Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
RFMFW
THE
fflMC TIRADE
VOL. LXII. No. 6
Published Every Saturday by Estate of Edward Lyman Bill at 373 Fourth Ave., New York, Feb. 5, 1916
SINGLE COPIES 10 TENTS
$2,00 PER YEAR
Important Meetings of the Association Committees.
The Paul B. Klugh Plan for a Music Trade Chamber of Commerce and the Proposed National
Advertising Campaign to Be Chief Subjects of Discussion—A Large Attendance Expected.
A
NEW epoch in the history of association effort will be ushered
in with the meeting of the officers and executive committees
of the national associations connected with the music trade indus-
try, which will be held in this city on February 15 and 16.
The principal subject for consideration will be a discussion by
the various committees of Paul B. Klugh's suggestion for the for-
mation of a Music Trade Chamber of Commerce, which is to con-
tain representatives of every branch of the industry, and which
will discuss and act on all the larger topics of vital interest and
importance to the trade.
The main criticism of Mr. Klugh's suggestion on the part of
some is the fear that this plan will kill the individuality of the
various associations—that they would lose their influence in their
respective spheres.
This viewpoint, however, cannot appeal to those who take the
broader and more farseeing view of the trade situation and its
betterment.
There are so many problems which affect not only the piano
trade but other branches of the industry that a common under-
standing would be advantageous and this could be achieved
through a body such as the Music Trade Chamber of Commerce.
Meanwhile the individual associations have their own im-
portant problems to solve—those questions that have a direct bear-
ing on the betterment of conditions in their own sphere of work.
These, of course, should never be neglected and they need not be.
Each department of the industry now represented by an associa-
tion has matters which are purely local in their bearing, that can
only be considered by the organization representing that respective
branch of the industry.
There are three great divisions in any industry like ours.
The first is productive, the Technical Department or manufactur-
ing end. The third is Retail Distribution. The second, which
binds the first and third together is Credit. There are other classifi-
cations perhaps better, but this will serve.
The piano business already comprises in its productive end
four great sections: piano making, player making, roll making and
supply making. All overlap, all interplay, all are more or less
interdependent. Yet in fact there are really four classes of manu-
facturers corresponding, with these divisions more or less accu-
rately. What can a Music Trade Chamber of Commerce do for
them? For one thing, a common meeting place for discussion of
technical problems would almost automatically dispose of three
of the worst money-wasting nuisances in the trade, which are:
Lack of standards in roll manufacture, lack of co-ordination be-
tween player and supply manufacturers, lack of co-ordination be-
tween technical piano men and technical supply men such as action
makers.
n^^ n ^
We have the second great division, that of Credit. Surely,
in spite of the fact that the Merchants' Association only as yet
represents a minority of all the piano retailers in the country, yet
it does represent the best of them. Then let us assume that ulti-
mately, it is just as much the interest of the merchants that the
\
finance of the industry be sound, as it is that of the manufacturers.
There ts no need to argue about it; for whatever the one or two
dishonest men in any industry may think, it is plain that honesty
is not only the "best policy," but the very condition of life to com-
merce. That is not preaching, it is sense.
Well, then, is it to be supposed that free discussion between
the manufacturers and retailers, as must naturally be brought about
in a single unified body, is not to be productive of real good ? When
men get around a table they can usually settle their differences, if
they don't actually hate each other fundamentally. Our manufac-
turers don't hate their retailers, nor conversely do the retailers hate
their manufacturers. Sometimes they don't understand each other.
Usually this is when they think they entirely do understand. Will
the credit situation benefit by class co-operation. Why argue about
the obvious?
There is the third great division, Retail Sales. Consider the
player only! The manufacturer knows how to make what is tech-
nically right, the retailer knows what the public likes best. At
present the two are at loggerheads most of the time because they
have no way of getting together. The manufacturer makes what
he likes and the retailer must sell what he gets. Is this not waste-
ful? Why not cultivate closer intimacy between them and let the
manufacturer see things from the retailers standpoint? Visionary?
Well, that is what we always have said till it was done; and then,
of course, we all believed it would be so all the time! Again, one
might enlarge, but why discuss the obvious?
Meanwhile the formation of a Music Trade Chamber of Com-
merce, acting as the upper house of the trade, so to speak, would
be a tremendous moral, political and social factor both in local and
national affairs. It would give the music trade industry a new
position among the great business organizations, for it would have
behind it not one, or two, but the entire trade bodies representing
all branches of industry.
On national questions such as freights, merchant marine,
tariff, etc., it would be a power, while in the handling of technical
and sales problems, much might be accomplished that is now largely
overlooked. As Philip Werlein said in last week's Review: "Mr.
Klugh's suggestion is constructive in the highest sense of the word;
there can be no differences of opinion on that subject. The ad-
vancing of such ideas will do the trade more good than criticisms
of methods really too small to be noticed in any important relation
to an industry (when you consider the factories, the dealers and
the public) with an invested capital of one billion dollars."
This question of the organization of a Music Trade Chamber
of Commerce is only one, however, of a number of other topics
which will come up for consideration by the executives of the
national piano manufacturers' and dealers' associations at their
various meetings.
The proposition of F. W. Teeple,.of the Price & Teeple Piano
Co., Chicago, for a conference to form a standard method of laying
out the expressive perforations on tracker bar and music roll for
(Continued
on page 5.)