5 But these early examples were fixed with regard to the actions they could perform: their musical directions were, so to speak, built into the mechanism itself.

Mechanical instruments date back at least to Hero of Alexandria (first century ad), who invented a number of well-documented musical automata. This elaborate technological prehistory is too complex a matter to cover in this context, but a few important points should be mentioned. This history calls into question the priority of вЂњpracticalвЂќ inventions over what anthropologist Alfred Gell has called вЂњtechnologies of enchantmentвЂќ: the entwined histories of automatic musical instruments and systems of automated industrial production suggest that practical and aesthetic instruments develop hand in hand. The underlying principle of the player piano and the earlier forms of mechanical instruments from which it evolved-the encoding of information on machine-readable physical media-belongs to a technological lineage leading directly to the digital computer of the late twentieth century. The history of automatic instruments is significant also for how it relates the history of music to the broader phenomenon of mechanization as such. 3 The emergence of the player piano in the late nineteenth century must be viewed in the broader context of the history of mechanical or automatic musical instruments, which can be defined as devices that produce sound according to human designs but without synchronous human involvement. New inventions do not sprout miraculously from out of nowhere but rather build on and combine aspects of earlier artifacts or, in some cases, natural phenomena. The player piano in its myriad forms was both a key component of early-twentieth-century musical culture and a crucial link in a centuries-long thread of technological evolution. The instrument stands as a visceral symbol of technological progress, its threat of dehumanization, and its promise of newfound powers. The player piano can thus be seen as the marker of a technological paradigm shift that reached fruition by the turn of the twenty-first century with the rise of the personal computer and its attendant process of digitization.

Although it was not the first automatic instrument, it was the most famous: by coupling mechanical automation with the near-ubiquitous piano, it brought the prospect of вЂњmusic without musiciansвЂќ into the forefront of cultural awareness in the early twentieth century. The most remarkable thing about the player piano, to state the obvious, was that it played by itself. In this respect it demonstrates the phenomenon that philosopher Don Ihde has dubbed вЂњtechnological multistabilityвЂќ-the unforeseeable variety of uses that technologies engender, apart from their creatorsвЂ™ intentions. The player piano was not so much a singular artifact as a technological system that cannot readily be reduced to any single purpose or function. As this articleshows, the term player piano colloquially refers to a variety of distinct but related instruments, produced by manufacturers in different countries and answering to varying technological, social, and aesthetic ends. Yet the device remains, in the words of Rex Lawson, вЂњone of the most misunderstood musical instruments in the world.вЂќ 1 This confusion corresponds in some degree to the nature of the phenomenon itself. Nearly a century after its heyday in public awareness, the player piano is a widely recognized and enduringly fascinating piece of musical technology. Keywords: technology, instrument, mechanical music It shows how the instrument served a variety of cultural ends, from the immortalization of great pianistic interpreters, to leisurely domestic entertainment, to experiments in modernism such as вЂњmechanical music.вЂќ The player piano serves as an example of the seemingly unlimited potential for creative appropriation and a warning against the pitfalls of technological determinism. This article surveys the course of the instrumentвЂ™s development, distinguishes its various manifestations, and charts its varied and unforeseen uses. Yet the player piano remains deeply misunderstood in both its cultural and technological workings.

The instrument, in its various forms, has been a lightning rod for vigorous debates about the nature of music, performance, and the ethical status of technology itself. Despite falling out of widespread use after the end of the 1920s, the player piano remains one of the most important technological innovations of the twentieth century.

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