The Typewriter by Leroy Anderson, official website, sheet music, audio files, complete reference

Updated: December 23, 2025

The Typewriter by Leroy Anderson

Composition: "The Typewriter"
Composer: Leroy Anderson
Copyright: © 1953 Woodbury Music Company LLC
Completed: October 9, 1950, Painter Hill Road, Woodbury, Connecticut
Instrumentation: Orchestra, 1950;
First Performed: September 8, 1953, Leroy Anderson, conductor, recording session for Decca Records, New York, New York.
First Recording: September 8, 1953, Leroy Anderson, conductor, recording session for Decca Records, New York, New York.
Recorded by Leroy Anderson: September 8, 1953, Leroy Anderson, conductor, recording session for Decca Records, New York, New York.
Length: 1:45
Published: 1953
Publisher: Woodbury Music Company LLC; Available from Alfred Publishing
Transcriptions: Piano (Leroy Anderson), Concert Band, Brass Band, Handbell Choir.

Listen: The Typewriter (Orchestra)
Listen: The Typewriter (Concert Band)

"The Typewriter" was one of the compositions which Leroy Anderson completed in Woodbury, Connecticut. This was at Painter Hill on October 9, 1950, the year after Eleanor and Leroy Anderson moved to Woodbury permanently.  

About the music:

Leroy Anderson completed his composition "The Typewriter" on October 9, 1950 at his home on Painter Hill Road in Woodbury, Connecticut. This very short piece (1:45) which features a traditional, manual typewriter, best demonstrates Anderson's ingenuity and humor.

In the first recording of "The Typewriter" on September 8, 1953 for Decca Records, Anderson conducted a studio orchestra in New York City *. A stenography school across the street from the recording studio had many students who were learning to type. A few of them were invited to audition at the recording studio on their lunch break. As it turned out, none of the typists from the school could type fast enough. So a percussionist was selected who gave a fine performance. One has to wonder if a marketing person for the publisher, Mills Music, thought that this would make an attractive photo-op and story line.

Rather than typing using random keys, the typewriter is modified so that only two keys work. The keys are chosen so that they will not jamb. Sturdy paper gives a better sound. A desk bell takes the place of the bell in the typewriter which sounds at the end of each "line" of typing. The interplay between the orchestra and the typist is both amusing and clever resulting in some surprises when the pattern of the bell diverges from the expected rhythm.

Anderson's publisher, Mills Music, thought that this novelty piece would have so little appeal as to not be worth printing. Anderson's recording for Decca created an immediate and strong demand for the sheet music. Even though manual typewriters are not in frequent use today, Leroy Anderson's "The Typewriter" remains popular with audiences worldwide.

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The first recording was not with the Boston Pops Orchestra. The studio orchestra which Anderson conducted was an assemblage of musicians from various orchestras in NYC, Philadelphia and Chicago who were hired for the recording sessions.

The Typewriter has been recorded by many artists, including: Arthur Fiedler with the Boston Pops, guitarist Alan Hanlon, Spike Jones, Frederick Fennell with the Eastman Orchestra and also with the Tokyo Wind Orchestra, Leonard Slatkin with the St Louis Symphony Orchestra, Pinchas Steinberg with the Cologne Radio Orchestra, pianist Marco Rizo, and the 101 Strings.

Notable soloists on the Typewriter have included Seiji Ozawa, conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Maestro Ozawa performed this piece with Boston Pops conductor John Williams in a 1998 televised fund-raising concert on Boston's WCVB-TV. Ozawa appeared in the traditional Boston Pops "Typewriter outfit" - green visor cap and a big stogie! The rock group Aerosmith's lead singer Steve Tyler was a soloist in a special 1999 Boston Pops concert.   Leonard Slatkin took his turn as the soloist when he performed in a 1999 New Year's Eve concert with Murray Sidlin conducting the National Symphony Orchestra. They displayed a banner that proclaimed the solo "instrument" was a "Baldway".  In Winterthur, Switzerland, conductor Reto Parolari rigged his typewriter so that one person can play all the parts - keys, bell and carriage return - and used heavy card stock for his "letter". This amplifies the sound of the typewriter.

Factual errors by various journalists, bloggers and other amateurs of music criticism

Alex Burns of England, in her blog post of April 9, 2020, mistakenly described Leroy Anderson as having composed The Typewriter "during a trip to Woodbury, Connecticut." Wrong: Leroy Anderson moved permanently to Woodbury, Connecticut in 1949. Leroy Anderson composed "The Typewriter" in his home on Painter Hill Road, Woodbury.

Alex Burns then wrote that "Anderson conducted the Boston Pops Orchestra to make a recording of the piece in 1953." Wrong: Leroy Anderson conducted a studio orchestra in New York City for the Decca Records recording. The Boston Pops Orchestra's members did not participate in the recording session.

Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner wrote on May 13, 2013 in a blog article titled "The Music of the Typewriter - A Reason to Smile," that Arthur Fiedler premiered The Typewriter with the boston Pops Orchestra in 1953. Wrong: The Typewriter received its first performance on September 8, 1953, with Leroy Anderson conducting a studio orchestra in a recording session for Decca Records, New York, New York.

 

Two Excellent Blog Posts about The Typewriter by Leroy Anderson

"The Typewriter" by Guy Worthey of the Washington Idaho Symphony Orchestra, posted to his blog on July 5, 2020

"Using Imagery in Music: Leroy Anderson and The Typewriter" by Michael Lanier, posted to his blog on January 12, 2017 and re-posted below with permission of the author

 

Using Imagery in Music: Leroy Anderson and The Typewriter

When Anderson wrote "The Typewriter", he used the keys of the typewriter as the main percussion, with a handbell to replace the bell within the typewriter, and the carriage return as other forms of percussion. There are no drums heard in this piece, because the drummer was the one playing the typewriter, as the song is very fast-paced. Anderson actually claimed that only drummers had the wrist flexibility to be able to play the typewriter in the piece at full speed. I'm not a drummer, but I actually have performed the piece live before, and despite how simple it may sound when heard, it's actually quite difficult to play. But the imagery and attention-focusing in this piece are phenomenal, because the typewriter is the lead instrument.

Although the typewriter leads the orchestra, there is still an intelligent musical theme playing behind it. In just ninety seconds of music, the song starts out in G major, then modulating to E minor for a more intense sound, and then coming back up again to G major to repeat the established theme. Then the song gives the typist a break by playing a slower bit in the key of C major, before going back to the theme in G and ending from there. So, the structure is essentially ABACA. In that time, the listener's attention is focused on the furious typing, the intense feel of the E minor section (aka the B section), the annoying repetition of the demanding bell, the typing again, the pizzicato in the C section (which coincidentally is in the key of C), and then back again to the A section, bringing everything together- the typing, the bell, and the strings- to have the listener listen to the piece as a whole for the first time, and leaving him satisfied with what he's heard, despite the fact that the entire process only took one minute and forty-five seconds.

- Michael Lanier