MUSIC140 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: The Player Piano, Harold Arlen, Player Piano
Document Summary
Success of after the ball gives birth to tin pan alley (tpa: the urban northern white music industry. Division of labor: composer, lyricists, publisher, publicity, performers, highest quality possible by everyone doing things separately. Idealized romance, beginning and ending. Easy to sing phrasing and range. Aaba musical form: the b line would double up the pace. Somewhere over the rainbow (1939: music by: harold arlen, lyrics by: e. y. Harburg: wizard of watz beginning of the movie. 1877 edison invents the phonograph (it was a failure) Sound quality is bad. Cylinder gets destroyed when played. No one had thought about it. 1892- 1912 transition from cylinder to disks. 1925 industry standard speed set to 78rpm. Purpose was to sell sheet music. Every time sheet music comes with record to play in store. 1876 the player piano. Clock work device roll, triggers to play the key. Sales grow until 1920s. Half of all pianos made were players (1920)
