This is a follow-up to my September 4, 2008 MMD posting.

The J. Lawrence Cook tribute site on MySpace had its beginnings on
June 18, 2008.  MySpace keeps track of the number of visits to each
profile page.  From its inception until last Friday, with scant
publicity, the JLC page received a total of 327 visits, with 475 plays
counted on the Music Player.  Then, the presence of JLC on MySpace was
formally announced via the MMD.  Now, within less than a week the total
visit count has swelled to 757, with 1,035 music plays in spite of
a problem with the Music Player in which listeners were sometimes unable
to access "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans".  (If you missed this great
arrangement, a favorite of Harvey Roehl, please try again.  Uploading
it again seems to have solved the problem.)

  http://www.myspace.com/jlawrencecook 

Certainly the impressive number of "hits" we have received during just
the past week is a testament to the drawing power of the MMD.  But all
the attention brought in these seven days has resulted in no more than
two friend requests.  Presumably, few MMDers were signed up with
MySpace or are interested in so doing.

So, where do we go from here?  Mechanical music needs a far greater
presence on MySpace.  This is not a case of leading a horse to water and
trying to make it drink, but rather making sure there is an adequate
supply of water for the thirsty horses that happen by.  Obviously all
but a few of the millions of young people on MySpace can no more relate
to our kind of music than we can relate to their so-called :) music.
But if we are there, the exceptional ones will seek us out, be inspired
and maybe even bitten by the mechanical music bug.

MySpace allows only one account per email address.  I have no intention
of collecting a dozen or so email addresses to do all that I would like
to do (as if I could ever find that much time).  Other piano roll
artists well deserving of a tribute site (to mention but two) are Zez
Confrey and Pete Wendling.  I mention these in particular because they
are tops in their field, with nearly all of their best arrangements
being of songs now in the public domain.

I would like to see more pianolists on MySpace.  Are there any MMDers
who don't know what a pianolist is?  It is not a list of pianos; those
are called piano atlases.  A pianolist, simply put, is one who plays
the pianola, or player piano.  Technically, a Pianola (capitalization
as shown or all caps) is the brand of piano player manufactured by
The Aeolian Company, whose maker stated in an advertisement:

  "Such world-wide celebrity has the Pianola attained that the tendency
  is observable everywhere to erroneously call all piano-players by its
  distinct, copyright name."

So, we have Edison victrolas and Gulbransen pianolas, which I find
somewhat amusing.  Pianola as a generic term seems to have gotten its
main impetus from the 1907 publication of Gustav Kobbe's 164-page
treatise, "The Pianolist, a Guide for Pianola Players".  Originally
the Aeolian Pianola was an external device, but soon the mechanism was
built right into their "Pianola Piano", more commonly also referred to
as a "Pianola".  Here in America we usually refer to our instruments
as player pianos, but that is not true in other parts of the
English-speaking world.

Whatever, we need more people who can play these instruments
artistically and interpretatively.  They are not meant to sound like
musical vacuum cleaners (plug in, turn on and walk away) or street
pianos, where springs determine that every note always sounds with
the same intensity.  Anything a reproducing piano can do may be
accomplished by a pianolist with a sensitive, responsive instrument.

I know of about half a dozen pianolists already on MySpace, including
myself, but none have yet set up music accounts.  My own excuse is that,
like the shoemaker with the barefoot children, I have struggled for
years trying to eke out a living and pay the bills by working on other
people's things, while neglecting my own treasure trove other than to
upgrade its potential.

MySpace Music is for musicians and artists.  Some may scoff at
pianolists calling themselves musicians, but we who take our calling
seriously know that we are.  Piano rolls, like piano keys, are black
and white; we add the color.  So, Julian and others, where are you?
Sign up now!

Jeffrey R. Wood