the bigdumbHoosier Archive - 10.15.2002
Piano days
Before video games killed rock and roll, before video killed the radio stars, before television snuffed out the night life, before Chet Atkins picked his first note - even before Bill Monroe discovered the lonesome sound of bluegrass somewhere in nostalgic remembrances of his Kentucky home as he worked in a northern steel mill - before all of these were the piano days. Pianos - grands, uprights, players, spinets, stages - were the center of entertainment and culture in civilized American homes for decades.
The peak of America's piano days came during the 19th century, a time when more American homes were stable and comfortable enough to accomodate a piano, and before the advent of any kind of music recording, save for that first of all digital recording systems, the player piano. Every church, every school, every bar or nightspot (respectible, or not so respectible) harbored a piano. America was chock full of people who could play the keyboard, and play well. All those clever fingers supported a thriving pop music business, based almost entirely on sales of sheet music. Music stores employed piano players to demo the tunes to the public, who purchased the titles they liked and then played them on their piano at home.
Now you can revisit those days, thanks to the Library of Congress. The LC has recently opened an amazing new project called Music for the Nation. It provides online access to over 62,000 pieces of music registered for copyright during the 19th century. Kind of like Napster meets the Time Machine. You can download images of the sheet music, print them, and try them out.
At my house, we're sort of stuck in the piano days with our 80 year old baby grand hogging all the space in our 100 year old parlor. The sounds of live piano playing seem to soothe the spirits that lurk around this old Victorian, built in the waning phase of the home piano's golden era. We have a modest collection of old sheet music; if you venture into the LC's tune-crypt expect lots of hackneyed, turgidly romantic, morbid and all too often, downright racist messages among those old tunes. It's a window into the soul of 19th century America, somehow simultaneously dark and flowery.
