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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
9
The Opinion of the Public and its Influence Upon the Progress of the
Player-Piano not Accurately Measured by Men of the Player Trade—Edu-
cation of Public Necessity of the Immediate Future in the Player-Piano.
The idea is constantly recurring that the men
of the player trade do not accurately measure the
force of public opinion and its influence upon the
progress of the player-piano. It is a well known
fact that all of us are obsessed by the bias of our
own particular occupation. We are so closely en-
gaged in our own line of work that we often find
it hard to realize that the great world around us
1s really going on in almost complete ignorance of
our existence. It is a truism that the world would
have gone along even if there had never arisen a
player-piano idea in the mind of a single inventor
anywhere. If there were not a player-piano anywhere
there would still be a world living and dying, loving
and hating, fighting and making friends again.
This is something we are apt to forget. Secure in
our own knowledge of the excellence of our goods,
we fail oftentimes to grasp the truth that what is
so obvious to us is not necessarily obvious to any-
body else. Naturally, then, we find it hard to see
why the public should sometimes treat disdainfully,
or at least unworthily, that which we can so
readily see they ought to have appreciated from
the first.
The truth applies in all cases of specialties. It
is always necessary, as a prelude to successful
selling, that the prospective buying public should
be brought into a receptive state of mind, where
any prima facie prejudices or objections they may
have may be destroyed, and their feelings brought
to a pitch where expectant curiosity will be the
ruling passion. Having brought about a state of
mind comparable with this, the selling campaign
may be undertaken with some expectation of suc-
cess.
Now it is that underlying theorem of the pres-
ent article that this desirable state of mind has not
yft been brought about among people at large.
Jn spite of any apparent testimony to the con-
tr.iry, we are prepared to maintain that the actual
st?.te of the public mind towards the player—a
stEte which may be ascertained and determined
by anyone who will take the trouble to talk with
his neighbors—-is very far from being satisfactory.
And we especially therefore wish to make a strong
plea for some united action towards the remedying
—or at least the improving—of this truly lament-
able condition.
How the Player-Piano Appeals.
What do they think? What, in actual fact, do
John Smith and Mrs. Smith think of the player-
piano? What, in fact, is it to them and how does
it appeal to their minds, or to that part of them
dignified by the name of mind? And if we find
that the answer to this question is not what it
ought to be, what can we in the trade unitedly do
about it? These are the questions we must answer
if we can. Now, if we content ourselves with
taking for granted the statements that business
men light-heartedly make when gossiping among
themselves, or if we allow the reflection of our
own natural enthusiasm for the player-piano to
influence our judgment, we shall probably believe
that the player-piano has attained a place in the
affections of the great unmusical public entirely
permanent and entirely secure. But in plain fact,
there is absolutely no evidence that anything of
the sort is the case. There is absolutely no evi-
dence, we repeat, that the great unmusical public
regard the player-piano as anything more than a
mere toy.
The longer we observe the actual conditions the
irjcre we talk to the general public, the more it
should become clear to us that all the words about
the public accepting the player-piano and giving
it intelligent treatment are the merest nonsense.
If there is one thing that must be perfectly clear
to the intelligent observer, it is that the great mass
of the people are in a state of the most complete
ignorance about the player, about what it will do,
about how it should be treated, and about its real
position in the life of intelligent human beings.
If there is one thing more than another that seems
plain, it is that people in general, even the most in-
telligent people, are usually altogether ignorant
about the playing capacities of the player-piano,
and in consequence have next to no respect for it
as a musical instrument.
Getting Down to Facts.
One continually hears the player contrasted with
what is humorously called "real playing." A re-
cent instance will show what is meant. The writer
had been giving one of his player lecture-recitals,
and in the course of his remarks had taken oc-
casion to say something about the player as a
musical instrument and about methods of playing
it, among other things, for instance, pointing out
the capacity of the player for reproducing large
orchestral scores that could not be played on the
piano two-handed. At the close of the recital he
talked with quite a number of people and to a
very intelligent gentleman, a clergyman, among
them. The latter took occasion to say that evi-
dently the player-piano manufacturers had not yet
succeeded in getting rid of "the mechanical effect."
Upon being pressed for a more definite complaint,
he said that he disliked the "correctness" of the
playing, and while admitting that the tone-color,
the phrasing, the dynamic and the general effect
were all that could be desired, he felt that he
missed the "human soul." When still further
pressed for a definition of "human soul" in this
sense, he finally came down to the statement that
what he missed was the "sweet hesitancy" of the
human fingers in the runs and passage work. The
writer was obdurate and proceeded to play for this
gentleman Leschetizky's little study, "The Two Sky-
larks," taking special and particular care to phrase
each and every arpeggio in a different way. The
clergyman's face was a study. The writer then
went on to say that in fact the "sweet soulful-
ness" of which the gentleman felt such a lack was
simply, when analyzed, the unskilfulness of the
average performer's technic; a fault which all
piano teaching tries to cure by abolishing, so that
to the greatest pianists the "sweet hesitancy" does
not exist, except as they wish it to.
This is an example of the prejudice that exists,
in the most reasonable and intelligent minds. How
much worse must it be in the minds of the un-
thinking public! In point of fact, most people
appear to regard the player, not only as an instru-
ment without real expressive capacity, but as one
which should never be thought of in connection
with anything like "real playing."
If there be any truth at all in these statements, it
surely follows that the player trade suffers. Let it
be granted that a great many players are sold. Let
it be granted that the present demand for players
is quite good. All this proves nothing. So long
as the public in general think of the player as
merely a toy and a fad, its future cannot be secure.
At present public thought is tending in two radi-
cally different directions simultaneously. On the
one hand there is the craze for the tango, for
absurdities in feminine fashion and for all that
sort of thing. On the other hand, there is the
puritan renaissance manifested, to take only two
examples, in the generally absurd agitation against
alcohol, and in the equally silly and even more
vicious hysteria over the so-called "white slave
traffic." Neither of these contradictory trends is
exactly favorable to the development of a respect
for the player-piano. The first is content with
music in its lowest manifestations. The second is
in effect a reaction against all artistic thought.
Surely, then, we must do our part in the campaign
of education that we all ought to see now to be
so greatly needed.
The Public Must Be Educated.
Education of the public is a necessity of the im-
mediate future in the player business. Again we
feel impelled to say that the manufacturers must
be the first to take up the implied challenge. It is
up to them. It is not up to the dealers, or if it is,
the dealers will not take up the duty. In the
present stage of the game the retailers will not
take up anything that has not immediately to do
with some quick method of selling or promoting
sales. Educating the public means thought, and it
is easier to run a contest.
Education of the public might begin by the
piano manufacturers' association taking the matter
up to work out an advertising policy that the
members can apply to their own uses and induce
their dealers to apply, so that the public can be
reached in a way to do them and the business the
greatest amount of good. The public must be
educated to the artistic value of the player, to
learn that it is a legitimate musical instrument, to
know that it can be "played" in the true sense of
that term, to desert the mental attitude that re-
gards the player as a sort of toy. But, in order
that this should be done, the trade will have to
begin by educating itself. The manufacturers
{Continued on page 10.)
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