Music Trade Review

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THE
MUSIC TRADE
Summarizes the answers received as follows which will interest
piano men:
"First—Very definite improvement in business conditions from
now on.
"Second—Relatively little interference from the coming Presi-
dential campaign.
"Third—A very positive belief held by well-known business
men throughout the United States that the whole country will see
sustained improvement in trade after the November election."
O
NE of the real troubles of the piano dealer who conducts an
instalment business is the constant danger that an instru-
ment on which there has been paid only a comparatively small
amount will be seized for debt, either legally or illegally, before the
dealer has a chance to protect his own interests. In many of the
States the piano men have succeeded in preventing the passage of
bills that would permit landlords and others taking possession of
pianos for debt despite the instalment lease, which gives title to the
piano man until the piano is entirely paid for. Although the legal
seizure presents an annoying problem to the piano man, it is the
securing of the piano by fraud that presents the greatest danger,
for under such circumstances every effort is made to hide the piano
or to dispose of it in some out-of-the-way section where its re-
covery depends chiefly upon luck.
Only recently a piano house in Indianapolis got on the trail of
a couple of loan sharks who had practically robbed a man of a piano
which he was buying on the instalment plan, at the time he was in
a hospital, and through quick and energetic action succeeded not
only in recovering the instrument in the house of the party with
whom it had been placed on trial by the loan sharks, but in having
the latter arrested and indicted for grand larceny.
In this particular case the piano company was little more than
passively interested and its activity in pursuing the matter to the
finish is worthy of commendation. Legal action in any case is an-
noying and often expensive, but a few lessonsof similar character
administered to the loan sharks would serve to discourage them
when it came to seizing pianos and cause them to turn to easier prey.
FEATURE of the convention of the British Music Trades,
held at Brighton last month, that should impress the man
A
interested in the trade in general was the fact that it really was a
"music trades" convention, for all the various branches were rep-
resented. Not only were supply men present and represented in an
association, but there were the music publishers and music sellers,
all those in addition to the piano manufacturers and dealers. This
is as it should be, for all the interests of the various branches are
interwoven to a greater or less extent and all branches meeting
together affords the opportunity for comparing notes and inaugu-
rating reforms that after mutual discussion have been decided upon
as being necessary.
It means that all sides of important questions can be presented
at one and the same time and much friction thereby avoided, and,
above all, it permits of a better general understanding between the
various sections of the trade. In place of one section holding a
convention and the other sections attending for the single purpose
of influencing and capturing orders, all meet together on an equal
footing as being really interested in the trade questions brought up
at the convention and as members of one or the other of the sepa-
rate associations. The plan might work successfully in this country
and might at least be tried.
ANY of the pianos sold at a medium price represent surpris
ing value for the money, and yet they mean a profit for the
manufacturers, and set aside the theory of some of the old school
of piano makers that to lower the price of a piano means to lower
the grade of the materials entering into its manufacture. As a
matter of fact, there are probably some factories in the country
being operated on a close margin where good profits are repre-
sented in the time and energy wasted in the various processes of
manufacturing, and in any case such waste of energy means high
manufacturing cost which must be borne, either by the manufac-
turer at the expense of his profits, or by the purchaser in the matter
of value for the money.
The piano factory should take a lesson from the large" meat
packers who have arranged the various processes through which the
M
REVIEW
Legal Questions Answered for the
Benefit of Review Readers
have opened a Department wherein legal
questions, which have direct bearing on music
trade affairs, will be answered free of charge.
•IThis Department is under the supervision of
Messrs. Wentworth, Lowenstein & Stern, attor-
neys at law, of 60 Wall Street, New York.
^[Matter intended for this Department should be
addressed plainly, Legal Department, The Music
Trade Review.
carcass of the cattle or hogs must go before being ready for ship-
ment, so regularly and in order that the animal's body simply pro-
gresses along a single rail from the killing room to the cold stor-
age. In several of the modern piano factories the same arrange-
ment prevails and there is not a bit of lost motion or doubling back
on work from the lumber yard to the shipping room, for it is
realized that the doubling back to complete a single step in the
manufacture adds a considerable amount to the cost of each piano,
an amount that belongs and should be on the other side of tfae
ledger.
j _' .;'
It is the little things that count—the cost of moving the veneer
from one side of the factory to the other, the storing of other 1 sup-
plies at distant parts of the factory from where they are to> be
used—that add to the expense, and all unnecessarily. Some of the
waste is not so readily detected, but can be discovered through
close watching. Pains are taken to protect travelers on railroads
and pedestrians from the injury by cars and automobiles, yet statis-
tics show that faulty stepladders result in 300,000 accidents an-
nually and a consequent monetary loss of $40,000,000, though there
are no rules or regulations to govern the manufacture or use of
those instruments of destruction, because no one has realized the
situation. So it is in manufacturing, the commonest source of
waste is frequently the one oftenest 'overlooked.
?
O
SSIP GABRILOWITSCH, who was last heard in this coun-
try through the medium of the Mason & Hamlin piano and
who is now achieving fame as a conductor in addition to his re-
markable ability as one of the greatest pianists of the day, is, like
Paderewski, a pupil of Leschetitzsky, and to the latter he ascribed
much of his success. In a recent interview he is quoted as saying:
"From Leschetitzsky I learned that quality, not quantity, is the
measure of accomplishment; that hours count for nothing and that
concentration means everything. And, moreover, a new world was
opened to me by the suggestions, by the incalculably valuable sug-
gestions, which I received from him as to development of tonal
beauty and variety in touch." On this point he further remarks:
"Don't depend upon the piano to produce the tone for you—that
is the work of the fingers." "Above all things strive for beauty
of tone, beauty of line, and beauty of color. A thousand color
nuances can be given by a variation in the depth of pressure, and
by skilful pedal combinations, but for these effects no teacher can
give any but the merest hints. Therefore, listen to yourself care-
fully when practising, and train your ear to distinguish and to dis-
criminate the sightest nuances by color, touch and phrasing."
Another point which Gabrilowitsch as a pedagogue emphasizes
is that "too much practice dulls not alone the ear, but also the fine
sensitiveness of the nerves, which run out to the tips of the fingers,
and which are to the pianist what the palette colors are to the
worker on canvas. For this reason, great artists are usually wise
enough not to exhaust this ability of infusing a sense of color into
the tone by practising immoderately on the day of a public ap-
pearance."
To all interested in the piano these remarks of Gabrilowitsch
are interesting and timely. Nowadays there is a tendency to sac-
rifice quality to volume in piano making simply because so many
of our pianists consider piano pounding piano playing.