The Decoupling of Dream and Mind: Why Automated bedtime Stories Cost More Than We Think

In the late nineteenth century, the arrival of the player piano sparked a quiet panic among music educators. For the first time, a household could enjoy complex ragtime and classical sonatas without anyone in the room knowing how to read a note of music. Critics worried that by mechanizing the physical act of playing, we would lose the soul of musical interpretation.

Yet, the player piano still required a composer to write the roll; the machine only automated