Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE
GOOD many centuries ago the Master said: "As a man
thinketh in his heart, so is he." Surely some day the world
at large will wake up to a realization of what those words actually
mean. Surely some day we shall come to see'that what we think,
so we actually are, in fact, that what we think, so the world around
us actually is. We are every moment creating around us those
very external conditions which appear to be affecting us favorably
or unfavorably, at one time or another. Gradually the world is
coming to see the truth of this great fact; the fact that it is not the
world which makes us, but we who make the world; making it
afresh every moment, every time we draw breath. For the activity
of thought is incessant, and thought is creating forever and un-
ceasingly. The world of our conscious experience becomes, from
this right point of view, the immediate creation of our own thought,
modifiable exactly as our thought is modified.
A
URELY it can be seen that this is true, and surely also it is
hardly necessary to point out that when we think along lines
like these we acquire at once a direct and definite power over things;
a power which we can never possess when we regard the external
world as acting on us. The external world cannot act on us except
in so far as we assign to it the power so to do. Deny that power
and it disappears. Assert our natural supremacy over the world
of our own conscious creation, and forthwith we are its masters.
As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.
S
LL of this is preliminary to a consideration of the State of
Business. Capitals are clearly needed here, if only to em-
phasize the terrifying importance of the Idea. The State of Busi-
ness is a sort of deity, vague, shadowy, terrible, to which the world
bows down. Day by day the newspapers of the world flash through-
out the length and breadth of its confines the latest news about the
State of Business. Men grow haggard and weary-eyed worrying
about the State of Business. Anticipation, fear, worry; these are
the almost inevitable concomitants, apparently, of thought about the
State of Business. We are all scared to death most of our time
about whether the State of Business is going to be good or bad.
We die a thousand deaths each day in agonizing over business.
The world rushes into panics, hard times come, misery and priva-
tion are the lot of millions; and all because we have become alarmed
over the State of Business. And the truth all the time is that this
huge and horrific monster, before the enormous idol whereof we
tremblingly crook the knee, is the shadowy intangible creation of our
own thought. Panics cannot mar us, nor good times make us.
For we make both panics and good times.
A
HY then the necessity for the present talk about depression
in business ? Does it seem absurd to say that the depression
is entirely in our own minds? Does it seem even more absurd to
assert that the depression is not even in our individual minds, but
actually only in the communal thought of the world? Well, if you
think this so absurd, just go among your own business friends and
talk with them about business. Each one finds his own business
in good shape, but each one is afraid that other people are in diffi-
culties, that the aggregate of business is bad, that others will have
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REVIEW
trouble. And so thinking he is creating trouble for the others, and
finally for himself. The same truth sticks out everywhere. One
onlv has to observe facts and draw therefrom the conclusions.
T
HEN, the next time anyone starts to talk about business being
bad, take him up short. Don't, for your part, allow the
thought of failure, disaster and defeat to cross your mind. Elimi-
nate such sickly thought from your own consciousness and you will
be free from the natural manifestations of such thought; from the
concrete expression in fact of defeat and failure. Allow your
consciousness, on the other hand, to be filled with such thought and
it will surely manifest itself, sooner or later, in the very conditions
which you are desperately striving to avoid. You need not take
anybody's word for this. You can do better, you can try it. And
if you try, it will prove itself.
I
T is a blessing to realize, as one can these latter days, that the
consciousness of the trade is becoming continually clarified on
the whole subject of player-making and selling. We are getting
better methods, better ways of thinking, better practice. What is
more to the point, the most obvious of the methods of appeal are
those which show the greatest improvement. Advertising in every
way is getting to be saner, cleaner, better. We are hearing less of
the exaggerated nonsense that used to pass for fact. Without
doubt, an attempt is gradually being made to bring about a better
understanding of the player proposition on the part of the public.
All the time one finds that advertising improves in tone. At last
it is being seen that the way to sell- players is to get the public first
to respect them. This in turn involves understanding, and under-
standing involves education. It is therefore easy to understand
that as time goes on advertising will be more and more educative,
and less and less hot-air-ish.
W
E are hearing a good deal these days about player grands,
and although some reference was had to this topic last
month, it seems right once more to mention it. The player-grand
is going to be a very important element in the trade, unless we
mistake, and it is up to us all to take very considerable interest in
it. For one thing, we ought all to see that every effort is made to
disabuse the public mind of the idea that a player-grand must neces-
sarily be fearfully expensive. There is no need for any such
thought, and so far as it exists it should be wiped out. The player-
grand ought to be presented as a proposition especially intended to
appeal to those who have some musical intelligence. Technically it
should be designed for the utmost in artistic efficiency. Commer-
cially, it should be sold at a fair but not excessive price, to people
who are able to appreciate it. Right handling of this player-grand
will go far to help along a right conception of the player business
on the part of the more intelligent among the public; among those
people who, under normal conditions, appreciate the superior musi-
cal qualities of the grand piano when played by hand, and who, all
too frequently, have appeared skeptical regarding the possibilities of
the player-piano as presented in its upright form. Some of the latest
player-grands placed on the market are destined to increase the re-
spect and consideration of those musically inclined.
The Master Player-Piano
is now equipped with an
AUTOMATIC TRACKING DEVICE
Which guarantees absolutely correct tracking of even the most imperfect music rolls
W I N T E R & CO., 220 Southern Boulevard, New York City