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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
EDWARD LYMAN BILL-
Editor and Proprietor
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY
~
3' East 14th St., New York
SUBSCRIPTION (including postage), United States.
Mexico and Canada, fa.00 per year; all other countries,
$3.00.
ADVERTISEHENTS, $2.00 per inch, single column, per
insertion. On quarterly or yearly contracts a special dis-
count is allowed. Advertising Pages $50.00, opposite read-
ing matter $75.00.
REMITTANCES, in other than currency form, should
be made payable to Edward Lyman Bill.
Entered at the New York Post Office as Second Class Matter.
NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 10, 1898.
TELEPHONE NUMBER, 1745--EIQHTEENTH S1REET.
THE KEYNOTE.
The first week of each month, The Review wil)
contain a supplement embodying the literary
and musical features which have heretofore
appeared in The Keynote. This amalgamation
will be effected without in any way trespassing
on our regular news service. The Review will
continue to remain, as before, essentially a
trade paper.
ARROWS FROM OUR QUIVER.
A N advertisement appearing in another
• portion of The Review from the
Keller Mfg. Co., Sauk Centre, Minn., re-
questing that estimates be furnished for
one hundred pianos for short delivery will
be of considerable interest to some of our
readers. It opens up a new field for piano
manufacturers, hence the necessity for
editorial comment.
conditions will deny, yet the dealers them-
selves have been largely instrumental in
creating these opinions.
Had they ad-
hered more strictly to one price; had they
paid fewer commissions; had they in other
words, used the same principles in their
business which are operative in all other
lines, the belief which has somehow crept
into the public mind, that the music busi-
ness is more or less of a klondike, would
have long since been exploded. Happily
there is a twentieth century atmosphere
now discernible in this trade. Men are
discussing credits, they are discussing
time payments, commissions, the one-
price system and all other necessary prin-
ciples which for years had been obsolete in
this trade.
It means that there is a new era dawn-
ing upon us, an era which will perhaps
mean greater prosperity for the manufac-
turer and the dealer as well, inasmuch as
there will be a more rigid adherence to up-
to-date business methods and principles
than ever before has existed in this trade.
Certain excrescences will be removed.
Expenses will be figured more closely. In
other words there will be system—more
system added constantly as the years roll
by.
Read the speech of John P. Byrne,
secretary of the Lyon & Healy corporation
in another portion of this paper. It will
show that that great Western corporation
is composed of men of the new school.
Mr. Byrne's remarks before the Credit
Men's Association in Chicago show that
he is a philosopher, a thinker, and a deep
student of the trend of affairs in this trade.
Would that we had more men of just such
a character and just such ideas, but they
are being added to the ranks every day,
and the music trade interests of the coun-
try are being placed upon a firmer and a
better foundation, croakers and pessimists
to the contrary notwithstanding.
comes greatly enhanced in two senses, for
readers and advertisers.
While the idea which exists that a trade
paper is run largely in the interests of its
advertisers, is partly true, yet it is- a
vehicle of information of varied character.
The advertisers form an important part,
but they should not dominate.
Another point to which we have re-
ferred on several occasions, and which we
shall take up exhaustively later, is the
matter of commissions paid music teach-
ers and others. This trade has been bled
for years by those who have given no ade-
quate return for the benefits they have re-
ceived.
They have given a mythical
something, vague and mysterious, im-
measurable, and in return have received
substantial emoluments. These matters
could and must be placed upon a business
footing and manufacturers will give noth-
ing for mythical or visionary work. They
must have an equivalent for their dis-
bursements.
But we are digressing. We shall refer to
this matter later. In the meanwhile there
is a concern up in Sauk Centre, Minn.,
that want one hundred pianos. Who will
be the lucky man?
BUSINESS PROSPECTS.
lVTOTWlTHSTANDING the fact that
this complex September—this' Sep-
tember of unprecedented torridity—has
been
entirely too lurid for a business
It seems that this concern of Minnesota
tidal wave, there is still left a healthy beat
have not heretofore been engaged in the
to the business pulse.
While we of
disposition of musical wares, but from the
Gotham have been suffering from a San-
magnificent crops which surround them
tiagoan
climate with the annexed frills—
they realize that many farmers throughout
while we have witnessed the ludicrous
Minnesota will be able to purchase musi-
spectacle
of De Wolff Hopper in Siberian
cal instruments this fall. They realize
costumes, furs, etc., with the mercury in
that a tremendous purchasing power is
the nineties, we still have not neglected
practically now within their grasp, and
to transact a modest volume of business,
that the Minnesota farmer with his debts
and the probabilities are that when that
paid arid a comfortable balance in the
cool
wave which the weather forecaster
bank will seek to add a little to home com-
Last week we dwelt extensively upon
forts by introducing musical culture in his the advantage of maintaining one price, of has reported every day for ten days, just
family.
placing a fair valuation upon a musical to keep our drooping spirits on the rise,
The Keller Mfg. Co. believe that there instrument and adhering to that valua- really does strike town to stay, there will
be such a business revival that this old
is a profitable field, which perhaps has tion.
never been worked, in their locality, and
There is a ring of true business about town has never seen since the Duke of
they propose to receive some benefits from that. From the responses which have York's fleet anchored off the battery and
ploughing therein.
reached this office since the publication of changed New Amsterdam into New York.
One of the best posted men in commer-
What is true of Minnesota is true of the article we believe that it is just such
many other States in the great West, and utterances from a trade publication that cial and financial affairs in New York
there is no reason to doubt but the are appreciated by its readers. Men who remarked this week, "There has never
number of music dealers will be largely consider that a trade publication is limited been a time for twenty years when the
augmented during the coming months. to purely personal work have no concep- business outlook was so encouraging as at
Merchants in other lines will be attracted tion of the work which is included within the present time, and the man who can-
not make money and who cannot advance
to the music field, the principal allurement the scope of a trade paper.
in
a business sense during the next year
being the belief that the piano business
A trade paper is educational, or at least
pays abnormal profits. That this belief is should be, if properly conducted in its may as well step down and out. Let him
untrue no one who is familiar with the main features. In that way its value be- do it gracefully, but do it quickly, because