Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
The Necessity of Practical, Active Work Along Educational Lines in the
Piano and Player Trade—Achievements in the Automobile Field Point a
Way—Why Player-Piano Manufacturers Should Be Especially Interested.
Last month the Player Section featured strongly
an appeal to the player trade to consider, with the
seriousness befitting the importance of the matter,
the question of organizing a national campaign of
education for the principal purpose of bringing the
public mind into something like a duly receptive
state toward the player-piano. We propose, even at
the risk of annoying the reader, once more to dis-
cuss this matter, meaning thereby to impress its
importance, if we may, upon the mind of every
thoughtful player man.
During the recent convention Frank E. Morton,
of the American Steel & Wire Co., pointed out
that, after ninety years of effort and the expendi-
ture of an incredible amount of money, skill and
industry, the total number of piawo.s and player-
pianos made in the United States is now no
greater annually than the output of one auto-
mobile factory which has been in existence ten
years. We have here a highly significant fact,
one calculated to give us pause. Let us proceed
to examine it in a sensible fashion, hoping thereby
possibly to find some facts that may help us in our
main search.
The piano is an instrument of music of especial
value and capacity. It permits the playing of all
music ever written; it is within the means of the
average American family and it appeals to a quite
general desire for the hearing of music, of some
kind of music, anyway. It does not, on the av-
erage, cost as much as a cheap automobile. It
has none of the expenses attendant on and inci-
dent to its possession that make the automobile
a continual expense. It has everything attractive
to the average person and no striking disadvan-
tages. Yet we sell less than 300,000 pianos in this
enormous country each year.
We take heed to remark here that we have no
intention of resting at the point now so plainly
perceived. Nothing is easier than to talk elaborate
nonsense about "advertising psychology." Your
small man, who has perhaps attained to the simple
intellectual trick of putting forth as his own
views whatever he has last read, and whose under-
standing of the human mind is somewhat hazy as
a consequence, is always being heard crying aloud
that the thing we need is suggestive advertising,
the sort of advertising that works on the mind
and influences it. We hear all sorts of talk about
"suggestion," "psychology" and all that sort of
thing. Hut what does it, in effect, all amount to?
Simply words, words, words. If we want to know
that this is true we have simply to turn once more
to the automobile and consider the sort of adver-
tising that has made the automobile great. Has
automobile" advertising been psychological? It
has talked little of psychology but much of cycles.
Has it influenced the purchaser's mind by any
hypnotic process? It has said little of suggestion
but much of transmissions. It has talked about
engines, and long strokes, and self-starters, and
gear sets, and differentials. It has talked shop
from morning to night. It has talked the slang
of the factory and of the designing room. It has
given us, by invention, a whole dictionary full of
irritating technical terms. It has been the least
subtle, the least psychological and the most
straightforward thing in the world. It has never
allowed us to get away a moment from the at-
mosphere of the machine shop. And yet it has
immensely succeeded.
What the Truth Has Accomplished.
And why has it immensely succeeded? Simply
because it has in the main told the exact truth.
The automobile is, per se, no better than the
The Many Advantages of the Player.
player-piano as a possession. It has no greater
The player-piano, again, is within the roach of
inherent advantages. It has many disadvantages.
the average owner; certainly within the reach of
the people who are buying the cheap automobiles Yet people scheme, plan, lie and cheat to. buy an
—and paying cash for them. It has the enormous automobile. And they have to pay cash for it.
advantage over other instruments that it can be The player-piano cannot be sold for cash. We
played acceptably by anyone who will give a little have to beg people to buy it, and we must offer
trouble to the task of mastering its manipulation, them terms out of all reason to get them to buy.
while on the other hand its artistic possibilities Why?
are unlimited. The last objection to piano own-
A few months ago Paul B. Klugh discussed at
ership—the difficulty of learning to play—is abol- some length in the columns of this Player Section
ished. Every other advantage of the piano is re- the unreasonable attitude of the player-piano
tained. Yet we sell not even as many players as owner contrasted with the tolerance and indulg-
straight pianos, and the output o,f both types from ence of the automobile owner toward the freakish
all our factories is matched by the output of a and expensive tantrums o;f these machines. The
single automobile factory.
facts are sufficiently striking; but their explana-
Now it is fairly obvious that, when we find an tion is simple, for it lies principally in the plain
truth that the automobile manufacturers have
article which is highly desirable as an object of
possession, is within the reach of the average never pretended that the automobile is not an
family and is free from any striking disadvan- expensive luxury.
tages, but which nevertheless is apparently no.t at Necessity of Presenting Facts to the Public.
all duly appreciated by the body of consumers in
How does this apply to the player-piano? Well,
a country like the United States, we have found an it applies in this way; that if the player men wish
article which has not been set up in front of the to sell as many players as they ought to sell, if
people in the right sort of way.
even they wish to. continue the present rate of
sales, they must consider the necessity for pre-
senting the facts about player-pianos to the gen-
eral public in the most effective manner and with
some sort of concerted policy governing them all.
That is plain conclusion the first.
The question of how it is to, be done, however,
is one that may be viewed in various ways and
from various approaches. It is our deliberate
opinion that Mr. Morton was right when he said
that we need to get the public out of the state of
vague belief and into the state o,f reasoned under-
standing. The public has no doubt whatever
that the automobile is a good thing. But it has
grave doubts of the player-piano being even a
desirable thing.
But we cannot do the thing by resort either
to the plain bosh or the esoteric bosh. We don't want
cheap mental suggestion; we want the plain truth.
We want to tell the public what the player-piano
is in terms that it can understand, and out of
the mouths of men who know what they are talk-
ing about. We ought to be—if we are not—sick
of the sort of advertising that spends untold gold
to buy large wads of space in expensive maga-
zines and therein print pretty pictures of impos-
sibly handsome men, women and children, in im-
possibly perfect homes, gazing at an impossibly
beautiful player-piano; with idiotic leers on the
countenances of all, while six inches of vague
piffle abo.irt "the great masters" (they always drag
them in) ; "the latest hits of the day, the tangos,
the modern dances and all the music the young
people love" complete the desolation. No, we do
not want that. And we do not want the pseudo-
psychological sort of stuff either.
A Campaign Suggestion.
What then do we want? Well, here is a stab
at a solution: We want a campaign, financed by
all the player manufacturers, and by none other.
We want a campaign that will reach every seller
of player-pianos in the country. We want a cam-
paign that shall go right to the dealer, give him
assistance, show him how to sell, how to talk, how
to demonstrate, how to repair and adjust. We
don't want this to be a spasmodic thing, but a
steady campaign, a campaign that shall last five
years if necessary. We want to send out a corps
of good, high-grade men, to go to every seller in
the country, to get in touch through them with
the musical public and with the unmusical mass,
to talk, to. play and to tell the truth. Then we
shall sell player-pianos like automobiles are sold.
And there will be no come-back either.
That is what we want, in connection with
national advertising that also shall be truth, and
truth only. And no one who talks with dealers
all over the place is likely fro. think differently.
Just one more point: Get a thing like this
started and you can then handle the grade ques-
tion and get player-pianos where they belong.
Why not ? It can be done. Then let the trade do
it and save itself.
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