Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
MAY
THE MUSIC TRADE
28, 1921
REVIEW
Wherein the Editor of This Player Section, Still Ruminating on the Recent
Trade Conventions and the Accomplishments Thereof, Sets Forth Some Con-
clusions Drawn Therefrom and Points a More or Less Pertinent Moral Withal
men began to lose the sense of responsibility
and of fact, and to imagine that the easiest way
was the best. They thought it clever to sit
at a player bench, treading the pedals as if they
were running a sewing machine, and telling the
customer that nothing else was needed. Even
when hand-played rolls had come to their aid,
some men in their hearts knew that we were
killing the spirit of music by slow torture; but
they persisted in believing that the people want
nothing but noise, noise, noise. Now, within
the last three or four years, the fact has become
plainer and plainer that most of us have been
thinking along unsound lines. We find that the
person who is not told that the player-piano can,
and should, be "played" soon gets tired of it,
neglects to buy music and, in fact, acts as a
walking advertisement against player-pianos in
general. We are finding out that if we continue
to appeal always to the lowest of instincts we
shall reap neither success nor satisfaction. And
so, many men came to Chicago to find out
whether the trade pundits could tell anything
worth hearing about the right way to sell player-
pianos. Some indeed believed that the public
was turning away from the player-piano entirely,
towards the talking machine. At any rate, there
was during the whole of the conventions an al-
most visible desire to know what to do with
the player-piano. "Tell us how to sell," might
have been the motto of the visiting merchants.
It is a healthy motto. And fortunately the
answer is not far away. Nor is it hard to under-
stand.
to play don't want to listen. But the point is
that music is the thing. Which at once leads us
to the second point of interest to the visiting
hosts. The Music Advancement work interested
everybody. It interested everybody because, for
the first time, there was a general feeling that
the Bureau for the Advancement of Music had
been making good. The facts set forth by the
executive officers of the Chamber of Commerce
showed clearly that the Bureau is an essential
to the successful progress of the music indus-
tries. The keenest minds in the industry have
long since recognized that their whole success
rests upon music and that a general recognition
of the claims of music by the people is a pre-
requisite to any large development thereof.
Twenty years ago indeed this fact had not
penetrated the consciousness of the trade at all.
It was then the supposition that pianos could
only be sold as pieces of furniture, and in the
proportion that the terms of sale were made
easy and lengthy. Let us give credit to the
player for having changed all that. It is the
player which has brought music into the home
in a large way. The player has democratized
music. It is to the player that the industry owes
both its present position and its recognition of
the necessity for the Bureau for the Advance-
ment of Music. Here is a point we all should
keep in mind. And a consequence of this re-
membering should be that the Bureau deserves
even more liberal support from the industry and
a complete divorce from all suspicion of control
bv commercial interests.
Back to Facts
On to Music!
What of To-morrow?
In the early days of the player business we
taught ourselves to play the player-piano and
we believed that the customer ought to be taught
likewise. But so soon as the player-piano had
been a little bit commercialized, so soon as every
one was putting out some sort of a player, some
The secret, of course, is to sell to the prospect
the idea of music and the trick of managing the
player-piano. The argument that the prospect is
too ignorant to care is nonsense, for if that be
true he or she is also too ignorant to listen to
music at all. And in fact those who don't want
And, finally, of course, there was the great
question of the business situation. Will the in-
dustrial depression be lifted? And is Congress
really going to pass a revenue law taxing us
out of house and home? Predictions are danger-
ous, but one or two facts stick out from the
welter of rumor and supposition. The business
depression is certainly less severe than it was
a month ago. Unemployment is not increasing.
The people are beginning to crawl out of the
cyclone cellar. But it is not going to be as
easy to sell to them as it was before the war.
Sales intelligence will hereafter have to be used,
as once it did not have to be used at all. But.
however that may be, everybody who looked
around and talked to his acquaintances in the
corridors of the Drake during the memorable
week of May 10 found that a spirit of cheerful-
ness was manifesting itself everywhere, in com-
plete and beneficial contrast to the gloom whic 1
a few weeks previously was almost thick enough
to cut. As for the tax question, that, of course,
cannot be satisfactorily discussed. Congress is
not composed of high-thinking patriots, or o
men chosen for their intellectual and spiritual
illumination. Congress will pass an excise tax-
on musical instruments if the farmers and the
labor unions can frighten Congress. The farm-
ers and the labor men think that the corpora-
tions pay the tax. They don't know that the
consumer pays every tax. That is because they
don't think. The farmers and the others are in
favor of an excise tax on musical instruments
because they don't know how essential music is
to the national morale. That, again, is because
they don't think. Usually we don't think. We
take our opinions on trust. That is why one
cannot predict. But one can say this: Let the
tax be what its makers will, the music industries
Retrospect
It was a great convention; and the best fea-
ture of it all was the genuine interest which the
members of the Associations took in their du-
ties. The meetings were well attended and the
proceedings carefully followed. The speakers
received uniformly the courtesy of close and
silent attention. All of which was very much to
the good. But there was something else even
more important. Every merchant to whom we
had the opportunity of talking was in earnest.
He had come to Chicago to talk business and
to learn all he could learn. He'was intensely
interested in the exhibits. There was in fact an
unending procession of interested visitors to
every exhibition space in the various hotels.
Every kind of player action, accessory, or repro-
ducing piano was the subject of constant atten-
tion. The atmosphere of the whole convention
suggested genuine interest and genuine earnest-
ness. Why? The answer can easily be stated.
The men who came to Chicago during the week
ending May 14 came to find out what is going
to happen to the player business. They came
because they have been thinking in certain direc-
tions and wanted to know whether others of
their colleagues in the retail business, and their
wholesalers, too, had been doing likewise. Per-
haps it will help the reader of this Player Section
if the editor tries to interpret here, from his in-
dividual point of view, the direction and the
meaning of some of these thoughts.
L
millllllllllinillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll^
The highest class player
actions in the world
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimm™
"The valve unit that made the player famous"
The new "Amphion Accessible Action" is the last word in scientific player
achievement. It has the complete valve action assembled in a "Demountable
Unit'' giving instant accessibility.
AMPHIONfmcriONS
SYRACUSE
—Your Guarantee
NEW YORK
are not going to die—that much we know.