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THE
REVIEW
flUJIC TIRADE
VOL.
LXIII. No. 25
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., at 373 4th Ave., New York, Dec. 16, 1916
Educating the Piano Purchaser
P
RICKS! Prices! Prices!—Higher prices for supplies—higher costs of pianos and players. These appear
to be the main topics in the trade to-day, and the piano manufacturers and dealers generally view
the matter with fear and trembling. "Will the public pay?" is their question.
Under changed manufacturing conditions this would seem to be the time to contemplate changes in
selling conditions, and to develop new arguments that will convince the piano prospect that piano values are not
fictitious, but that on the contrary the prices asked are thoroughly conservative.
In an article on another page of The Review this week, C. M. Tremaine, director of the National Bureau
for the Advancement of Music, has presented piano values and costs in a new light. He has compiled facts and
figures to prove that the piano purchaser pays on the average of three and one-half cents a piece for all the items
that go into the making of the piano itself, or two and one-half cents apiece for the parts that go into the player-
piano.
Mr. Tremaine sets forth that there are some 9,500 to 10,000 separate pieces in every piano and uses a
retail price of $350 as a basis for his calculation. With a piano selling at less money the purchaser may pay
only three cents or even less for each part.
The argument thus presented should prove a powerful one in the hands of an energetic piano retailer, for
with it he can overcome arguments without number. By bringing the facts as presented in Mr. Tremaine's
article to the attention of local newspapers, their publication will both interest and instruct the reader who is
either a piano owner or a piano prospect.
The bargaining customer should be ashamed to persist when he learns that in his player, for instance, he is
getting nearly 30,000 separate pieces, each one requiring the attention of an expert in its construction and
assembling for the sum set, as the basis of argument, at $750.
The article, too, gives a new angle to the work being accomplished by the National Bureau for the
Advancement of Music—the comprehensive manner in which the Bureau is working for the benefits of the
retailers at large and which is calculated to bring tangible results.
The trouble with the public is that it has been trained to look upon the piano as a whole without stopping to
consider the variety of materials, the expert workmanship that goes into its construction, or the problems that
must be met at considerable expense before the instrument can safely leave the factory.
Some piano houses—too few, however—have made an effort towards educating the public by presenting
window displays of the various parts that go into the piano or player, but all the parts are not generally available.
The facts, however, can be presented readily and are available when the physical exhibit cannot be used.
How many dealers, for instance, emphasize the fact to their customers that there is a constant strain on
the piano back and plate of approximately 40,000 pounds, or twenty tons? Even the most ignorant prospect
should be quick to appreciate the fact that only a back or plate of quality can be relied upon to withstand this
strain indefinitely, and that it takes more than common wire to stand up under the strain of from T75 to 200
pounds to which the average piano string is subjected.
From Mr. Tremaine's article the dealer should be able to accumulate a wealth of arguments, both for his
sales talks and his advertising, that will convince the prospective purchaser that pianos and players are not only
worth intrinsically all that is asked for them, but are for the most part well worth any increased price that has
been placed upon them or may be placed upon them in the near future.
Don't continue to keep the piano in the mystery class. Let the public know what such an instrument actually
represents; what goes into its production. Familiarity with the "innards" of the piano will result in a more
general appreciation of its actual value.