Probably all of you know that George Gershwin got some of his earliest
musical inspiration from listening to automatic music.  In his first
biography, he is quoted as saying that he remembers that when he was
10 years old, he heard an automatic piano in a penny arcade playing
"Melody in F".  This would have been around 1909.

While it can never be determined positively what roll this was, has
anybody ever tried to find nickelodeon rolls of this piece from this
year?  George didn't even say if it were a "straight" arrangement or
a "rag" one, but collectors who have rolls that might be candidates
should submit the information as to the brand and type of instrument
it came from, etc. to the MMD Archives.

As long as I am on the subject, stories about mechanical music
inspiring people has always been interesting to me.  I was pleasantly
surprised to read in a book on Tchaikovsky that an early influence on
him was a large barrel orchestrion that was in his house.  (He was born
in 1840 to well-to-do parents).  He later said that his love of Mozart
came from listening to this machine.  Last year, I saw a TV show on
composers, and in one scene they showed Tchaikovsky's boyhood home, and
sure enough, there was a huge orchestrion still playing for tourists!

Other similar stories include Haydn's and Mozart's writing for Musical
Clocks.  Mozart may have even constructed some as a hobby.  Ferruccio
Busoni did a Fantasia on one or more of Mozart's themes for these music
boxes.

Beethoven was friends with Maelzel, the fellow who invented the
Metronome[*].  He also invented an incredible automatic orchestra,
"the "Panharmonicon", that not only played many instruments, but was
capable of firing cannons at the right moment for "battle pieces"!
(Don't try this at home, kids!)

Beethoven actually wrote "Wellington's Victory" for this machine and
planned to tour to England with it, but he got into an argument with
Maelzel and the plans were dropped.  Several good articles are in the
MMD archives about this.

More recently, both Duke Ellington and Fats Waller are on the record
as saying they learned "Carolina Shout" from composer James P.
Johnson's roll.  Morton Gould says he had a player as a kid.

Perhaps there should be a collection of all stories relating to this
subject -- unless this is it!

Randolph Herr

 [ * The actual inventor was Diedrich Winkel, a Dutch clockmaker.
 [ See subject key word "Metronome" in the MMD Archives at
 [ http://mmd.foxtail.com/Archives/KWIC/M/metronome.html  -- Robbie