Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE
6
KMFW
EDWARD LYMAN
Editor and Proprietor
J. » . 9 P I L L A N E , Managing Editor.
EXECVTIVE AND REPORTORIAL STAFF:
GBO. B. KELLER,
W. N. TYLER,
EMILIK FRANCIS BAUER,
WM. B. WHITB,
W. L. WILLIAMS,
A. J. NICKLIN,
GEO. W. QUERIPEL.
BOSTON OPP1CE:
CHICAGO OFFICE
ERNEST L. WAITT, 255 Washington St.
E. P. VAN HARLINGEN, 1362 Monadnoek Block.
PHILADELPHIA OFFICE:
MINNEAPOLIS AND ST. PAUL:
S T . LOUIS OFFICE.
R. W. KAUFFMAN.
E. C. TORREY.
C H A S . N. VAN BUREN.
SAN FRANCISCO OFFICE: ALFRED METZGER, 425-427 F r o n t . S t .
Published Every Saturday at I Madison Avenue, New York.
Entered at the New York Post Office as Second Class Matter.
SVBSCRIPTION (Including postage). United States, Mexico and Canada, $2.00 per
year ; all other countries, $4.00.
ADVERTISEMENTS. $2.00 per inch, single column, per insertion. On quarterly or
yearly contracts a special discount is allowed. Advertising Pages, $50.00; opposite
reading matter, $75.00.
REMITTANCES, in other than currency form, should be made payable to Edward
Lyman B11L
On the first Saturday of each month The Review contains In Its
THE ARTISTS' "Artists' Department" all the current musical news. This is effected
without in any way trespassing on the size or service of the trade
It has a special circulation, and therefore
DEPARTMENT section of the paper.
augments materially the value of The Keview to advertisers.
n i l r r m p v «• PIANO T l i e directory of piano manufacturing firms and corporations
HIK.E.HUKY «f riANO found on another page will be of great value, as a reference
MANVFACTUR.ER.S
j o r (j e a i e r s a n ( j others.
LONG DISTANCE TELEPMONE-NVMBER 1745 GRAMERCY.
NEW YORK, AUGUST 12, 19O5.
REVIEW
ence, and keener judgment, but even more will come without wait-
ing for the years to bring it through a proper use of the hours and
minutes in the day. Concentration, a working plan whereby ener-
gies are not wasted in details, is the best plan for business enterprise.
Get out, meet people, rub elbows with the other fellow. Take a
vacation; it all helps business and prolongs life as well.
is hardly a city in the United States that does not con-
J-
tain some energetic young piano men who commenced busi-
ness a few years ago with a definite idea that they would achieve
success, and in many cases their efforts have been fairly rewarded.
The piano industry affords a splendid opportunity for young,
bright, wide-awake men of to-day, and in many cities they have
given some of the older institutions, which have been drifting along
in a rut, a close race for local business.
When you hear a man complaining regarding his business en-
vironment you can make up your mind to one thing above all others,
that he has failed to meet competition, and when you hear a piano
dealer growling about his competitors, their methods, and all that,
you will usually find that there is something wrong with his own sys-
tem, and that he has failed to meet modern competition.
I
T is safe to say that the people who are always complaining for
the convenient purpose of excusing their own incompetent,
mediocre work, are not organized for success. They lack some-
thing, and that something, as a rule, is an inclination to do down-
right, persistent, hard work. They are better at finding excuses for
their failure than anything else. During the past week we have re-
ceived several letters from piano merchants, in which a variety of
complaints appear. One accuses his competitors of all the crimes
in the calendar. Another says he has the vilest kind of competition,
against what he terms the "rotten" methods of his competition,
still accuses a Philadelphia manufacturer of all kinds of "dirty
tricks."
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PEAKING of vacation, one of the prominent men of the trade,
who resides in an interior western town, remarked that some
years ago his cashier said to him, when it was his usual practice
to spend a month or two in the East during the summer: "These
trips cost you considerahle money. Do you feel that you can afford
them?" The proprietor replied by saying: "I cannot afford not
to take them because I come back not only refreshed physically, but
in the course of my travels I have rubbed up against some pretty
good fellows and have gotten some ideas that are worth to me in
cold cash ten times the monetary expenses of the trip." As this
gentleman sat in The Review office, recalling some of his early ex-
periences, he said: "And to-day I have gotten some ideas which I
figure will be worth anywhere from three to five thousand dollars a
year to my business. Worth it? Why I advise every man to take
some rest and meet people, get ideas."
HIS concern state that they recently sold a piano, and this in-
strument was knocked so hard by the Philadelphia house
that they succeeded in getting the first piano out and another in-
stalled in its place. There is no doubt but that it is most exasper-
ating when a sale has been made to have some fellow come along
with a smooth story and get the first instrument thrown out. That
certainly is not one of the pleasant features of the piano business,
but there is not half as much of this work carried on as there was
a few years ago, and there is to-day, on the part of most piano mer-
chants, a desire to respect the sales made by other competitors.
There are a few, of course, who do not hesitate to resort to the most
reprehensible methods to get a piano out after a sale has been fairly
made.
W
H E N these complaints come in to The Review our practice
invariably is to refer the complainants to the Dealers' As-
sociation. That organization stands for the repression of just such
work and it maintains a competent committee which acts in a judicial
capacity upon trade complaints which may come to it for considera-
tion.
r
I ^ H E R E is good, solid advice in this, and men are beginning to
The time will probably never be reached when competition will
X
learn more than ever that the human machine will break down
be ideal in every respect. Those perfect conditions are hardly to be
if in constant use. The best business men, as in the case mentioned,
expected in this commercial age, but if the men who spend so much
realize that they absorb much from friendly meeting with other men
of their time in complaining about competition would use some of
engaged in the same line of trade. There are very few of us who their energy to meet it they would get on a mighty sight better, for
know it all, and usually the men who proudly assert that they are
the man who expects to succeed in the world has plenty of hard
masters of their business are just beginning to slide on the down work. He must grasp his opportunities with vigor and fling him-
grade. Men are beginning to know their limit in nervous outlay,
self with all his might into his vocation. He must make piano sales
and every man should work to his limit, but not beyond it. He of the right kind that stick.
should learn what his limit is and then try to fill the whole time,
every second of it, full of good productive labor. He should learn
O man can flirt with the goddess of success and succeed. He
to keep abreast of his work.
must get down to straight business, and if he does not mean
business, he will quickly be jilted. There is no half-way about it.
O use time systematically is to save it, and anything which makes
No one can succeed by taking hold of his occupation with his finger
it possible to do in one minute what formerly took two, means
tips. He must grasp the situation, in all of its ramifications, with
a better system and less wear and tear in the individual. Methodical
all the energy he can master, and stick, and hang, and dig. This is
habits and systematic arrangement of the desk's work, concentrated
the cost of achievement, and there is no lower price. There are no
interest on the work in hand—all these make for a saving of time
bargains on the success counter; there is but one price; take it or
and an increase in the individual's capacity for work. Increased
leave it. You simply waste your time if you banter, and, speaking
capacity for work is the true measure of a man's growth in busi-
of one price, that is steadily growing in favor with men in this in-
ness. Part of the increase will come, of course, with the years
dustry, and the closer a man sticks to it the better off he is at the end
through a greater familiarity with the work in hand, wider experi-
of the year. No doubt of that, for it has been proven in every case.
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