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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
An Interesting Discussion of a Proposed Bureau of Standards and Measures
for the Player Industry Which Is Advocated By a Practical Worker in the
Trade, and Is Opposed By a Prominent Manufacturer—Both Sides Presented
Pursuant to the policy we adopted when beginning this Player Section, we have ever tried to discover the best current thought
on the needs and requirements of the trade, as expressed by its most progressive members. The most progressive members of
a trade are, of course, not always those whose names most frequently appear in the trade journals. On the contrary, the roots
of the most important ideas frequently are found to originate in the consciousness of the most modest and least pushing of men.
For this reason, as well as for many others cognate thereto, we present this month a constructive suggestion of the highest
importance, made by a private member of the trade whose opinions, although they seldom find their way into the public prints,
are often of the most fruitful and significant kind.
As an antinomy we present immediately following the opposed opinion of another gentleman of equal mental power perhaps
and one who is better known publicly. The two opinions, the constructive and the destructive, are offered without further
comment.
The delicacy of the entire question naturally precludes the expression of opinion over signatures.
FOR A BUREAU OF STANDARDS
By a Practical Man
player action is a vacuum machine and so is
subject to the laws which govern pneumatic
machinery of any sort. These laws can be
found in any text book of physics and are im-
mutable. Unless these laws are recognized and
thoroughly understood, there can be nothing
better than guesswork in designing. Guess-
work is the curse of any manufacturing busi-
ness, because guesswork wastes unbelievable
amounts of time and money, and never gets
really good results, except by pure chance.
Now the entire player business has been built
U
P by guesswork, and that is why there are so
few players really good and so many only part-
ly good.
"Now, suppose we were to get together the
technical men of the industry, and organize
them into an association for the purpose of
studying the pneumatics of the playen, and ar-
riving' at some definite conclusions. Suppose,
for instance, th*at we were to undertake to
study the entire question so as to be able to
set forth tables showing the proportionate di-
mensions required for pneumatic stack and bel-
lows, for given levels of power. Suppose we
set to work to study the possibility of finding
standard measurements in respect to all the
various recognized parts of the player, and
published these, to the end that those who are
attempting to design might have at their dis-
posal some real facts of value to them. . As
things are now, the player man has to calculate
everything for himself or else just guess.
Usually he guesses. Guesswork players are
making trouble for many a manufacturer to-day
just as they always have and always will.
Guesswork, as is realized in every other tech-
nical industry in the world, save ours, wastes
time and money and is fatal to success.
"Every engineering business to-day enjoys
the labors of such men as Kent, the author of
the famous engineer's tables. Now, the player
business is an engineering business and whilst
there exist at present no compilations of engi-
neering data of immediate direct essential value
to the player designer, still that only adds point
to my demand that such data should be studied
and classified, later to be published for the
benefit of all.
"I want The Review to start the crusade right
now for a Bureau of Standards and Measures,
such as exists in all great engineering indus-
tries, to the end that the player business may
cease to be a matter of guesswork and of re-
sults which annoy musicians quite as much as
they amuse engineers. I don't know how the
Bureau is to be constituted and I don't much
care. The trade ought to do it of itself, but
that is too much to expect. In any case, why
cannot some of the technical men get together
and start the thing? If it makes good, the asso-
ciations will take it up soon enough."
"Why is it that real improvements in the
player action are so slow in developing? For
nearly twenty years now the player in one form
or another has been before the people. Millions
of dollars have been invested in its manufac-
ture. Some of the most prolific brains the mu-
sical industries have ever known have given
of their best to its development. Patents have
been taken out by the hundred. Yet, in all es-
sential respects, the player is no better to-day
than it was ten years ago. Why is this?
"Mind you, 1 am giving just my own opinion
I consider that the player, in the essential qual-
ity of a machine for enabling a lover of music
to produce good music from the piano, is not
anywhere like as far advanced as it might and
should be. I do not believe for a minute in
hand-played rolls and automatic expression
players, or reproducing instruments or all
that; for you cannot solve the player problem
that way. All those are valuable and all of
them have their place; but that which keeps the
player going is the opportunity it gives you or
me, who cannot play the piano, to get the sen-
sation of producing music in our own way and
with our own ideas of expression. When you
destroy that fundamental idea, you destroy the
player; in my judgment.
"Now, as I see it, we are nearly all going
round in circles. We put all o-ur energy into
producing so-called improvements which, in the
end, don't amount to a row of pins. The pub-
lic is being asked to buy players without there
being any real reason for their doing so, see-
ing that the players offered to them are really
not satisfactory, not doing even what is claimed
for them. So, as I look at it, we are all put-
ting our energy into improving details and leav-
ing the essentials untouched.
"It seems to me that the essentials are per-
sonal expression, ease of operation, perfection
of music roll. It is my idea that if everybody
in the player business could be got to agree
upon some standards in respect to these essen-
tials, then individual genius as expressed in the
various patented player devices which each
manufacturing house possesses, would have a
still wider field of expansion and would produce
much better results. Of course, I do not want
to see all players alike, and I don't mean any-
thing like that.
"To put the matter just as plainly as I can,
there are certain points in the technical lay-out
of a player action which are common to all
such actions, for the very simple reason that
all pianos are essentially alike and all piano ac-
tions exactly alike to all intents and purposes,
not counting grade of workmanship. Now the ,
"PNEUMATICS."—Chicago.
THE OPPOSITION VIEWPOINT
By a Manufacturer
"The piano business has got along very well
for a good many years without any such stand-
ardization bureau as is suggested in the com-
munication you have shown me. The player
business will get on as well without any such
mischievous plan,
"You notice that the piano is standardized
quite as much as is needed for the proper turn-
ing out of supplies. This has come about
through the operation of natural economic
causes and whatever the player business re-
quires will be brought about in the same way.
"As for the player not being satisfactory, all
I can say is that my idea is to find out what is
wanted by the people and then give it to them.
I don't believe in trying to educate the people,
because I never knew a man who made money
that way. The 'educators' go into bankruptcy,
usually, while the success is won by the man
who fills the public demand. Anyway, all that
the proposed bureau could do is already being
done individually by the progressive manufac-
turers in their own experimental departments.
Why should they be compelled to give up their
secrets? For that, in reality, is what is meant.
I know that we should not allow any man in
our employ to belong to any organization
where he might give away any of our methods.
"It is, in my judgment, contrary to the best
interests of the trade to do anything at all to
destroy the free play of competition or the nat-
ural right of the individual to do whatever he
conceives best for himself without the obliga-
tion to give up his ideas to anyone else. You
tell me that the idea is only to substitute exact-
ness for guesswork. I say that it is our busi-
ness and our secret how we do these things
and that nobody else has any right to the same
benefits, for nothing, that we have secured by
our own energy and wisdom.
MANUFACTURER."
There we have the radical and the conserva-
tive in their eternal struggle, the old-fashioned
individualist against the modern co-operator.
Who is right? Perhaps there are .others who
might feel inclined to say something calculated
to add to the value of the discussion. If so, we
shall be glad to publish their remarks, anony-
mously, if desired. This is an important ques-
tion and deserves the careful consideration of
all thoughtful men.
NEW BUILDING FOR STARR CO.
Work on the new building for the Starr Piano
Co., at Cincinnati, ()., is rapidly progressing,
and Manager K. I. Pauling states that the build-
ing should be ready for occupancy about No-
vember 1.