Changes

As [[sound film|talking pictures]] emerged in the early 20th century, with their prerecorded musical tracks, an increasing number of moviehouse orchestra musicians found themselves out of work. [http://www.afm.org/public/about/history.php American Federation of Musicians/History] "1927 – With the release of the first 'talkie,' ''The Jazz Singer,'' orchestras in movie theaters were displaced. The AFM had its first encounter with wholesale unemployment brought about by technology. Within three years, 22,000 theater jobs for orchestral musicians, pianists, and [[theater organ]]ists who accompanied silent movies were lost, while only a few hundred jobs for musicians performing on soundtracks were created by the new technology.  While continuing to protest the loss of jobs due to the use of 'canned music' with motion pictures, the AFM set minimum wage scales for Vitaphone, Movietone and phonograph record work. Because synchronising music with pictures for the movies was particularly difficult, the AFM was able to set high prices for this work."</ref> During the 1920s live musical performances by orchestras, pianists, and [[theater organ]]ists were common at first-run theaters (Hubbard (1985), p. 429.)  With the coming of the talking motion pictures, those featured performances were largely eliminated. The [[American Federation of Musicians]] took out newspaper advertisements protesting the replacement of live musicians with mechanical playing devices. One 1929 ad that appeared in the ''[[Pittsburgh Press]]'' features an image of a can labeled "Canned Music / Big Noise Brand / Guaranteed to Produce No Intellectual or Emotional Reaction Whatever" '''Canned Music on Trial'''

As [[sound film|talking pictures]] emerged in the early 20th century, with their prerecorded musical tracks, an increasing number of moviehouse orchestra musicians found themselves out of work. [http://www.afm.org/public/about/history.php American Federation of Musicians/History] "1927 – With the release of the first 'talkie,' ''The Jazz Singer,'' orchestras in movie theaters were displaced. The AFM had its first encounter with wholesale unemployment brought about by technology. Within three years, 22,000 theater jobs for orchestral musicians, pianists, and [[theater organ]]ists who accompanied silent movies were lost, while only a few hundred jobs for musicians performing on soundtracks were created by the new technology.  While continuing to protest the loss of jobs due to the use of 'canned music' with motion pictures, the AFM set minimum wage scales for Vitaphone, Movietone and phonograph record work. Because synchronising music with pictures for the movies was particularly difficult, the AFM was able to set high prices for this work."</ref> During the 1920s live musical performances by orchestras, pianists, and [[theater organ]]ists were common at first-run theaters (Hubbard (1985), p. 429.)  With the coming of the talking motion pictures, those featured performances were largely eliminated. The [[American Federation of Musicians]] took out newspaper advertisements protesting the replacement of live musicians with mechanical playing devices. One 1929 ad that appeared in the ''[[Pittsburgh Press]]'' features an image of a can labeled "Canned Music / Big Noise Brand / Guaranteed to Produce No Intellectual or Emotional Reaction Whatever" '''Canned Music on Trial'''

This is the case of Art vs. Mechanical Music in theatres. The defendant stands accused in front of the American people of attempted corruption of musical appreciation and discouragement of musical education. Theatres in many cities are offering synchronised mechanical music as a substitute for Real Music. If the theatre-going public accepts this vitiation of its entertainment program a deplorable decline in the Art of Music is inevitable. Musical authorities know that the soul of the Art is lost in mechanisation. It cannot be otherwise because the quality of music is dependent on the mood of the artist, upon the human contact, without which the essence of intellectual stimulation and emotional rapture is lost. http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/dynaweb/adaccess/radio/1922-1929/@Generic__BookTextView/1469;nh=1?DwebQuery=canned+in+%3Cc01%3E#X "Canned Music on Trial"] part of Duke University's ''Ad*Access'' project. The text of the ad continues:

This is the case of Art vs. Mechanical Music in theatres. The defendant stands accused in front of the American people of attempted corruption of musical appreciation and discouragement of musical education. Theatres in many cities are offering synchronised mechanical music as a substitute for Real Music. If the theatre-going public accepts this vitiation of its entertainment program a deplorable decline in the Art of Music is inevitable. Musical authorities know that the soul of the Art is lost in mechanisation. It cannot be otherwise because the quality of music is dependent on the mood of the artist, upon the human contact, without which the essence of intellectual stimulation and emotional rapture is lost. [http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/dynaweb/adaccess/radio/1922-1929/@Generic__BookTextView/1469;nh=1?DwebQuery=canned+in+%3Cc01%3E#X "Canned Music on Trial"] part of Duke University's ''Ad*Access'' project. The text of the ad continues:

:'''Is Music Worth Saving?'''<br> No great volume of evidence is required to answer this question. Music is a well-nigh universally beloved art. From the :beginning of history, men have turned to musical expression to lighten the burdens of life, to make them happier. Aborigines, lowest in the scale of savagery, :chant their song to tribal gods and play upon pipes and shark-skin drums. Musical development has kept pace with good taste and ethics throughout the :ages, and has influenced the gentler nature of man more powerfully perhaps than any other factor. Has it remained for the Great Age of Science to snub the :Art by setting up in its place a pale and feeble shadow of itself?'''American Federation of Musicians (Comprising 140,000 musicians in the United States and :Canada), Joseph N. Weber, President. Broadway, New York City'''.

:'''Is Music Worth Saving?'''<br> No great volume of evidence is required to answer this question. Music is a well-nigh universally beloved art. From the :beginning of history, men have turned to musical expression to lighten the burdens of life, to make them happier. Aborigines, lowest in the scale of savagery, :chant their song to tribal gods and play upon pipes and shark-skin drums. Musical development has kept pace with good taste and ethics throughout the :ages, and has influenced the gentler nature of man more powerfully perhaps than any other factor. Has it remained for the Great Age of Science to snub the :Art by setting up in its place a pale and feeble shadow of itself?'''American Federation of Musicians (Comprising 140,000 musicians in the United States and :Canada), Joseph N. Weber, President. Broadway, New York City'''.