Conlon Nancarrow:

Studies for Player Piano

H. M. H.

April 12, 2017

“Some of the rhythms developed through the present acoustical investigation could not be

played by any living performer; but these highly engrossing rhythmical complexes could

easily be cut on a player-piano roll.” (Cowell 1930, 64-65)

Inspiration is a funny thing; you can never really be sure where or when it will

strike. More often than not, if you go looking for it, you will come away empty-handed.

In Henry Cowell’s book, New Musical Resources, a brief, fairly innocuous comment

about how the player-piano could be used to execute complicated rhythmic ideas, was the

spark of inspiration that forever altered the creative course for composer Conlon

Nancarrow (Nicholls 1996, 173). This idea would serve as the basis for his life’s work,

his Studies for Player-Piano, through which he explored and experimented with a

number of intricate rhythmic concepts, well beyond the physical capabilities of even the

most gifted musician. By the time of his death in 1997, Nancarrow had composed over

fifty studies. Though his music has never been widely known, the significance of his

work can not be understated.

Conlon Nancarrow was born in Texarkana, Arkansas in 1912. He started piano

lessons as a child, but soon switched to trumpet, primarily in an attempt to get away from

a teacher that he disliked (Hocker 2002, 86). In his teens, he developed a love of jazz and

began composing. Although he was determined to pursue music, his father’s push

towards studying engineering prompted him to enroll at Vanderbilt University at the age

of fifteen. However, his lack of attendance and disdain for authority, a recurring problem

stemming from his youth, caused him to leave school after only a semester (Gann 1995,

36-7).

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 Around 1930, while Nancarrow was attending the Cincinnati College-

Conservatory, he encountered Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. The rhythmic innovations

dominating the work resonated with Nancarrow (Reynolds 1994, 21). It was really the

first piece of contemporary music that he had heard, and its impact was profound

(Greeson et al. 1995, 460). Dissatisfied with his studies in Cincinnati, and wanting a more

informal approach to music, he left without graduating after three years (Hocker 2002,

86).

In 1934, Nancarrow moved to Boston and began private lessons in composition

and counterpoint with Roger Sessions, Walter Piston and Nicholas Slonimsky. Two of his

earliest compositions, “Prelude” and “Blues” for piano were selected by Slonimsky to be

published in Cowell’s New Music Edition in 1938 (Hocker 2002, 86). At the time of their

publication, Nancarrow, an ardent socialist who had joined the Communist Party while

living in Boston, was enlisted with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade fighting against Franco

in the Spanish Civil War. After two years in Spain, he returned to the United States,

finding a place among the new-music scene in New York, even publishing several

reviews in Modern Music (Carlsen 1988, 2). This was also when he first read New

Musical Resources and serendipitously stumbled upon Cowell’s ideas regarding the

player piano (Gann 1995, 2). Though his official membership in the Communist Party

had ceased by this time, his earlier political affiliations still levied a tremendous

consequence; in 1940, his application for a passport was denied due to his objectionable

activities in Spain (Hocker 2002, 87). Nancarrow decided to leave his homeland in favour

of one where he was not deemed “suspicious” by the government. Of the two countries

that required no passports for entry, Nancarrow chose Mexico where he would live in

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exile for the rest of his life (Gann 1995, 41).

Nancarrow’s earlier compositions had been for various small ensembles that often

required a high level of skill to be properly executed. Though these works were only

performed on a handful of occasions, he had been more than a little disillusioned by the

outcome each time (Carlsen 1988, 2). In a 1977 interview conducted from his Mexico

City studio, he remarked to Charles Amirkhanian, “ever since I’d been writing music I

was dreaming of getting rid of the performer” (Garland 1977, 15). This desire, coupled

with the rather complete musical seclusion with which he was now surrounded, prompted

an exclusive shift toward composing for the player piano (Carlsen 1988, 2).

What resulted from his single-minded focus is a collection of over fifty pieces

with numbers, in lieu of titles, designated more or less chronologically. Like conventional

studies, each of these works involves a comprehensive exposition on a limited amount of

musical concepts – with rhythm being the common general theme woven throughout

(Carlsen 1988, 4). In fact, the first piece was published in New Music Edition as “Rhythm

Study #1”, but Nancarrow omitted the redundant term in subsequent titles since

practically all his studies are, essentially, dissertations about rhythm (Garland 1977, 46).

More specifically, Nancarrow’s seminal idea is what he called “temporal dissonance” –

the concurrent use of different tempos clashing against each other (Carlsen 1988, 4).

While a comprehensive understanding of the mechanics at work in a player piano

is not strictly necessary for the purposes of this discussion, some key details, especially as

they pertain to Nancarrow’s compositional process, are essential in getting the whole

picture. Much like loading a cassette into a tape deck, the player piano requires a paper

roll in order to play a piece. All the information regarding notes – including tempo,

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duration and dynamics – must be punched into the paper roll. As the paper is fed through

the piano, a pneumatic system releases air that passes through the holes and triggers

corresponding keys to be struck (Hocker 2012, 5-10).

When Nancarrow first began working on his studies, all the rolls were being

hand-punched, a time-intensive and cumbersome task. In 1947, he returned to New York

seeking a machine for this purpose. It had to be custom made and required several

months to be completed (Garland 1977, 8). Though the punching machine greatly

improved his speed, it did have an obvious drawback: “The machine originally advanced

the paper roll with a notched mechanism much like the platen advance on a typewriter.

This meant that all the durations in Nancarrow’s music had to be integer multiples of a

particular small unit, corresponding to the advance from one notch to the next” (Carlsen

1988, 4). After the first twenty-one studies, modifications were made to the punching

machine so that the paper would move forward steadily, making possible virtually any

and all arrangements of rhythms and tempos (Carlsen 1988, 4).

While each of the studies is, in at least some way, unique among the collection,

James Tenney points out the recurrent use of the following key rhythmic features: 1)

quickly adjusting meters, 2) various concurrent meters in more than one voice, 3) shifting

tempos – with both gradual and abrupt shifts, 4) various concurrent tempos – including

autonomously changing tempos in more than one voice, 5) employment of duration or

metric series, and 6) what he calls “the rubato effect” (Garland 1977, 44). Kyle Gann

offers an even simpler categorization stating that “[Nancarrow’s] music can be summed

up as deriving from four basic rhythmic ideas: ostinato, isorhythm, tempo canon and

acceleration” (Gann from “Grove Music Online”). Some of these techniques can be

4
illustrated through a closer inspection of two particular studies, with the first, Study No.

8, written before modifying the punching machine, and the second, Study No. 36,

composed after.

Study No. 8

The most significant feature of this study was Nancarrow’s inaugural use of what

Tenney calls “spatial notation”. Instead of traditional metric notation, which includes

time signatures, bar lines, and different note values, Nancarrow uses only two different

kinds of durations: staccato tones – represented by eighth notes, and sustained tones –

represented by quarter notes with straight lines of different lengths extending horizontally

from the noteheads, indicating their duration. The physical placement of these notes on

the staff strictly correlates to when the notes sound (Garland 1977, 44).

The study is written in four voices and comprises three main sections. The overall

theme is acceleration and deceleration. In the first section, Nancarrow alternates between

staccato notes and sustained notes. The first voice enters at the slow end of the spectrum,

playing a sustained note of the longest duration. The next sustained note is of the second

longest duration, and so on, as the speed gradually increases. When this voice reaches the

shortest duration in the series (there are nineteen durations in total), and has also

therefore reached the fastest speed, the second voice enters two octaves higher and begins

a strict imitation of the melody and duration series that began in the first voice. As the

second voice now speeds up, the first voice slows down. When the second voice has

reached the fastest speed, the third voice enters, again two octaves higher, but begins at

the fastest speed and gradually decreases (Carlsen 1988, 34-36).

Because of the spatial notation, a millimeter ruler is necessary in order to properly

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assess the durations used throughout this study. Gann (1995) spent some considerable

time making precise calculations with the measurements he took from Nancarrow’s

original manuscript and proposed that all the durations are divisible by a unit of

approximately 1.7166mm, meaning that this must have been the size of one notched

advance from the original punching machine. He then assumed that the longest duration

used was equivalent to twenty-four notches, with each duration decreased in length by

precisely one notch all the way to the shortest duration of six notches (Gann 1995, 148-

9).

Carlsen (1988) highlights how a triplet feel is maintained throughout the entire

first section by Nancarrow’s deliberate placement of each sustained note two thirds of the

way between adjacent staccato notes. Nancarrow apparently plotted the staccato notes

first, based on a particular series of accelerating durations, and then filled in the sustained

notes. This series was reversed in order to achieve deceleration (Carlsen 1988, 36).

Study No. 36

This study is a four-part tempo canon. Also called “prolation” or “mensuration”

canon, the defining feature is the use of imitation at various speeds – in this case, ratios of

17/18/19/20. The reason for having chosen these particular ratios can be traced back to

Cowell’s ideas in New Musical Resources that “pitch intervals and cross-rhythms are

manifestations of the same phenomenon, differentiated only by speed” (Gann 1995, 5).

For example, the interval of a perfect fifth is constructed with two pitches of different

frequencies, the higher of which vibrates at a ratio of 3:2 to the frequency of the lower

pitch, or one and a half times. Transferring this idea to rhythm, a triplet beat against a

concomitant duple would be the rhythmic embodiment of a perfect fifth interval (Gann

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1995, 5). The various ratios Nancarrow used for his respective tempo canons correlate in

the following way to these particularly pitched intervals: 4:7 a minor seventh, 3:4 a

perfect fourth, 4:5 a major third, 3:5 a major sixth, 12:15:20 a minor triad in first

inversion, 5:6:7:8 a first inversion dominant seventh. By the time he reached Study No.

36, Nancarrow had progressed along the overtone series to arrive at these ratios, which

are tantamount to a cluster of minor seconds (6-7).

Unlike Study No. 8, this piece is notated metrically. Nancarrow takes full

advantage of the adjustments that were made to his punching machine; the score is

replete with flourishes of 32nd and even 64th notes, and lightning-fast glissandos that

cover the page in black ink. As Gann (1995) points out, tempo canons have been around

since the Renaissance, but the sheer volume and variety that exist within the annals of

Nancarrow’s output have required the development of a related nomenclature. Paramount

among them is the term “convergence point” which he defines as “the infinitesimal

moment at which all lines have reached identical points in the material they are playing”

(Gann 1995, 21).

The convergence point in Study No. 36 occurs almost symmetrically, with each of

the four voices having played 50.1% of their total notes by that moment. The voices are

transposed like a widely spaced major seventh chord, with respective entrances up a

major tenth, minor tenth and major tenth from the pitch of the original voice (Gann 1995,

188). The lowest voice enters first at the slowest tempo, followed by the next voice at the

second slowest tempo, until all four voices have entered. The highest voice, at the fastest

tempo, is the first to reach the end of the canon, followed by the second highest voice.

The lowest voice is the last to reach the conclusion.

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 Though the term “experimental” in discussions about music often includes the

mention of John Cage, Nancarrow had been using it since the 1940’s in relation to his

own musical explorations (Gann 1995, 3). Taken as a whole, his Studies for Player Piano

are an unparalleled voyage of discovery through uncharted rhythmic frontiers that

nobody else has ever attempted to conquer. In fact, Nancarrow himself reinforces this

notion of forward momentum by continuing to forge new paths of possibilities rather than

revisiting sites of earlier accomplishments (Gann 1995, 4). With each work, he would set

out on an unfamiliar course, guided only by the sounds of his last completed musical

journey, which would in turn then lead the way toward the next potential breakthrough

(Reynolds 1994, 2). Perhaps it is Cage who best expresses the impact of Nancarrow’s

pioneering process and product in “A Long Letter”, reproduced here:

the musiC
yOu make
isN’t
Like
any Other:
thaNk you.

oNce you
sAid
wheN you thought of
musiC
you Always
thought of youR own
neveR
Of anybody else’s.
that’s hoW it happens.
John Cage

(from Conlon Nancarrow: Selected Studies for the Player Piano. 1997. Ed. Peter
Garland. 24)

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References

Carlsen, Philip. 1988. The Player-Piano Music of Conlon Nancarrow: An Analysis of

Selected Studies. Brooklyn: Institute for Studies in American Music, Conservatory
of Music, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.

Cowell, Henry. 1930. New Musical Resources. Reprinted with notes and an essay by
David Nicholls. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Gann, Kyle. 1995. The Music of Conlon Nancarrow. New York: Cambridge University
Press.

Gann, Kyle. "Nancarrow, Conlon." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford
University Press, accessed March 7, 2017.
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.ezproxy.library.yorku.ca/subscriber/article/gro
ve/music/19552.

Garland, Peter, ed. 1977. Conlon Nancarrow: Selected Studies for Player Piano. With
critical material by Gordon Mumma, Charles Amirkhanian, John Cage, Roger
Reynolds and James Tenney. Berkeley: Soundings Press.

Greeson, James R., Gretchen B. Gearhart, and Conlon Nancarrow. 1995. "Conlon
Nancarrow: An Arkansas Original." The Arkansas Historical Quarterly 54, no. 4:
457-69. doi:10.2307/40027830.

Hocker, Jürgen. 2012. Encounters with Conlon Nancarrow. Translated by Steven

Lindberg. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

Hocker, Jürgen. 2002. “My Soul is in the Machine – Conlon Nancarrow – Composer for
Player Piano – Precursor of Computer Music.” Music and Technology in the
Twentieth Century. Hans-Joachim Braun, ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press.

Nancarrow, Conlon. 1988 – 1991. Studies for Player Piano Vol. III & Vol. IV. Mainz,
Germany: Wergo.

Reynolds, Roger. 1984. "Conlon Nancarrow: Interviews in Mexico City and San
Francisco." American Music 2, no. 2: 1-24. doi:10.2307/3051655.