Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
JANUARY 1, 1921
11
OurTECHNICAL DEPARTMENT
CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM BRAID WHITK
WELCOME 1921
Some Discussions as to What the Future Holds
in- Store, and a Moral Drawn Therefrom
These words are written on Christmas Eve.
The fate of the periodical editor is always to
find himself before his day in more senses than
one. He must always do his thinking far
enough ahead to get it down on paper in time
to suit the demands of the printer, that in-
exorable type of temporal inevitability. All of
which constitutes a very elaborate, no doubt
unnecessarily elaborate, way of saying that it
is not the easiest thing in the world to sit down
within a few hours of Christmas to indite a
page-full of interesting thoughts about the
New Year. Yet this is what, by the compul-
sion of events, I find myself obliged to do.
The End of an Epoch
Brothers, we have come to the end of a
very extraordinary period in the history, not
alone of our own land, but of the world. What-
ever the future may bring forth, it is certain
that we shall never face again the same condi-
tions we found ourselves facing from day to
day during the years before 1914. The assassi-
nation of Archduke Ferdinand more than six
years ago closed one chapter in the history of
civilization and opened another one, ominous,
even menacing, yet perhaps after all more hope-
ful than not. The short period of economic
and social debauch which followed the cessa-
tion of hostilities and which came as the natural
result of the extraordinary heroisms and self-
denials of four and one-half years seems now
definitely to have reached the peak of its up-
ward swing. Everywhere, throughout the
whole world, the tendency is downward towards
a state of equilibrium. The whole task of the
world is now to attain the state of balance
without any serious intermediate risings or
fallings. In a word, we must steady the roll
of our ship, so that in due time it may come
into smooth water without jettisoning any part
of its precious cargo.
This being so, as all of us will no doubt
agree, it becomes decidedly interesting for
those who are engaged in the music industries.
The
Piano Hospital
Complete staff expert Piano Me-
chanics. Pianos repaired and re-
built. Special facilities for handling
out-of-town work.
Our Knitteen Varnish Restorer en-
ables us to specialize on varnish work
at very attractive prices. Knitteen
for sale to dealers doing their own
repair work.
The Corlear Products Co., Inc.
122 Cypress Ave., New York
and especially the practical and tecTmical ex- tical man generally have gone along in much
perts thereof who read this department, to ask the same way. It is true that during 1893 the
themselves what they may expect during the remarkable number of bank failures had a posi-
year which is now opening. What are the tively paralyzing effect upon all sorts of trade
prospects for them? Or, to resume our more and commercial activity in certain parts of the
intimate manner, what are the prospects, my country, so that everybody was literally afraid
friends and brethren, for you and for me?
, to spend any money on anything which could
The Swing of the Pendulum
possibly be put off; but the fact remains that
In the first place, and as a way of obtaining even at that time, when the country was suf-
a little better perspective for our view of the fering from a real panic of the worst kind, the
future, let us remember that within the period piano tuners somehow got along, though not
between the Chicago World's Fair and the any too well. On the other hand, during the
present date the country has gone through periods whose centers or beginnings were in
four well-marked stretches of what, for want 1903, 1907 and 1914, the piano tuners went along
of a better term, is usually called "panic." The quite ordinarily without any depression.
term is incorrect, for, like most popular de-
Our Weak Point
scriptions, it illustrates only the most clamor-
Old-time tuners will tell one that there is
ous and therefore the most superficial elements "just about the same amount of tuning to be
of the whole. BuJ: the fact remains that within done at all times," irrespective of other condi-
the period o«f which I speakf short as it is, the tions. If this statement has any foundation, it
American people have witnessed four times of follows that the tuning business is normalized
marked dullness and depression in trjde, which, on a hard-times basis. That is to say, the
have alternated with virtually equal times of' tuners, or the piano trade, or both, have not
great commercial expansion. No one who been able to educate the mass of piano owners
knows anything about economic law supposes to the need of keeping pianos in tune. It is per-
for a moment that political changes, partisan fectly certain that the number of tunings done
administrations, or other superficial events ha\ie each year outside of the factories, concerts and
any important effect upon the coming and going warerooms does not equal the number of pianos
of these periods. Their cause lies much deeper, now in this country. That is to say, in other
and it would be entirely apart from our present words, the average number of tunings per piano
purposes to consider them here. What. I wish is less than one per year. Of course, with a
to impress on my reader is the fact that every record like this, it is certain that the quantity
so often, to cut the story short, one has to face of tuning being done each year will vary very
a period of what is called "depression," and little as between expansive and depressed sea-
that at present we are facing such a period, one sons. The times of depression, the tuner may
which would probably have begun in 1914 any- therefore say, do not hurt his business at all.
how, but which was checked in its birth by the All of which is true; but it involves the serious
extraordinary events which followed the out- confession that the amount of tuning remains
break of the war, and the probable extent of unvarying mainly because the average owner
which, now that it has come, has been very of the average piano sends for the tuner only
largely accentuated by the extraordinary ex- when the piano is in some respect intolerably
pansion which the war years made inevitable. out of order.
Our Queer Business
What We Can Do
Now I wish to point out to every man who
Now it does seem to me that the practical
reads these words that, during every period of men who have in their hands the task of main-
depression which has been witnessed since 1893 taining the accord of the most important of
(I speak only within my own experience), the musical means—the piano—have the power also
piano business has not notably suffered, even of bringing themselves out of this wretched
in sales, whilst the piano tuner and the prac- state of affairs and into one more according
with the state of civilization to which it pleases
most folks to think they have attained. Since
the prosperity of the practical man is not de-
pendent upon the buying inclinations of the
public so much as upon the state of their culti-
vation in musical intonation and their under-
Individual pneumatic stacks, roll
standing of the difference between accord and
boxes, bellows, pedal actions,
discord, it follows as of course that the task
expression boxes.
of the tuner and his colleagues is to educate
Manufacturers, dealers, tuners
the people that and nothing else. Once get
and repair men supplied with
the people to understand why a piano should
player actions for straight pianos.
be kep*t in tune, and the public will no more
T
URN YOUR STRAIGHT
PIANOS INTO PLAYERS
JENKINSON PLAYER ACTION CO., Inc.
912-914 Elm St.
TUNERS
Standard of America
Alumni off 2000
Piaaw Tuiaf, tip* aad R««4 Orgaa
**i Play.r turn: Year l U . k Free.
27-29 Gainsboro Street
BOSTON, MASS.
Cincinnati, O.
Here are
with upward* of
BASS STRINGS
1000
I SUCCESSFUL
GRADUATES
Spetlal attentl** ilvea to MM needs af th« tua*r ana 1 the i»akr
OTTO TREFZ
2110 FalrmouDt Avenue
FAUST SCHOOL
OF TUNING
(Continued on page 12)
Philadelphia, Pa.
^ 2 A COURT HOUSE SO.
^VALPARAISO. IND.
•sun—.
The TUNER'S FRIEND
Old style bridle strao
New style all leather bridle strap
BRAUNSDORF'S ALL LEATHER BRIDLE STRAPS
Labor Saving; Mouse Proof; Guaranteed all one length
Send for Sample*.
Prices on Request
Felti and Clotfa In anu Quantities
GEO. W^ BRAUNSDORF, Inc..
Braunsdorf's Other Specialties
Taper,
Felt
and
Cloth
runrhingN, Fibre Washers
and BridKeH for
IManoK, Organn and
I'layer Actionti
nd Factory:
1 St., New