Play It Again, Claude

"By the early 1900s, player pianos had evolved to more fully reproduce a human performance, including subtle dynamics like tempo changes and the introduction of a damper pedal. The human role went from deskilled to fully deprecated as electric motors replaced foot-powered bellows. With the Seeburg Lilliputian Model L, the only job left for humans who wanted to play the piano in the 1920s was to put in a coin."

"The Russian composer Igor Stravinsky explained that he wrote pieces specifically for the machines because "there are tone combinations beyond my ten fingers," and argued that "there is a new polyphonic truth in the player-piano ... There are new possibilities. It is something more.""

"Yet today you are more likely to encounter a piano player than a player piano, despite the job being successfully automated a very long time ago. The automatons have been relegated to museums and the rare curiosity. Pianists can be found any night of the week in hotel lobbies, Italian restaurants, and concert halls."

Edwin Votey invented the player piano in the 1890s, using punched paper rolls to automate piano performance. The technology evolved rapidly, eliminating human involvement entirely by the 1920s with electric motors and coin-operated systems. Major composers like Igor Stravinsky embraced player pianos, arguing they offered musical possibilities beyond human capability. Despite successful automation of piano playing over a century ago, live pianists remain common in contemporary venues. This historical example challenges assumptions about automation causing permanent job displacement in creative fields, as musicians have persisted despite competing technologies like phonographs and radios.

Read at The Atlantic