Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
PLAYER SECTION
NEW YORK, MARCH 27, 1920
The Tendency of Retail Piano Merchants to Advertise the Reproducing
Player at the Expense of Its Older Brother, the Player-Piano, Is Unwise and
Will Undoubtedly Have a Harmful Effect Unless It Is Speedily Discontinued
The attentive student of trade matters will
not fail to observe that retail merchants
throughout the country are doing a good deal of
advertising on the reproducing piano. The fact
is interesting—it is also calculated to provoke
thought. There is a great deal to be said in its
favor. There is something to be said which 1
not unqualifiedly favorable.
The reproducing piano is a romantic and
fascinating piece of work. It lends itself to th
cleverest and most attractive kind of advertis-
ing. It carries with it the aroma of art and the
atmosphere of subtle artistic personality. The
clever advertiser can attract any audience he
desires to have to hear a demonstration. He
can attract a still larger audience and can even
select them individually if his city boasts a
symphony orchestra so that a concert can be put
on with the reproducing piano as soloist. He
can do this because he can couple with the
piano the magic name of some great artist. He
can invite the music lovers to hear, not a repro-
ducing piano, but Harold Bauer, Ossip Gabrilo-
witsch, Leo Ornstein, or another of the same
caliber. His advertising position is unassailable,
without a doubt.
At the same time his sales are showing that
the advertising has borne fruit. The repro-
ducing piano is here to stay and there is no
getting away from it. So much the better. We
want all the reproducing pianos sold that can
be made. They will help in the cultivation of
musical taste and they will in one way or an-
other add to the prosperity of the industry in a
perfectly legitimate way.
The Kick
But we have a kick, a perfectly legitimate
kick, we think. There is just one place in this
whole generally admirable business where we
think we have a right to object. We hope th"'
the merchants who are selling, as well as the
manufacturers who are making, the wonderful
and admirable reproducing piano will hear us
with patience.
Our little kick has to do solely with the fact
that the advertising of some prominent mer-
chants as to the reproducing piano is doing an
injustice to the foot-played player-piano.
In a word, it has been noticeable of late that
some of the merchants who have most suc-
cessfully called public attention to the merits
of the reproducing piano have seen fit to con-
vey the idea that these merits can best be set
forth by comparing them with those of the
foot-driven player-piano. There have recently
been some examples of the most definite com-
parison, in which the superiority of the repro-
ducing piano has been urged over the alleged
inferiority of the other instrument. Readers of
this advertising have been asked to compare
the results they can get from the reproducing
piano at the slight cost of inserting a music
roll and turning a switch with what are called
the very much less satisfactory effects obtain-
able, at the relatively heavy cost of personal
effort, from the straight player-piano.
Some recent examples of the language used
by certain mid-West piano merchants in the
course of their vigorous advocacy of this or
that reproducing piano come specially to mind,
but the reader will doubtless call to mind others
of a similar nature in his own locality.
Proving Too Much
Now it surely will not require much in the
way of argument to show that this sort of ad-
vertising has the grave disadvantage of prov-
ing too much. The merchant has both player-
pianos and reproducing pianos to sell. In fact,
it is quite certain that in the aggregate he will
sell many more of the first-named than of the
second. Nothing can be clearer than this. The
player-piano of standardized type is the piano
for the masses to-day. The aggregate of its
sales in quantity and value shows it to be the
largest single item in the output of the piano
industry. It is essentially a democratic instru-
ment and one which appeals to the common
people as no other does or can. The repro-
ducing piano on the contrary is the instrument
for the home of wealth, leisure and refinement.
It is not exclusive, however, of the other. There
is not the slightest reason why one should be
set against the other, or why a home which
contains the reproducing piano should not also
contain a specimen of its elder brother. Surely,
if a family could work out its musical ideas by
listening to the reproducing piano first and
then going to the other instrument in order to
see how far the interpretations of the repro-
ducing piano can be carried out by means of
the other, that family would be in a fair way
to become very musical in a short time. How-
ever one views it from the argumentative point
of view, it is surely clear that the two players
are not in any sense exclusive of each other.
No greater mistake could be made than to
suppose that the one is a necessary alternative
to the other.
The Course of Progress
It is here perhaps that clear thought is mostly
needed. The easier view in all such matters
is to regard the later as the successor to and
superior of the earlier. The industry has been
in danger of supposing that because the repro-
ducing piano is the latest development of trie
player idea, in point of time, it is also necesj-
sarily the superior of all others. It is nothing
of the sort. One grants that the musical re-
sults which one can gain from the reproducing
piano are much better than the results possible
to the ordinary player-piano, although there are
exceptions even to this rule. But that has nothr
ing to do with the case. No invention goes on
steadily in a straight line. It progresses al-
ways in a stream of mingled tendencies and
directions. It is never possible to place one's
finger accurately on a given element in the
mass and say that here is the summation of th,e
entire progress. This truth is especially to b«
marked in the observation of progress in a
complex industry or art. In our own industr4
it is not striking. The various instruments
which t h i evolution of the industry has dei-
veloped are each fitted to sustain an individual
place. No one is intended to supplant anotheik
Each has its individual function and its indi-
vidual place. It is useless to compare thein
with each other. Indeed, it is more than usfci-
less; it is wrong. It is useless because any at-
tempted comparison can only be forced aiid
artificial. It is impossible to compare success-
fully two objects which have parallel but "ien-
tirely different functions. It is wrong 4lt)
for another and much more potent reason.
Harmful and Wrong
it
It is wrong because when one sets against
each other two objects, each of which has itjS
own functions and its own individuality, anti
which ought not of right to be set against eaQiji
other, both must suffer from the contest. The
only result of such operations is to undermine
public confidence and create a general atmoS-
phere of distrust.
jj
It is a good idea in advertising to avoid carej-
fully any attempt to make direct comparison^
as to merit between different articles, when all
of them are being offered for sale. As soon ^Ls
one draws direct comparisons of the sort, es-
pecially if the allegedly superior article is the
higher in price and out of the reach of many
prospective purchasers, one creates a generjal
feeling of disgust and repulsion. The net df-
fect is likely to be entirely negative.
( i
Merchants cannot be too careful in what th^y
say when they advertise instruments of con-
trasted function. Advertise the reproducer ks
much as you please, but avoid comparisons be-
tween its virtues and the wholly distinct vir-
tues of the other player-pianos. Its virtues
should be insisted on, but not made the strbjeict
of ill-digested comparison.- :.t,fS£L