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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
T
H E strong article in the present issue on the music roll situation
is fully justified by the facts. Anybody can see "with half
an eye'' that the player business is going through a series of marked
and highly significant changes. Immediately previous to the advent
» J of the player, the straight piano had entered into-a condition of
equilibrium and seemed to be about to close its career of expansion.
^ Of course, the truth was that the fault lay with method of selling,
not with the piano. The door-bell, push-sale, dollar-down methods
were having their natural effect. Now when the player-piano
' came along a new lease of life was granted to the business and one
I remembers well hearing how bravely everybody spoke of keeping
* the player out of the ruck of cheap bargain salesmanship. The
trade newspapers unanimously insisted that here was to be found
an opportunity of regenerating the entire business. Yet, sad to
relate, the player-piano has gone the way of its predecessor, and
we all know the effects. The music-roll business is something that
by all rules of common sense should be both profitable and pleasant
to handle. It is an element essential to the use of the player, the
demand for rolls is good even without intelligent promotion, and
the quality of manufacture improves constantly. Yet, for all that,
the cry goes up that there is no profit in these things. What is the
real reason for this complaint? It is not far to seek. It is simply
lack of intelligence. Dealers have failed to put the same skill into
selling rolls that they do into keeping their accounts or buying an
automobile for personal use. The piano game has been a pennv-
in-the-slot sort of game too long. It cannot remain in this condition
much longer without beginning to lose ground again. The solution
of all our troubles is intelligence ; that and nothing else.
has the money and the intelligence to want and require the best, the
retailers have gone after a class of trade that is attracted mainly
by the terms, Jess by the price and still less by quality. Now, it is a
very truism that when manufacturers are cutting iheir profits to
keep prices down and retailers are looking for a class of trade that
buys on long time and can be adversely affected by every little spell
of hard times, even if it be local, there is not much- profit for any-
body. It is pretty nearly time to wake up to conditions as they
exist and try a new tack. Quality should be the rallying-cry of the
piano and player trade from this day onward.
T
HE activity of Government officials in prosecuting alleged-mis-
use of the mails in the interests of advertising schemes of
various sorts has not been without its reaction on our industry.
Xor can, we, on the whole, be sorry that this is so. Apart from
their stupidity in adopting a sales policy which deliberately spoils
the piano business wherever it is tried and for a period much longer
than is generally supposed, dealers who use any of the various push-
sale schemes which have been worked during the 1 last few years
and which crop up again from time to time are often doing some-
thing very much like compounding a fraud. It is about tir£§ that
the few unreconstructed brethren realize that the world haV nioved
on since the bad old days of twenty-five year's ago, that ihe" doctrine
of caveat emptor is no longer good law, and that the once-sneered at
ideal of truth in advertising is within measurable distance of realiza-
tion throughout the length and breadth of the business community.
If this statement is not specific enough let it be added that the
public are wiser than they used to be.
HERE is a marked activity in the player-grand field, for which
we have much reason to be thankful. Increase in player-
grand sales marks always an increase in the number of persons who
are buying because they have the money and the desire for some-
thing good. We do not mean to argue that everybody who buys a
player-grand is necessarily a lover of the best in music, but rather
that, on the whole, those who want player-grands have money and
intelligence. Now the people who buy an ordinary grand piano,
when they are not musical, buy because it is the thing for people in
their financial class to do. If they think of a player they will most
likely think of an ordinary upright on which the young folks can
kick their legs off, in addition to the real piano, the grand. Those
who buy player-grands are more likely to be those who not only
have the money to buy, but also the intelligence to appreciate a fine
piano and a fine player enough to wish to produce fine music on
the two combined. Dealers who arc no! afraid to go after a fine
class of trade can sell player-grands; nol perhaps by the carload,
but surely and steadily, more every year.
W
T
I
RADE reform appears to be in the air in the music roll trade,
and although there has been no organization formed, the fact
remains that certain conditions in the music roll field cannot long
remain as they arc. The music roll cutter is faced by the price
question, the quality question and the problem of the copyist, all
combined with the indifference of the retail piano merchant, and
the time is here when he must rise up and protect himself.
E have suggested in the article referred to above that the
solution of the immediate troubles of the music roll busi-
ness mav be found in a determination to advertise and push
"quality.'" Now if this idea is good for music-rolls it is certainly
good for everything else in this or any other trade. There is no
use in saying that the great Ford industries, for instance, have been
built on a basis of cheapness: for, in fact, the truth is that ( i ) their
product is really not "cheap," being merely a case of giving high
value in an industry of inflated prices and unnecessary luxury, and
(2) bfecause in fact these products are merely the motor car re-
duced ,to essentials, with the frills left out. In the player business
we are not in the same condition, for in the first place if we could
get cash for our cheap goods there would be no kick and a low-
priced player would be produced with only the essentials left in.
llnl Ibis would pre-supposc, even so, I hat a musical instrument can
be reduced to (he complete stains of a machine, which cannot in
fact be done. Yet we don't get cash. The trouble is that we are
pushing low-priced goods because they look, on the surface, easier
to sell. And then we not only sell at low prices, but on the lowest
sort of terms, waging a kind of cut-throat war with each other to
see who can sell on the real rock-bottom of low instalments. It is
suicidal, and that is no figure of speech.
S it not reasonably plain to see that we have been barking up the
wrong tree in an effort to get immediate results? Rather than
try for the kind of trade thai brings in large payments and that
T
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