Piano Rolls and Gender Roles: Decoding the American Player Piano in Historical Context

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dc.contributor.advisorde Val, Dorothy
dc.contributor.authorGajadhar, Amy Marilyn
dc.date.accessioned2024-10-21T18:44:38Z
dc.date.available2024-10-21T18:44:38Z
dc.date.copyright2024-02-16
dc.date.issued2024-10-21
dc.date.updated2024-10-21T18:44:37Z
dc.degree.disciplineMusic
dc.degree.levelDoctoral
dc.degree.namePhD - Doctor of Philosophy
dc.description.abstractThis dissertation presents a gender-based historical investigation of the player piano during its heyday (1900-1928), focusing on its connections with advertising and the piano roll industry. Broadly influenced by Actor-Network Theory, I contend that this self-playing instrument (in its many forms), with regard to the cultural category of gender, had agency, acting as a medium of communication and a site of negotiation. Specifically, this refers to gender expression and mediation as presented within the frames of player piano advertisements and via performances by female musicians in the piano roll recording studio. Benefiting from archival research – advertisements, piano rolls, music reviews, photographs, paintings, player piano manuals, sheet music and other primary source material – and situated within the subfield of critical organology, my research is organized through case studies. The first is a reading of the gender codes in player piano and piano advertisements from multiple piano/player piano companies (as well as paintings featuring the piano). The second examines the lives and musical careers of piano roll artists Edythe Baker (1899-1971) and Pauline Alpert (1905-1988). Consisting of biographical summaries (that are the most comprehensive to date in the literature) which incorporate analyses of two performances by these women in the Duo-Art recording studio, this case study utilizes examples of Baker and Alpert’s piano arrangements. Based on Tin Pan Alley tunes, these pieces were written in the piano novelty style – a distinct “White”-dominated musical genre with roots in the popular piano rag. Framed by background research that includes a detailed historical account of the player piano, the findings of this dissertation are conclusive. Within the context of player piano advertising and female performance in the piano roll studio, the player piano, as a non-human actor enmeshed within a social network of human intermediaries, had a role to play in the expression and mediation of ideas about gender that both contested and conformed to early twentieth-century gender norms in American society.
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10315/42364
dc.languageen
dc.rightsAuthor owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.
dc.subjectMusic
dc.subjectGender studies
dc.subjectAmerican history
dc.subject.keywordsPlayer piano
dc.subject.keywordsReproducing piano
dc.subject.keywordsRe-enacting piano
dc.subject.keywordsSelf-playing piano
dc.subject.keywordsPiano player
dc.subject.keywordsPianola
dc.subject.keywordsAeolian
dc.subject.keywordsEdythe Baker
dc.subject.keywordsPauline Alpert
dc.subject.keywordsPiano novelty
dc.subject.keywordsNovelty piano
dc.subject.keywordsRagtime
dc.subject.keywordsPiano roll transcription
dc.subject.keywordsPiano
dc.subject.keywordsPiano roll
dc.subject.keywordsFemale piano roll artists
dc.subject.keywordsDuo-Art
dc.subject.keywordsSound recording
dc.subject.keywordsSound reproduction
dc.subject.keywordsPlayer piano advertisements
dc.subject.keywordsAdvertising
dc.subject.keywordsgender roles
dc.subject.keywordsearly-twentieth century America
dc.subject.keywordspiano artwork
dc.subject.keywordsVictorian culture
dc.subject.keywordsVictorian Era
dc.subject.keywordsProgressive Age
dc.subject.keywordsMachine Age
dc.subject.keywordsRoaring Twenties
dc.subject.keywordsflapper
dc.subject.keywordsNew woman
dc.subject.keywordsConsumer culture
dc.subject.keywordsCritical organology
dc.subject.keywordsMusic and gender
dc.subject.keywordsMusic analysis
dc.subject.keywordsGender analysis
dc.subject.keywordsGender codes
dc.subject.keywordsGender norms
dc.subject.keywordsPiano roll industry
dc.subject.keywordsI Know that You Know
dc.subject.keywordsYes Sir! That's My Baby
dc.subject.keywordsWalter Donaldson
dc.subject.keywordsVincent Youmans
dc.subject.keywordsTin Pan Alley
dc.subject.keywordsZiegfeld Follies
dc.subject.keywordsVaudeville
dc.subject.keywordsPopular music
dc.subject.keywordsRecording studio
dc.subject.keywordsWomen musicians
dc.titlePiano Rolls and Gender Roles: Decoding the American Player Piano in Historical Context
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation

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