Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
PLAYER SECTION
NEW YORK, AUGUST 28, 1920
The Future Success of the Player-Piano Depends Upon a Revival of the Art
of Demonstrating the Proper Manner in Which the Instrument Should Be
Played in Order to Produce Music and Not Merely Grind Out Popular Tunes
We are going to talk about the lost art of
player demonstration; of player-playing, or
whatever one chooses to call it. We are going
to bore the reader again.
But the reader has got to be bored. There
are times when, unless one insists on boring
the reader, one fails to put across important
messages. The mass of men hate to be bothered
or to be waked out of a comfortable sleep. One
of these times is here: the awakening is due.
We are all asleep at a very important switch.
Accidents usually happen when switchmen go to
sleep at the point of duty. Considerably more
than one-half of the number of pianos annually
made in the United States are fitted with some
sort of player action. Of these player-pianos,
which thus are seen to be forming the back-
bone to-day of the piano industry, it is well
known—nay, notorious—that the greater num-
ber by far are foot-driven. That is to say, they
have to be operated by a human being.
Now it is perfectly true that most of the
persons who "operate" the player-piano in this
way are not especially musical. In fact, it is
fair to say that most of them possess very slight
power, indeed, in this respect. But it is also
true that the musical ignorance and even in-
difference which most of the people display is
due to the neglect of normal desires and to the
consequent absence of an encouraging musical
atmosphere.
The Only Way
The music industries have recognized that
the output of pianos and player-pianos can only
be stimulated by stimulating definitely the de-
mand for music in the home. There is just
one practical way in which this may be done.
The love for music does not grow strong merely
through passive listening. The real strength of
the player-piano lies in its appeal to the crea-
tive instinct. The people - really like to pump,
absurd as it may seem. All the arguments in-
geniously devised to show that they do not want
to pump have fallen under the test of experi-
ence.
Now if it is true, as it is, that the people
really do want to pump, then it is equally true
that they do really want to produce their own
music. Perhaps one person in ten who pumps
a player-piano does so with some glimmering
of the fact that he can control tone volume
through the pedals. Perhaps one in a hundred
of such persons knows the inner secrets of the
player-piano to some reasonable extent. In
othei words, in spite of the very plain fact that
the vast majority of the player-pianos sold carry
tln-ir appeal in the ability to permit personal
production there is virtually no knowledge of
how to play the instruments musically. Clearly
this state of affairs benefits no one. There can-
not be general satisfaction among the owners of
player-pianos when there is so little real knowl-
Player-Piano Week
"KEEP UP THE DEMAND AND
MAKE NEW BUSINESS." That, in a
sentence, is the object and goal of
PLAYER-PIANO WEEK, October 16-23,
1920.
Manufacturers all over the country agree
that a revival of interest and enthusiasm is
needed throughout the retail trade. Re-
tailers have not been maintaining their own
interest, and in consequence the player-
piano has been slacking off. AND THIS
IN FACE OF THE FACT THAT T H E
NORMAL DEMAND FOR THE PLAY-
ER-PIANO HAS NEVER YET BEEN
EVEN PARTIALLY FILLED IN ANY
YEAR.
We have taken the player-piano too much
for granted. We have been selling it as if
it were cheese or dry goods, something
understood by every man and woman in
the land.
This is a mistake.
THE
PLAYER-PIANO is a musical instrument
which must be SOLD and not merely
BOUGHT. We must have a REVIVAL
of INTELLIGENCE in the trade, and in
creating this revival the manufacturers
rightly take the lead.
THAT IS V/HY
PLAYER-PIANO
WEEK IS SUPREMELY IMPORTANT
TO THE FUTURE PROSPERITY OF
OUR INDUSTRY. The Review, which
through more than ten years has worked
steadily to promote the cause of knowledge
and intelligent salesmanship in the player
industry, and which stood for these things
when no others cared for them, welcomes
the foresight and wisdom displayed in
carrying out the plans for PLAYER-
PIANO WEEK; and pledges its support
to every phase thereof.
edge. And so long as there is not general sat-
isfaction there cannot be adequate demand.
The Inadequate Demand
In truth, the player-piano does not sell in
adequate quantities. To sell 200,000 player-
pianos a year is nothing to boast about. It ought
to be a cause for shame. We ought to be sell-
ing half a million player-pianos annually in this
country. Does some one say that they could
not be produced? The answer simply is that if
we could produce them we could not sell them
with our present methods.
What we need to do is to begin selling the
player-piano on the basis of music. The people
want something which will enable them to pro-
duce their own music in their own way.
That is what they buy player-pianos for. But
do we show them how to produce their own
music in their own way with the player-piano?
No, we do not! We merely show them how to
"put in a roll and pump." In consequence, each
player-piano sounds like every other player-
piano. There is no music, no personality, noth-
ing—but noise. And then we wonder why we
cannot sell more player-pianos than we do sell.
The Stationary Output
Do most of us realize that the annual output
of pianos has been virtually stationary for more
than twelve years and that in fact the last dec-
ade actually shows a decrease over the decade
v/hich preceded it? Why is this? Why in the
name of all that is sensible can we not see that
we are trying to sell the people an instrument
which most of us cannot decently or intelli-
gently describe, or even use, with pleasure to
ourselves or to anyone else?
The Golden Age
It is time to call a halt to this nonsense and
to resume the once universal practice of selling
the player-piano on the basis of good, intelli-
gent demonstration. There was a day twenty
years ago when the early player men spent time
and money in the effort to sell the player idea
to the intelligent people of this country and the
world. They put the player on the map by
these methods, and now they seem to have ;for-
gotten all they had ever learned.
We need, as we have never needed before, a
revival of interest in the musical side of the
player. The many improvements in rolls, the
hand-played records and all the other modern
ideas are useless as substitutes for personal in-
telligence. They help, but they do not and
cannot supersede the human music-lover. Nor
were they ever intended to. They are the best
of friends, but they were never designed to be
masters.
OUR SALESMANSHIP HAS BEEN RUST-
ING. IT IS TIME TO TAKE IT OUT AND
POLISH IT UP. A REVIVAL OF INTEL-
LIGENT
PLAYER
DEMONSTRATION
STANDS AMONG THE FIRST OF THE
REQUIREMENTS.