To judge from literature produced in England around the turn of the twentieth century, the Edwardian period was a noisy one. The development of the player piano and the possibility provided by piano rolls for storing more music than previously helped introduce classical music to the masses. However, this process of democratisation resulted in confusion between music and noise. By analysing five Edwardian novels influenced by the player piano discourse, this article will argue that dealing with music in fiction was a means of disposing of musical waste.