
alike.]
I managed to complete my purchase of rolls,
minus two or three numbers out of stock, and
despite the almost intolerable stupidity of the
young person who accepted a salary for the
ostensible purpose of selling music to player-
piano owners. My temper was tried almost to
the limit, but after a time I got out into the
street, feeling that if all music roll buying was
always to be a matter of doing one's own choos-
ing and half the salesman's work besides, it was
a good thing I had bought fifty rolls to start
with, for I should not need to go through the
same experience again for a long while.
I could not say in close detail just how I
began to play my fifty rolls, but I do know one
thing, and that is that I played through at least
a couple of dozen the first evening, till my
wife was driven out of the room, and I, my-
self, was dizzy with the terrific mass of melo-
dious (more or less) sound I had conjured up.
When I climbed down from the bench my feet
were tired, my legs more tired, and my ears
so mixed up that I had not the least memory
of any one single tune out of the lot I had
ground out; while my wife had retreated from
a situation she could not longer sustain. Yet
somehow, I could not have stopped, if I had
wanted to, till physical weariness forcibly called
a halt; for the idea of producing music simply
fascinated me.
True, I began to realize the next morning
that I had made a fearful lot of noise, but had
accomplished not an iota of musical expres-
sion. I had simply sat and ground out music
by the mile without any thought save the sim-
ple untainted savage primitive joy of a child
with a new toy; nay, of a baby with a large
and ferociously noisy rattle. The fit had lasted
a whole evening; but before the next morning
I had done a lot of thinking.
Being a person of logical mind, I realized
that to.run through all my fifty rolls in two or
three nights would simply be to acquire a bad
cas« of musical indigestion, perhaps even dis-
gusting me with the whole proposition. I was
not even then sure that I had done anything
smart in buying a player-piano anyway, but
having bought it I was determined to make
something of it. That is my way, not only in
the office, but at home; for, after all, life is
business, just as real business is the art of
successful living, which is successful doing. I
was determined to go at the thing right. I had
had my debauch, and it was time to sober up.
But what about choosing music to begin with?
Obviously, in my then state of musical igno-
rance, it was useless to begin with high-brow
stuff, although my organist friend had loaded
me up with this kind to the extent of about half
the consignment of rolls. At the same time I
felt that I did not want anything too cheap;
for I was not a college boy nor a silly girl,
or even just a middle-aged sap-head. I was,
and am, I hope, still, a man of some fair amount
of cerebral power. So I proposed to choose
some music, to start on, that I could play with
some satisfaction, that would repay me for any
trouble I might take with it; in short that
would be altogether appropriate.
But what
music should it be? I was an ignoramus, and
how could I tell myself what to do?
I was thinking thus at lunch time of this day,
and on the way back to the office was still
thinking without having arrived at any definite
conclusion. As it happened, however, the thing
was decided for me. A parade was on, that
day, and I ran into it. A delay of some few
minutes occurred before I could cross the street,
and in that time I had heard two good mili-
tary bands approach, pass and recede. One
was playing Sousa's "El Capitan March," and
the other his "Stars and Stripes Forever." In-
stinctively, I found myself "whistling the air of
"El Capitan," and beating time to it with my
foot. For some reason, likewise, that catchy
tune kept beating on my attention at intervals
all the afternoon, and even bothered me on the
way home. So much, for some mysterious rea-
son, though providentially as it turned out, did
the tune persist, that after dinner I looked up
the' roll of "El Capitan" and proceeded to get
the thing out of my system by the hydraulic
method. (Yes, that's it, by pumping: how did
you guess it?)
Well, the Sousa march would simply not go
by mere pumping. The way that band had
played it was in my memory, and I simply
could not help beating time, as it were, to the
music on the pedals. Yes, that was it: I was
actually beating time with my right foot on
the pedals, and so, of course, as I found out
later, I was accenting the melody on the first
and third beats of each bar; in short I was
doing the first thing needed to take player-
piano music out of the mechanical class: I was
accenting. At the time I could notice no more
than that the slight extra pressure on the pedal
at the right moment made the music sound a
little louder for that moment. I did not know
how, nor could I have accounted for the pleas-
ing effect; yet that the effect was pleasing I
did know, and further I knew that I was pro-
ducing it myself. That, indeed, was the most
pleasant part of it.
I played the march through three times, not
thinking of stirring the tempo-lever, but more
and more thinking of producing these very in-
spiring accents. The task was simple, but the
feeling that I was really, of my own self, put-
ting some real expression into the music was
one of the most delightful feelings I have
ever experienced. It was fun and poetry and
deep spiritual pleasure all in one. I was be-
ginning to travel the road that leads to mastery
of the art of player-pianism; though I hardly
knew it just then.
Then gradually it began to occur to me that
there was something more than just this to it.
If you will stop to remember, Sousa's "El
Capitan March" consists of two main divisions,
each a melody in itself, and one leading into
the other. I noticed that in each of these, the
climax, as you might call it, seems to cry aloud,
not to be hurried, but to be lingered over. I
don't know whether it was that same evening
that I discovered this, perhaps not. Anyhow,
the point is that before I had finished with "El
Capitan" I had discovered that I could im-
mensely improve the rendering by doing a lit-
tle of what I should now call "phrasing"; that
is to say, manipulating the speed here and
there so as to dwell on the places that require
dwelling on and give in this way a life and snap
to the music that otherwise it would not have.
In short, I was learning, through the very im-
perious forcefulness of Sousa's melodies, to treat
them with the respect they deserved.
Some
months later I heard Sousa play this march
with his great band; and he did, in a very com-
plete, finished and altogether perfect way, what
I had been essaying to do in an incomplete,
feeble, and halting way. Yet the spirit of the
two aims was the same. That mounting series
of ascending chords which marks the climax
of the second section of the march, he drew
out of his band by a slow general retard of the
time, followed by an immediate return to the
snap of the march tempo; using a peculiar
swing of his baton to emphasize the manner
in which he moulded the phrase to his will. It
was most impressive, and tatight me a great
lesson in player-piano playing.
To cut a long story short, "El Capitan" taught
me the rudiments of accentuation ami of phras-
ing. Since then I have learned much, but 1
say to you that not all the hand-played rolls in
the world could make up to me for those few
evenings of pure joy of discovery. I was like
a Robinson Crusoe on a new isle of mystery,
finding almost each moment some new treasure
of beauty or usefulness, some new way of con-
quering difficulties, some new adaptation of old
methods. I was happier than any baby with
its rattle: I was beginning to study music,
without even knowing I was studying. If the
children could only be taught music that way!
This was but a beginning, and I have sketched
the process of my awakening crudely enough,
no doubt. I have not been able to enter into
all the details that I can even yet bring to
(Continued on page 12)
The Master Player-Piano
is now equipped with an
AUTOMATIC TRACKING DEVICE
Which guarantees absolutely correct tracking of even the most imperfect music rolls
WINTER & CO., 220 Southern Boulevard, New York City