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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
- ^ . E D W A R D LYMAN
Editor and Proprietor.
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Bntered at the New York Post Office as Second (Juts Matter.
NEW YORK, OCTOBER 10, 1896.
TELEPHONE NUMBER 1745. — EIGHTEENTH STREET.
"THE BUSINESS MAN'S PAPER."
the hands of manufacturers, many of whom
have given no adequate return in a mone-
tary sense.
Manufacturers have been too quick to
oblige teachers who have called and re-
quested favors; but some of them now have
seen that the teachers have, as a whole,
gone beyond the reasonable limit in their
demands.
We know of one firm who, some years
ago, began to call in pianos which they had
out in use in the studios of teachers. This
firm had something like two hundred
grands loaned to teachers. In some in-
stances the teachers even claimed owner-
ship of the instruments. Figure for a
moment what this means; placing the
grands, say at an average of $500 apiece,
that would mean a cool $100,000. At six
percent, interest it would mean $6,000 a
year. Double this for expenses incurred
in cartage, tuning, repairing and all of
that, and you have the modest sum of
$12,000 a year, without reckoning the
shrinkage in valuation of the instruments.
Now, what return did this firm get for such
generous treatment of musicians?
a strict business basis. Have nothing
visionary, nothing shadowy about the work
of the music teacher, but simply this: If
they wish a piano placed in their studio,
let them pay for it as any one else has to.
If they do work in behalf of the instrument
which results in a sale, let them bring fair
and indisputable proof of this work, then
let them receive their commission in good
cold cash. Let the business be conducted
on business lines, but remove from it all
this vagueness; all this "you know I have
spoken so well of your pianos and have
used my influence with Mrs. So-and-So to
have her daughter purchase one," and all
that sort of regular statement which the
average salesman or manufacturer listens
to daily.
Of course, there are exceptions to this
general rule, and we do not wish in our
statement to cover any of those who are
really deserving of favors at the hands of
piano manufacturers, but we do say, and
that most emphatically, that the teachers'
influence has been too mythical, has been
too shadowy, and has lacked substance.
This is a cold, practical, commercial
age, and the sooner the average music
teacher is brought to a full realization of
this fact the better it is for them, and for
the manufacturer as well.
The music teachers will become infinitely
more independent than under the old con-
dition of affairs, because they are taking
something for which they are not giving a
fair equivalent, and they know it. Re-
solving the matter to a purely business
basis would make them, as we say,
more independent, and at the same time
more earnest and more sincere in their
work.
There would be a greater willingness on
their part to make sales, there would be a
concentration of argument upon a prospec-
tive purchaser, and they could easily bring
indisputable evidence of their part in a
sale.
There is no use of looking at this matter
in any other than a practical light, and it
is high time that the alleged work of the
music teacher was placed in a sharply de-
fined position, and then it could reap a
commensurate and well earned reward.
Their labors would be more earnest and the
shadow would be replaced by the substance.
The sales of pianos which they could
trace directly to the influence of the teach-
ers to whom they had loaned instruments
was very small—scarcely worth mentioning,
and see on the contrary, what benefits the
teachers themselves received.
We have in mind an illustration of a
teacher, who for twenty years had grand
r ^ w 1 ! t
pianos oi a well-known make in her studio.
A4 Ml
Last year she complained of not being fair-
ly treated by the firm, and immediately
her piano was withdrawn. Taking her
pianos, even at the modest rental of $5.00
a month, $60.00 a year in twenty years
would have amounted, without compound-
FAVORS TO MUSIC TEACHERS.
ing
interest, to $1,200. Again, the firm
URING the past few years, as times
have become more and more de- kept the pianos in tune at no expense to
pressed, piano manufacturers have been the musician. In return for the use of
looking more closely into the inner details that sum the firm, during that time, could
trace the sale of three pianos directly to
of their business.
While times are buoyant, profits fair and the influence of this teacher.
In the face of such startling facts, is it
collections good, manufacturers do not have
the time to go into the matter of small ex- not apparent that the piano manufacturers,
penditures, neither have they the desire to as a whole, have been greatly imposed
do so when their time can be spent to much upon by a certain class of teachers?
better advantage in extending their busi-
We do not wish to depreciate the influ-
ness over a larger area. However, they ence of the average music teacher, but is
have had as a whole, ample time during it not a truth that their alleged influence
the past few years to study details—minute is enormously exaggerated? Do not facts
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details at that.
prove that they have given inadequate re-
In the early part of the year we referred
One of the subjects which has come up turn for the favors bestowed upon them ?
A very excellent way to test the matter repeatedly to the methods employed by a
for careful consideration, is the matter
of pianos loaned to music teachers for use both as to the real value of the influence of number of auctioneers in this city in sell-
in their studios. There is no question the music teacher, and as to their sincerity ing cheap rattleboxes as "good second-
but that this special manner of advertising in working in the behalf of the piano hand pianos by eminent makers." We
has been largely overdone. Thousands of which is placed in their studio, would be suggested that this matter was a fit subject
teachers have secured enormous favors at for manufacturers to place the matter on for investigation and action by the Dis-
D
.