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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW/
ing about them? As a matter of fact, it has been
this happy-go-lucky sort of treatment which has
reduced the music "roll to its present deplorable
position, and which has made the roll library the
weakest link in the player business, when it should
be one of the strongest.
THE PLAYER SECTION
Is a part of The Music Trade Review, which is published
by Edward Lyman Bill, 1 Madison Avenue, N. Y. Com-
plete copies 10c. each.
Subscription by the Year $2.00 Domestic; Foreign $4.00
NEW YORK, DECEMBER 31, 1910
Readers will observe that the present Player
Section contains a feature quite new, and, we be-
lieve, very valuable. Instead of the long lists of
music rolls for each month heretofore printed, we
have taken instead some particular numbers from
each manufacturer's bulletin and have treated them
critically, with instructive and interesting comment.
In thus making a departure from time-honored
practice we have been inspired by the belief that
there is no department of the player trade in which
good advice is more needed, and less available,
than in the purchase and selection of music rolls,
whether for wholesale or retail purposes. And it
is unmistakably true that the selection of rolls to
put before customers cannot be conducted entirely
in ignorance and carelessness. It is all very well
to say that people will know what they want, but
the fact is that they do not, as a general thing,
have any clear ideas at all along these lines. And
it is equally true that unless library customers can
have the opportunity of receiving sensible and in-
formed advice, their buying will become from the
first careless, feeble, and finally non-existent.
In undertaking to criticize and discuss the music
roll offerings of the month we have been animated
solely by the desire to render service to those who
are trying to make a success of the music roll.
We are convinced that the public will never accept
the player-piano as a permanent institution until
it has learned generally to have respect for the
music which that instrument produces. This music
is a matter of the roll. The kind of music a player
owner has is a matter depending upon his own
musical taste, but also largely upon the salesman-
ship of the man who sells music rolls to him. If
it be true, as lamentably it is, that many people
get player-pianos into their homes simply to have
a lot of noise ground out on them, then the fault
is largely with music roll librarians. Better music
rolls can and should be sold. The public will buy
better music, but cannot be expected to rush into a
library, pick out large numbers of good rolls, and
tcke them home, all without encouragement or ad-
vice on the part of the salesman.
No, the public must be advised, encouraged, in-
structed. For until it has become more nearly a
general practice to play good music, and think good
music, in connection with the player-piano, there
will be no stable foundation for a player business,
and player sales will be fluctuating and uncertain.
Once get people in general to take the player seri-
ously and the player-piano is forever established.
Not otherwise can so desirable a consummation be
brought about. Once get them to see how they
may study music and become cultivated music-
lovers, with the player-piano, and the instrument
from that time will become a steadily increasing
force for the commercial and artistic expansion of
the trade.
And all this presupposes knowledge. Those who
sell music rolls must have some sort of musical
knowledge. At least they must be able to talk
sensibly about their stock, and must have some
understanding of the various species and genera
of which it is composed. No young man is per-
mitted to sell at the dry-goods, men's furnishing, or
jewelry counters of a large store until he knows
something at least about the kind of goods which
he is paid to dispose of. Why, then, should it be
taken for granted that a youth can successfully
market music rolls when he knows absolutely noth'
With all the talk that one continually hears
among player and roll salesmen about the public
wanting only one kind of music, and that the most
frivolous, it is instructive to note that the manu-
facturers of music rolls still seem to find it to
their advantage to cut more and more classical,
grand operatic and other high-class numbers. A
glance at the various lists which are issued for
January, and noticed in the Music Roll Depart-
ment of the Player Section, reveals a state of
affairs that must be illuminating indeed to those
who do not believe the public wants good player
music. Glancing hastily over the lists, one ob-
serves the 2d Symphony of Brahms and the 4th
Symphony of Tschaikowsky. In addition, there
are the 2d Tschaikowsky piano concerto, a Haydn
Sonata, and a new symphony by a hitherto un-
known composer. Crowning the whole there is a
piano arrangement of a Richard Strauss Tone-
poem! To put the score of "Don Quixote" on
music rolls is a gigantic task, and one worthy of
the highest commendation. After this, who shall
say that people do not want good music? Unless
music roll manufacturers are making these rolls
for fun instead of for profit, the public taste can-
not be so bad, after all.
Some time ago an eminent and enterprising
player house, which is well known for the excel-
lent editions of music rolls which it publishes, as
well as for its consistent and farseeing policy of
educating its trade in the higher mission of the
player, conceived the very excellent idea of pro-
ducing what it called "Mosaic" rolls. These were
rolls upon which are arranged a series of excerpts
from the compositions of great masters. Each
selection is short, well chosen and interesting, and
the whole set is musically held together by appro-
priate modulatory material. One of these mosaic
rolls is devoted to Rubinstein, Chopin and Grieg,
another to Wagner, another to Liszt and still an-
other to Saint-Saens. The Chopin "Mosaic" is
particularly well chosen and contains excerpts
from the following compositions by the Polish
master: Piano Concerto in E minor, G major
Nocturne, second Mazurka of op. 56, 23rd Pre-
lude, A minor Waltz, Butterfly Study, A flat
Polonaise and A flat Ballade.
the op. 45 Sonata, such fantastic witcheries as the
Dance from the 2nd Suite; all these are worthy
of the highest admiration from all music lovers.
And all are represented in this very excellent
Mosaic. It is a pleasant duty to comment on fine
work like this, and hearty congratulations from
The Review are required; and hereby rendered.
We have for long urged the vital necessity for
a more serious conception of the musical artistic
viewpoint in player exploitation. Everything that
tends to make the player a larger force in musical
culture must be pursued enthusiastically, if the
trade is to progress as it should. For one cannot
build on sand, and a permanent player trade can
only be founded on the rock of national desire.
That rock in turn rests on general appreciation of
the player's position as a musical instrument; a
recognition that will never be generally granted
until the player has become a part of our real, not
our artificial, musical life. The erroneously called
"popular" taste, by which is meant uncultivated
and vulgar taste, can form no stable resting place
for a permanent trade. Hence, we must educate,
educate and again educate. And every move in an
educational direction should be supported and
backed up enthusiastically by an united trade.
MECHANICAL PLAYER FOR ORGANS.
Important Patent Covering the Above Granted
to William Edwin Gibbs, Pittsburg, Pa.,
Which Will Interest the Trade.
William E. Gibbs, of Pittsburg, Pa., has just
been granted patent No. 979,284 on certain new
and useful improvements in mechanical players for
organs.
In known mechanical devices for playing organs
having two or more divisions or sections such as
the pedal organ, great organ, and swell organ, it
has always been necessary to embody in the tracker
bar two or more laterally spaced holes for each
note on the musical scale, depending upon in
how many different voices it was desired to
express the note. In consequence of this construc-
tion of the tracker bar, the long strip or tape of
perforated paper forming the music sheet must be
provided with two or more columns of perforations
for each note to correspond with the laterally
spaced holes in the tracker bar. In practice, the
paper forming the music sheet cannot advantage-
ously be used above a certain width on account
of its tendency to stretch and to become warped
out of shape.
Now, every one of these compositions is well-
This invention relates to mechanical players for
known, while most of them are popular. The idea organs and has for its object to provide means
of grouping together characteristic excerpts from for automatically controlling the rendition of musi-
each is therefore an excellent means for interest- cal compositions in such a way that each different
ing an uninstructed music lover. And when we voice will be rendered upon that section or division
add to this the further fact that each Mosaic is of the organ to which it is best adapted.
accompanied by a little booklet giving interesting
One of the particular objects of the invention
details of the composer's life, history and person- is to provide in the preferred embodiment of the
ality, together with some excellently chosen re- invention a tracker bar of peculiar construction
marks on his style of composition, it will be seen whereby two or more divisions of the organ can
that the idea is in every way splendid, not only be simultaneously operated by means of a music
from an educational standpoint, but as a stimulator sheet provided with a single column of perfora-
of interest in roll buying. For the unlearned cus- tions.
tomer who buys such a Mosaic, tries it over a few
Another object is to provide a music sheet hav-
times, and reads the little pamphlet which goes ing a peculiar combination of perforations whereby
with it, will gain at once a respect for the master it is adapted to work in combination with said
whose work he is thus viewing, which perhaps not tracker bar.
years of recital-going would instill into his mind.
And once that respect is gained, then, as a matter
WANT PROPERTY SOLD.
of course, will come the desire for further explor-
ation in a more definite and thorough manner.
'Iht following notice was sent out last week in
It is pleasing to note that this very admirable regard to the affairs of the bankrupt American
Piano Player Co., Louisville, Ky., by Robert C.
idea has now been taken up by another celebrated
player house, whose roll bulletins for November K:nkead, referee in bankruptcy: "In the District
Court of the United States for the Western Dis-
and December contain the announcement of
Schumann and MacDowell Mosaics, respectively. trict of Kentucky. In the matter of American
The arrangement of excerpts from MacDowell's Piano Player Co., bankrupt. Take notice that a
compositions is especially commendable, since this petition has been filed by the trustee of said bank-
native American and New Yorker remains a riddle rupt's estate for a public or private sale of all real
and personal property of said bankrupt, and the
or an unknown quantity to the greater number of
those who inhabit his native city. Such wonder- same is set for hearing before me in my offices
ful and delightfu 1 nature music as the Sea Pieces in the Kenyon building, Louisville, Ky., on De-
and Woodland Sketches, such tonal tragedies as cember 30, 1910, at 9.30 o'clock a. m."