This music is the greatest discovery since Webern and Ives... his music is so utterly original, enjoyable, constructive and at the same time emotional... for me it's the best music of any composer living today.

— György Sándor Ligeti, letter to Charles Amirkhanian, January 1981

Samuel Conlon Nancarrow (1912–1997)

Early compositions: 1930s and 1940s

Nancarrow wrote for conventional instruments before turning to the player piano.

• Early works published in New Music (1938)
• Written in Mexico City: Sonatina (1941), Trio (1942), String Quartet (1945)
• The Sonatina also exists in a player-piano version

Musical influences

Nancarrow played trumpet and drew on diverse compositional and performance traditions.

• Western classical music (Bach, Bartók, and Stravinsky)
• Jazz and blues (Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith)
• Folk and traditional music from different cultures

Compositional elements

Nancarrow’s music creates temporal polyphony by organizing independent voices at different tempos and with independent tempo changes.

• Temporal proportions and ratios
• Accelerandi - ritardandi
• Complex voice layering
• Polyrhythm
• Octave jumps
• Cluster chords

Realization and performance

Nancarrow increasingly developed music that was difficult or impossible to perform at the intended tempo.

• The Sonatina’s final movement is an early example.
• Nancarrow later transferred the Sonatina to piano roll.
• Yvar Mikhashoff prepared a four-hand version.

History of the player piano

Self-playing musical instruments like music boxes exist since the 17th century:

• Pinned barrels or discs to produce notes

The pneumatic player piano

Reproducing pianos

"Recordings" of the early 20th century.
Nuanced reproduction of a compositional work.
Documentation of composers' conceptions of their works:

• Grieg, Reger, Skrjabin, Debussy, Ravel, Mahler...

Decline of the player piano

Since 1920s:

• Great Depression in the United States.
• New electric music technology, radio and record players (phonograph).

Composing with machines

Henry Cowell (1897 - 1965), American composer, recommended the player piano in his book New Musical Resources (1930):

...could not be played by any living performer; but these highly engrossing rhythmical complexes could easily be cut on a player-piano roll. This would give a real reason for writing music specially for player-piano, such as music written for it at present does not seem to have, because almost any of it could be played instead by two good pianists at the keyboard.

— Henry Cowell, New Musical Resources (1930), pp. 64-65

Nancarrow's Marshall & Wendell piano

• Player piano with Ampico reproducing mechanism
• Modified for dynamic range, attack, and roll speed

Photo: Jürgen Hocker, nancarrow.de
used by permission
excluded from CC BY 4.0

New artistic possibilities

• A player piano can play up to 40 notes simultaneously
• not limited by the reach of a pianist’s hands
• Any tone sequence with large jumps can be played (no wrong notes)
• Complex tempi () and gradual tempo changes are possible
• Study No. 25 ends with 1028 notes in less than twelve seconds

Player piano roll (duplicate) and MIDI visualization, Study No. 25

Roll photo: Paul Sacher Stiftung · used by permission · excluded from CC BY 4.0
Visualization after the Nancarrow Edition MIDI file (Schott Music)

Nancarrow's studies for player piano

Seemingly anachronistic approach using an outdated apparatus for groundbreaking musical concepts.

• 51 compositions called "studies" (with gaps and subdivisions).
• Numbering corresponds mainly to the order of their creation.
• Studies No. 1–30, (1948–1960) (No. 30 for prepared player piano)
• Studies No. 31–37, No. 40–51, (1965–1992) (No. 38 and No. 39 renumbered as No. 43 and No. 48)

Musical form

• Continuous movement through layered rhythmic processes
• Tempo canon as one of Nancarrow’s central formal techniques
• Melody as a vehicle for making tempo relationships audible

The tempo canon

A tempo canon presents the same material in two or more voices at different speeds. Their entries may begin together or at different times.

Structure No. 21 (Canon X)

Analytical diagram, redrawn after Gann (2006, p. 23)

DIY and artistic research

This new compositional approach required a technically skilled self-made-mentality:

• Modification of the player piano (hammer, speed, vacuum strength).
• Producing the piano rolls.

Operation

Several months of work for several minutes:

• Determining the tempo relationships
• Making tempo templates
• Marking the tempos on manuscript paper and composing the piece
• Preparing a detailed “punching score”
• Transferring the tempo grids and notes to the roll
• Punching notes and dynamics by hand
• Preparing the conventional score after the roll

First recognition

Merce Cunningham's ballet Crises (1960) used Nancarrow's Studies Nos. 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and 7.

John Cage, the company's music director, brought Nancarrow's tapes to Cunningham. He neither composed nor arranged the score.

Player piano recordings

• 1969: Columbia Records
• 1976: New World Records
• 1977-84: 1750 Arch Records
• 1989-91: Wergo Records
• from 2006: Musikproduktion Dabringhaus & Grimm (Ampico Bösendorfer)

Reception and dissemination

• György Ligeti (1923–2006), composer: encountered a Nancarrow recording in a Paris FNAC shop in spring 1980 and contributed significantly to the European reception of his music

• Jürgen Hocker (1937–2012), chemist and player-piano restorer: restored an Ampico Bösendorfer, repunched the study rolls, organized European performances, and contributed to later publications and recordings

• Kyle Gann (born 1955), composer and critic: published The Music of Conlon Nancarrow (1995), the first comprehensive analytical study of Nancarrow’s music

"Werktreue" and performance practice

Nancarrow's composing process was focused on his own player pianos (Marshall & Wendell).

• Live performances with Bösendorfer Ampico system.
• MIDI and synthesizer realizations by Martin Schlumpf (b. 1947).
• Live performances of four-hand transcriptions by the Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo.

Timing structure (No. 31)

Analytical diagram, redrawn after Gann (2006, p. 25)

Modern player pianos

Electronic technologies (electromechanical solenoids) for acoustic reproducing pianos:

• Sony / Superscope / Marantz (late 1970s)
• Yamaha Disklavier (late 1980s)

→ Electronic control replaces pneumatic control.

Digital performance data

A player-piano roll stores instructions for generating music rather than a recording of the resulting sound. MIDI applies a similar principle digitally. The same performance data can produce different sounds on different instruments.

The instructions describe:

• which note is played
• when it starts
• when it ends
• how strongly it is played

MIDI

Musical Instrument Digital Interface

MIDI is a standardized protocol for transmitting musical instructions between electronic instruments and computers.

Typical messages include:

• Note On
• Note Off
• Velocity
• Control Change

Example: MIDI Note On

A MIDI Note On message contains three bytes:

90 3C 64

→ Play middle C on channel 1 with velocity 100

The same message in decimal is 144 60 100.

MIDI representation (No. 14)

Visualization: after the MIDI file of the Conlon Nancarrow Edition (Schott Music)

Timing structure (No. 14)

Analytical diagram, redrawn after Gann (2006, p. 22)

Automated instruments and computer music

Nancarrow separated composition from live execution: punched rolls controlled an acoustic player piano directly.

• the machine realized tempi and densities beyond human performance
• musical structures were composed manually, then executed automatically

Douglas Keislar describes Nancarrow as “the quintessential composer for an automated instrument.”

Computer-assisted composition

Clarence Barlow (1945–2023) used computers in composition from 1971, initially for calculating musical structures.

• algorithms organized musical parameters and formal processes
• Çoğluotobüsişletmesi (1975–79): computer-calculated composition performed by a pianist
• later works also used computers for performance control and sound synthesis

There are no theoretical limitations to the performance of the computer as a source of musical sounds, in contrast to the performance of ordinary instruments.

— Max Mathews
The Digital Computer as a Musical Instrument (1963)

Discussion

1. Compare Examples 6 and 7: two pianists perform a transcription, while the player piano performs Nancarrow’s roll. Which aspects of the work does each version preserve?

2. Cowell argued in 1930 that “almost any of it could be played instead by two good pianists at the keyboard.” How does the 2004 two-piano performance affect this assessment?

3. Study No. 40 is organized around the ratio e : π, while its audible relationship approximates 13 : 15. How does the gap between formal design and perceived result relate to the artistic concept of the work?

4. How does DAW piano-roll editing continue or differ from Nancarrow’s approach to controlling musical time?

Literature

• Cowell, Henry. New Musical Resources. 1930. Cambridge University Press, 2000.
• Fürst-Heidtmann, Monika. Die Musik von Conlon Nancarrow: Studies for Player Piano. 1982.
• Gann, Kyle. The Music of Conlon Nancarrow. Cambridge University Press, 1995. Digitally printed paperback version, 2006. ISBN 978-0-521-02807-3.
• Hocker, Jürgen. Begegnungen mit Conlon Nancarrow. Schott, 2002.
• Zapke, Susana. Notation Imagination und Übersetzung. Hollitzer, 2020.
• Neundorf, Werner. π und e. Preprint M 06/04, Institut für Mathematik, Technische Universität Ilmenau, 2004. Institutional repository.

Websites

• "MIDI Files of the Nancarrow Rolls." Paul Sacher Foundation www.paul-sacher-stiftung.ch/en/research-publications/research/1-2-Conlon-Nancarrow-Edition-project/6-midi-files-rolls.html. Accessed 15 Dec. 2023.
• “Official MIDI Specifications.” The MIDI Association, www.midi.org. Accessed 15 Dec. 2023.
• Hocker, Jürgen. “Der Komponist Conlon Nancarrow.” www.nancarrow.de. Accessed 16 Dec. 2023.
• “Music Box.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 27 Sept. 2023, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_box.
• “Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo.” Conlon Nancarrow: Transcriptions & Original Works, www.bugallowilliams.com/conlon-nancarrow. Accessed 18 Dec. 2023.

Websites (continued)

• Conlon Nancarrow, Studies for Player Piano, othermindsrecords.bandcamp.com. Accessed 3 Aug. 2026.
• The Pianola Institute. “History of the Pianola: An Overview.” pianola.org/history/history.cfm. Accessed 31 Aug. 2026.
• Barlow, Clarence. “Biography.” clarlow.org/biography. Accessed 5 Sep. 2026.

Third-party materials

These notices cover third-party assets reproduced locally in this slide deck. Concise rights information appears at the point of use; complete attribution, source and licence information is provided here.

Separately licensed material

• Conlon Nancarrow portrait (1987) — photograph by Irene de Groot, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Third-party materials (continued)

Material used by permission

• Nancarrow’s Marshall & Wendell player piano — photograph by Jürgen Hocker, nancarrow.de; used by permission and excluded from the course CC BY 4.0 licence
• Study No. 25 player-piano roll duplicate — photograph from Paul Sacher Stiftung, Basel: Sammlung Conlon Nancarrow; used by permission and excluded from the course CC BY 4.0 licence