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MUSIC TMDE
PLAYER SECTON
NEW YORK, AUGUST 31, 1918
The Growing Scarcity of Salesmen in the Player Field Has Caused Many
Dealers to Consider the Idea of Employing Women as Demonstrators and
Closers, and the Pros and Cons of the Subject Are Outlined Herewith
The title of an article like this is hard to
determine satisfactorily, but the idea is simple.
We ask ourselves a question, and try to an-
swer it. The question is, whether women could
or should be mobilized for the selling at retail
of player-pianos, and if so, whether they are
likely to be as successful as men have been?
The answer we have tried to give below.
Who Buys?
In the first place, the men buy the player-
pianos. That seems to be proved by experi-
ence. Women, for some reasons which may
perhaps be guessed, have never taken kindly
to the player-piano. The slight physical effort
of pumping has been one deterrent. Another
has been the natural feeling of resentment at a
"machine" which has dared to undertake the
task of playing the piano; thus invading a prov-
ince always considered one of woman's special
possessions. For these and other cognate rea-
sons women have not been lovers of the player.
Now it is a fair statement that men have taken
to the player-piano in large numbers and with
no little enthusiasm. When the question of buy-
ing a piano comes up to-day in a family the
father and the son are likely to propose a
player-piano as something the whole family
can play. Whatever objections the mother and
sister may have will probably be overcome; but
that an objection will often—not always—be
voiced, cannot be doubted.
Is it not reasonable to suppose that women,
speaking as a matter of preliminary argument,
ought to be better sellers of player-pianos to
men than other men will be likely to be?
Demonstrating
The demonstration of the player-piano is one
of the most important elements in the selling.
Will women make good demonstrators? The
physical effort of playing the player-piano is
not negligible by any means, and it is one of
the cardinal principles of salesmanship that
this effort should not be maximized. It is not
an effort that a man need mind at all, but it
might be altogether too much for a woman.
The question is worth considering.
Experience, however, seems to demonstrate
that the physical effort needed to play the play-
er-piano satisfactorily, and at the same time
gracefully, can be expended in a manner not
exhausting at all, as soon as the trick of pedal-
ing has been mastered. It is, of course, evident
that nothing so knocks the interest and desire
of the customer as the sight of a fat woman—
or even a slender girl—perspiring over the job
of pushing a pair of treadles up and down. Yet
experience does show that the difference be-
tween doing the job gracefully and doing it
ludicrously is mainly one of mastery. When the
demonstrator has been taught the way of pedal-
ing so as to get expressive results in playing,
and the way also of conserving energy by using
only as much force as is necessary, without
waste, then the physical effort ceases to be
alarming, even to a woman.
It is clear that this matter of demonstration
is of the utmost importance and that player
saleswomen must be well taught before they
are trusted with such work.
On the other hand, it is well to point out that
women ought to be able to approach the player-
piano from another point of view, equally im-
portant, and where they will have an advantage
over men. Ordinarily, the average woman is
fonder of music than the average man, to the ex-
tent of being more susceptible to its superficial
influences. This being the case, women ought
to have a great advantage in learning to play
the player-piano acceptably. Again, so many
women have had more or less of musical train-
ing that there should be no difficulty in teach-
ing most of them the trick of playing the play-
er-piano acceptably. It is this trick of playing
so as to satisfy the customer, destroy his
doubts and get him trying his own skill on the
pedals, that constitutes the essence of good
demonstration. Women, with proper training,
should here do quite as well as men ever could.
The Reproducing Piano
Women ought to shine as sellers of the high-
er-priced and more elaborate player-pianos, such
as the grands, and especially the reproducing
pianos of all sorts.
These instruments, in-
tended to grace the drawing rooms of fine
houses, can most certainly be shown off by a
tactful, well-dressed, soft-spoken woman better
than by any man. Of course, a woman's in-
tuitive musical feeling (and, if she be a musician,
her musical knowledge) gives her an immense
advantage as a demonstrator over the usual man.
Men musicians cannot often be had for work
of this sort and in these days the younger
among them are quite unavailable.
But a
woman can settle down into work like this nat-
urally and gracefully; and her musical taste—
which is a sine qua non—can find a most agree-
able and profitable outlet. Women to demon-
strate the reproducing piano by all means.
Closing
All this, however, is only preliminary to the
final and most important question. How will
women work in as closers? That is to say, will
they have the dignity and weight of character
to enable them to get the signature of the cus-
tomer to the contract? That is the real reason
for all the doubts that have been expressed by
competent business men over the general availa-
bility of women.
Perhaps the best, and the only, answer neces-
sary is to say that women are more and more
coming into the business world in executive
positions and that the management of all sorts
of enterprises incident to the war is developing
the latent abilities of women to a degree hardly
thought credible before 1914. Therefore, the
question will solve itself, for just as the high-
grade selling of pianos requires the high-grade
salesmen, so much selling will require the high-
grade saleswomen. In a word, we shall have
to pick and choose, as always with men.
Women can develop the same qualities as men
have in salesmanship; they must simply be
trained for the work and trained adequately by
the combined effort of actual study and daily
experience.
Outside Selling
It is perhaps in outside work that women will
at the start demonstrate their ability most
strongly.
A woman can obtain entry to a
house when a man cannot get past the door.
A woman can obtain contact with other women
on so ticklish a subject as the player-piano,
when men will be wholly unable to understand
the opposing point of view. Moreover, women
can approach men in office or home and secure
attention which no salesman could ever get
upon any topic so remote from business as the
purchase of a high-grade player-piano. As out-
side workers women ought to shine and almost
always they have shone in this work when
they have tried it, so far as present experience
shows.
REVERSAL MECHANISM PATENTED
WASHINGTON, D. C, August 26.—Patent No.
1,275,509 for an automatic musical instrument
was last week granted to Wayne D. Wamsley,
Lester, Pa., which he has assigned to the Les-
ter Piano Co., same place.
This invention relates to automatic musical
instruments, particularly pianos, which are pneu-
matically operated under control of a perforated
music sheet, and the primary object of the in-
vention is to effect the automatic reversal of the
rolling mechanism when the sheet has been
played through and to stop the operation when
complete rerolling has been effected,