Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
JUNE 25, 1921
Are we manufacturing because we expect to
make all our profit in one year and then quit?
Or do we expect to stay in the music roll busi-
ness for a good many years and then leave
behind us something to pass on to our descend-
ants? If the latter aim is ours—and one may
suppose that this is the aim of every normal
man—then we are not going the right way about
it if we do not take into constant consideration
the more remote as well as the obvious and im-
mediate aspects of all we do. For various
economic reasons, which depend for their exist-
ence upon the unfortunate condition of the music
industries in respect of promotion and propa-
ganda, the music roll business has been of a
more or less hazardous nature always. The
manufacturers, therefore, who have gone into the
Hand Played Word Rolls
for JULY
NOVELTY SONG ROLLS
68518 Cherle
Bibo
70218 Mlmi (Me-Me)
Conrad
70318 The Little Tin Soldier (The Little
Rag Doll)
Hanley
70418 My Daddy
"
Morgan
68618
08718
«i»018
00118
69218
C!M18
09618
C9818
(!!>!>IS
70018
10118
FOX-TROTS
I'm Nobody's Baby
Crooning
Humming
Look for the Silver Lining
Davis
Caesar
Breau
(Sally),
Kern
1 Call You Sunshine
Silvern
Who'll Be the Next One to Cry Over
You ?
Black
Then You'll
Know
You're Just
Lonely and Blue
Delcamp-Sandefur
Poor Me
Finney
Moonlight
Conrad
Near Me
Fred Fischer
I Wonder Where My Sweet, Sweet
Daddy's Gone
Berlin
ONE-STEP
69518 Down Yonder
Gilbert
68818
69718
68918
09318
WALTZES AND BALLADS *
Wyoming
Williams
Mello Cello
Moret
Little Crumbs of Happiness
Ball
The I'assion Flower
Berlin
70518
70618
70718
70818
70918
MARCHES
Our Director
Blaze Away
Thunder and Blazes
'A Frangesa
Our Favorite Regiment
Bigelow
Holzman
Fucik
Costa
Ertl
Jlillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
Republic Player Roll Corp.
PAUL B. KLUGH, Pres.
75th Street at Broadway
N. Y. CITY
IlllllilllllllllllllUlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
.
MUSIC TRADE
11
REVIEW
business have thought themselves obliged to con-
sult first and foremost the possibilities of imme-
diate returns. They have consequently followed
every passing wind of public desire and have
started one craze only to drop it and take up
another. Ballads were succeeded by coon songs,
coon songs by ragtime, ragtime by jazz, and now
it seems that jazz is to make way for something
else, though just what is hardly clear. Some say
that the new favorite is to be the old-time bal-
lad and dance tune. Others have in mind a
totally new and original form. Meanwhile, what
about the staples of the business? Where is the
standard music, and why is it that the demand
for "standards" is not greater? Every one will
agree that it would be better to find a demand
for standard music sufficient to keep one's ma-
chines going steadily than to be compelled to
go to the constant expense and trouble of new
arrangements and expensive methods of pushing
the same before the public. What, then, is the
reason for the smallness of the public demand
for staple numbers?
like it helped the music roll business? Not at
all. The music roll business would be a great
deal better off if it were organized on the basis
of the higher and not the lower tastes of the
people. That is to say, if the music roll men
and the player-piano makers could only 'be
brought to see the truth, both parties would
undoubtedly get together and recognize that
their future can only be secured by selling the
player-piano and its music to the people all
over again. Each is necessary to the other,
and both ought to be selling on the-basis of
the better and not the worse side of public
taste.
Some distinguished manufacturing houses
which began simply by making player-pianos
have found it advisable to go into making rolls.
Partly in all cases and wholly in some, of
course, the reason has been the hope of profit,
but this has not been the only consideration.
Some of these houses began to make music
rolls because they could not otherwise obtain
the sort of co-operation which they found to be
Now, if anything in this whole discussion is necessary for the success of the instruments
certain it is that the publishers of sheet music they were making. For the two branches of
are able to go along year after year in whatever the player industry are so interdependent that
line they choose to take up, without changing, the closest co-operation and the most friendly
and with profit. The publishers of high-class mutual understandings are needed if either is
music stick to that. The ballad and home-music to prosper. Neither can prosper if either one
men do the same. The popular craze men do be defective or badly organized. The music roll
not attempt to reach out of their class. But the maker might pause to realize that the player-
music roll mea have to be a bit of everything. piano business to-day needs better music and
Apparently, they are not quite enough of any better arranging of music. It needs better music
one thing to make the business of producing as to class, because the bottom has been reached
music rolls profitable in a large way. What in respect of worthlessness and.the only further
is the trouble? It lies simply in the fact that progress must be upward. It needs better ar-
the music roll business has tried to be all things ranging because upon good arranging depend
to all men, and in so doing has failed to tie the musical qualities of the music produced by
itself up to any one class of the population or the player-piano. If that musical result of the
any one style of taste. Now, this is a mistake. use of the player-piano is not satisfactory the
At the present moment it ought to be plain to player business falls off. And no short cut to
every one that the music roll business cannot prosperity can be had by resorting to automatic
succeed as a mere panderer to the rawest ele- expression. That is all right in its way, but it
ments of public taste. It is true that the noise- does not touch the main question. The main
(Continued on page 12)
music fiends make a very great deal of noise.
It is equally true that merchants who will not
take the music roll business seriously confine
their orders almost entirely to the sort of stuff
which sells on siglit, quite overlooking the fact
that selling on sight does not necessarily mean
1 SONG 'F^n 1 ROLL
selling at a pr-ofit. Has this policy and policies
5 TAFFNOT F
SYNCHRONIZED
MUSIC ROLLS
Superior Arrangements
Perfect Perforating
The word rolls are all the word "syn-
chronized" implies and are most
singable.
COLUMBIA MUSIC CO.
16 South Peoria Street
Chicago, III.
PLAYER--ORGAN--PIANO
LEATHERS
A Specialty of Pneumatic Leathers
T. L LUTKINS, Inc.
m
T8ftSF
The Only Roll With Words
AND NOTES
Mr. Dealer:
The New STAFFNOTE PLAYER
ROLLS with their many exclusive features
will increase your player sales. The Melody
Notes never fail to interest players of wind
or stringed instruments. Our patented print-
ing and improved recording processes made
these wonderful rolls possible.
They are the Ideal Library Rolls and
many progressive dealers recommend them as
the best.
Our representation is increasing daily.
May we have the pleasure of sending you our
monthly bulletins?
YOURS FOR SERVICE
Billings Player Roll Company
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U. S. A.