Classic Mode

Music Trade Review

Issue: 1918 Vol. 66 N. 15

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
REVIEW
PUBLISHED BY EDWARD LYMAN BILL, Inc.
President, C. L. Bill, 373 Fourth Ave., New York; Vice-President, J. B. Spillane,
373 Fourth Ave., New York; Second Vice-President, J. Raymond Bill, 373 Fourth Ave.,
New York; Secretary and Treasurer, August J. Timpe, 373 Fourth Ave., New York.
J. B. SPILLANE, Editor
J. RAYMOND BILL, Associate Editor
AUGUST J. TIMPE
Business Manager
Executive and Reportorial Staff:
B. BRITTAIN WILSON, CARLETON CHACE, L. M. ROBINSON, WILSON D. BUSH, V. D. WALSH,
W H . BRAID WHITE (Technical Editor), E. B. MUNCH, A. J. NICKLIN, L. E. BOWERS
BOSTON OFFICE:
CHICAGO OFFICE:
TOHN H. WILSON, 324 Washington St.
E. P. VAN HARLINGEN,
Republic Building,
Telephone, Main 69S0.
209 So. State St. Telephone, Wabash 5774.
LONDON, ENGLAND: 1 Gresham Buildings, Basinghall St., D. C.
NEWS SERVICE IS SUPPLIED WEEKLY BY OUR CORRESPONDENTS
LOCATED IN THE LEADING CITIES THROUGHOUT AMERICA.
Published Every Saturday at 373 Fourth Avenue, New York
Entered at the New York Post Office as Second Class Matter.
SUBSCRIPTION (including postage), United States and Mexico, $2.00 per year;
Canada, $3.50; all other countries, $5.00.
ADVERTISEMENTS, $4.50 per inch, single column, per insertion. On quarterly or
yearly contracts a special discount is allowed. Advertising pages, $130.
REMITTANCES, in other than currency forms, should be made payable to Edward
Lyman Bill, Inc.
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Departments conducted by an expert wherein all ques-
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technical Departments
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o f a technical nature relating to the tuning,
regulating and repairing of pianos and player-pianos
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be found in another section of
this paper. We also publish a number of reliable technical works, information concern-
ing which will be cheerfully given upon request.
Exposition Honors Won by The Review
Grand Prix
Paris Exposition, 1900 Silver Medal. .Charleston Exposjtion, 1902
Diploma.. .Pan-American Exposition, 1901 Gold Medal. ...St. Louis Exposition, 1904
Gold Medal..Lewis-Clark Exposition, 1905
LONG DISTANCE TELEPHONES—NUMBERS 6982—6983 MADISON SQ.
Connecting all Departments
Cable address: "Elbill, New York."
NEW YORK, APRIL 13, 1918
EDITORIAL=
T has been formally announced from Washington that the
musical instrument manufacturing industry must curtail its
output 30 per cent, for the months of April and May, based on the
output for 1917. Many other industries during the past couple
of months have received orders for a curtailment of their output
from Washington, the amount of curtailment in many cases
running up to 50 per cent. Our industry is not in any sense the
first to be affected, and we have assurances from the authorities
that a large part of the possible loss occasioned the industry
by the cut in its regular output will be made' up by war work
distributed among the various plants.
Under the circumstances,, the industry cannot very well
complain. There were officials at Washington who even de-
manded a 50 per cent, curtailment, but after conferences between
the various boards and trade representatives, it was decided
that a 30 per cent, reduction would meet all requirements for the
present at least, with a readjustment promised on June 1.
We are in a very serious war, and in it to the hilt. As the
conflict grows and preparations increase, business men must ex-
pect to be called upon to make numerous sacrifices. So far, our
trade has received fair treatment.
Officials in Washington seem to have grasped the fact that
the music industry is not only in itself an important link in the
business fabric of the nation, but that on its well-being depends
the stability of many other allied industries, and in some measure
the national financial status of the country, to say nothing of the
livelihood of thousands of workers and their families. Knowing
exactly what the curtailment in the output is going to be
gives the industry the satisfaction of being sure of its position,
for the time being at least.
• •
There have been rumors upon rumors, some of which have
gone so far as to prophesy the entire elimination of this industry,
together with many others. It is time that rumor mongers and
theorists were muzzled, that only official facts be permitted to
I
APRIL 13, 1918
circulate. The loose talk by men who pretend to know it all, but
know nothing, is doing more harm to this and other industries
than all of the regulations put into effect by the combined forces
of the administration.
Industry cannot be killed. The success of the war depends
upon the money that industry pays in taxes and in subscriptions
to Government loans. The stability of the country after the war
depends upon the condition in which industry finds itself at the
declaration of peace. If industry is paralyzed the process of
reconstruction is going to be that much longer and that much
harder.
Over the Top With Your Dollars—Buy Liberty Bonds.
April 6, the anniversary of the entrance
O N of last this Saturday,
country into the world war, there was launched the
third Liberty Loan campaign, with the music industry of New
York and vicinity pledged to subscribe $1,000,000 or more to the
new bond issue. Even with the business difficulties that are
piling up on us, there has not up to this time come a general
realization that we are actually engaged in a tremendous war,
that we must either sacrifice all for victory, or pay all in tribute.
The launching of the third Liberty Loan, however, finds us
perusing casualty lists and reading what the American troops are
doing on the actual fighting lines in France. There are over
1,600,000 soldiers and 350,000 sailors now in the service, thousands
of them risking their most precious possession—life—at sea, on
the battlefield and in the trenches for the cause of democracy and
for the protection of those who for one reason or another are not
privileged to shoulder a gun.
There will be a million more soldiers called to the colors
before another year is upon us. Let us support and back up
these men to the limit of our resources. They are putting their
lives into the struggle, and we can at least loan our dollars.
Money put into Liberty Bonds will come back again with interest,
but life, once gone, is irretrievable.
The music trade industry has proven its patriotism on many
previous occasions. It has contributed liberally to the various
loans and to other worthy causes connected with the war, even
though it has been called upon, or may be called upon, to bear
an extra share of the war's burdens on industry. Let us all work
to make good the guarantees given to our Government by the
various Liberty Loan Committees in the industry.
Invest in Victory—Buy Liberty Bonds.
who has any appreciation at all for the power
N O of individual
the printed word, and for the part played by the
magazines and newspapers in developing public opinion,
in' carrying messages from the people in one section of the
country to those in another, and in rendering the greatest service
to national education, should fail to register his protest against
the action of Congress in raising postage rates on newspapers
and periodicals to a prohibitive degree. The increase actually
ranges from 50 to 900 per cent.
The law also divides the country into sections and places a
heavier burden on one section than on another when it comes to
buying reading matter. A man in San Francisco subscribing for
a paper published in New York will be called upon to pay several
times the price charged to a man in Pennsylvania or Ohio, simply
because he is 3,500 miles away from the publication office instead
of being within 100 miles or so.
It is not in- any sense a war tax, as is admitted in Congress,
and the high rate will be continued after the war, unless strong
action is taken to have the law repealed or amended. The new
law will not only cripple the business of publishers to a large
extent, and curtail the amount of reading done by the public at
large, but it will necessarily narrow down the business of the
nation, and the postal revenues as well, for advertising is vital
as a business developer. Circulation is what makes advertising
pay. To cut down the circulation of a magazine, and that is what
the law is going to do, is to narrow by just so much the ability of
magazines to make advertising produce results, and in a general
way every business that is being advertised, whether in general or
class periodicals, is going to suffer,
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
APRIL 13, 1918
THE MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
The Growth of the Musical Instrument Export Trade
pianos valued at $56,685 exported during the same month of the
E hear a great deal in the trade about the development of
W
previous year.
the American export business, but even the increasing num-
Music roll exports more than doubled, the figures for last
ber of manufacturing concerns branching out into foreign fields
have, for the most part, no adequate conception of the manner in
which the export trade of the country in musical instruments is
growing. Our export trade is growing and is growing rapidly.
It has the support of the Government as a means for preserving
the trade balance, and it is very probable that this support will
be increased as time goes on and domestic conditions change.
The development of foreign trade is best realized, however,
through a perusal of official Government figures covering the
export and import trade which appeared in The Review last week.
This shows that during the month of January of this year, for
instance, the value of the exports of musical instruments was
$435,115, as compared with $306,636, an increase of approximately
30 per cent, for the month. During the seven months ending
January 31, the exportation of musical instruments amounted
to $3,111,481, as against $2,230,763, for the same period in 1917,
and about $1,900,000 in 1916. In other words, there is an increase
of $880,718 in the value of exports in a single year with the
country actually in the war.
The classified figures are also interesting, showing that in
last January 174 organs valued at $11,689 were exported, as com-
pared with 125 organs valued at $6,070 in January, 1917. One
thousand four hundred and ten pianos valued at $224,069 were
sent abroad in January, as compared with 885 pianos valued at
$134,096 exported in the same month of the previous year. The
figures for seven months show a corresponding increase for the
entire period. Two hundred and sixty player-pianos valued at
$79,329 were exported in January, 1918, as compared with 176
January being $12,443, as compared with $6,022 for January, 1917.
Music roll figures for the seven months' period are also
interesting, showing exports valued at $87,956, as compared with
$51,495 in 1917 and $28 ; 901 in 1916. In other words, the exports
have more than tripled in the three year period.
Even the piano player figures in our export business, although
there were only seven of these instruments sent abroad in Janu-
ary, 1918, as compared with fifteen during the same month of last
year.
This is a case where figures lend genuine encouragement.
It is true that they are not as large as might be hoped for, in
view of the tremendous size of the industry in the United States,
but the fact that they are constantly growing holds promise for
the future.
If the piano trade of the United States and the Government
of our country will give half the attention to exporting musical
instruments as does England at the present time, or Germany
under normal conditions, we should see some figures in the Gov-
ernment reports that will be most impressive. As has been stated
before in these columns, however, it requires unified effort—a
willingness to work with a competitor, instead of against him,
in order to present a united front for the benefit of the trade at
large. The business we are getting now is coming to us almost
without effort and this condition offers an unparalleled oppor-
tunity for strengthening the lines and building up selling- organi-
zations and selling campaigns for the strenuous international
business campaign when peace comes again.
The fight against the new law should not be a publishers'
fight alone in any sense. It will affect vitally the business and
social interests throughout the nation, and means going back over
fifty years in postal legislation, for Lincoln abolished the zone
system in 1863.
As was said before, the matter is not a war tax. The Con-
gressmen themselves admitted as much, even though it was care-
fully camouflaged as a rider to the War Revenue Law, and put
across during the excitement which attended the passage of the
war measure. Nor is the extra money required to meet a deficit
in the Post Office Department, for the report of the Postmaster
General shows that the revenues exceeded all expenses last year
by $9,836,211. Almost every statement put forth by the pro-
ponents of the bill to help effect its passage has been shattered
by the facts.
If you want everyone to enjoy the same privileges or rights
in the procurement of their reading matter; if you want to
increase the results of advertising instead of decreasing them;
if you want the country to be one country, instead of a series of
postal zones, write to your Congressman today and demand that
he work for the repeal of the new postal law. There is no time
to lose.
Buy Liberty Bonds and Prove the Industry's Patriotism.
s
TATISTICS show that suicide showed a decrease in 1917. Un-
doubtedly another effect of the "Music in the Home" propa-
ganda.
Liberty Bonds are Non-Renewable Notes—Buy Some.
Do You Want to Expand the Retail Market
For Player-Pianos and Music
You can do this by educating the people in your territory to a keener appreciation of the amazing
possibilities of the player-piano. This will be admirably done for you by the volume entitled
Price, $1
THE PLAYER PIANIST
The Player Pianist deals with lucidity and
clearness upon the many problems which from
time to time confront the player-pianist and
player student.
This new volume is designed to afford a
complete and accurate guide to music appre-
ciation, player technic, music roll reading, etc.
This work is the result of many years' close
study of the player situation, and is put forth
to meet the requirements of music lovers who
desire to acquaint themselves with the artistic
possibilities of the player-piano.
The book deals with the elements of music,
of musical form, and incidentally gives a short
sketch of musical history from early times
to the present day.
There are chapters devoted to practical talks
upon the management of the various expres-
sion devices, pedals and tempo levers.
A perusal of the volume will provide the
player-pianist with a complete course of in-
struction in all of the aspects of expressive
and artistic playing.
There are chapters in The Player Pianist
upon practical studies in player interpretation,
illustrated with special drawings made from
EDWARD LYMAN BILL, Inc., Publisher
DISCOUNT TO
THE TRADE
music rolls and designed to show how, step by
step, the interpretation of pieces may be
worked out artistically and satisfactorily.
It is conceded that interest must be main-
tained in the player-piano—that its marvelous
possibilities must be explained to purchasers,
and there is no work put forth in the entire
world—and we say this unqualifiedly—which
will compare with The Player Pianist as a
stimulator and educator.
If you are not perfectly satisfied with the
book after examination, your dollar will be
refunded upon the return of the book. That
is fair, is it not?
373 Fourth Ave., New York

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