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PLAYER SECTION
NEW YORK, DECEMBER 31, 1921
Activities of 1921 in the Player Field
A Review of the Afore Important Developments in the Player-Piano Industry During the Past Twelve Month* Show*
that the Outstanding Factor Has Been the Development of Automatic Expression as Applied to
Players—Some Warnings Which Must Be Heeded in This Connection
We have come to the end of one more year
and if we choose to take one last look down the
path along which we have been journeying dur-
ing twelve passages of the moon no one can
blame us very much.
The player business has come through a bad
time, and has come through without serious dis-
location and with surprisingly little external dis-
turbance. It cannot be said that anything very
startling has happened or that there have been
any revolutionary events, but certain facts
emerge which ought to be duly comprehended
and then duly analyzed by those who would
know what the future of the industry is likely
to be.
The Most Definite Fact
The most definite fact in the whole train of
trade events is the emergence of automatic ex-
pression in the regular player-piano field. The
reproducing piano has wonderfully shown the
possibilities arising out of automatic control of
expression. So there have come on to the mar-
ket, in response to the stimulation which the
reproducing piano has given, a number of new
types, some of which are entitled to the designa-
tion "reproducing," while some ought rather to
be called "automatic expression player-pianos."
In the article which denned these classifications
in the November Player Section we showed how
the term "reproducing piano" should, in our
judgment, be applied to a given instrument only
when that instrument is used with a music roll
specially prepared, edited and manufactured for
this exclusive use. The designation, therefore,
refers to facts, not to merits. When we speak
of reproducing pianos or of automatic expression
player-pianos, for the purpose of the present ob-
servation, we are, therefore, referring to techni-
cal definitions and are expressing no opinion
whatever about the relative merits of one or the
other.
Now, the principal point about the activities
of the year in the player-piano field has been, as
we have said, that the foot-power player-piano
has been threatened by the appearance of a rival,
which, in the opinion of some authorities, is
destined to supplant it in public affections. If
this be true, then obviously the player industry is
facing for the New Year a problem of consid-
erable importance and complexity.
Outstanding Questions
The kind of instrument that has come forth
during the past year under one of the titles
already discussed is easily described. It is an
instrument which requires no aid from a human
operator, but which renders music expressively
by purely automatic means. From the highest
achievements of the reproducing piano down to
the most ordinary commercial adaptation of auto-
matic expression principles the market has been
filled with instruments intended to change the
face of the business and do away entirely with
the foot-power player-piano. The most impor-
tant question for us to consider now, as we
stand on the verge of 1922 and look back upon
the achievements of 1921, is the question of this
possible change of base. Will the foot-power
player be supplanted? Ought it to be sup-
planted? And what will happen if it is?
No one can doubt that the music provided by
any player which is equipped for automatic
expression is better than the music which is
rendered by the usual sort of combination be-
tween player-piano and human operator. In that
combination the fault is not with the player-
piano, but with the human operator, whose
ignorance and indifference result in the produc-
tion of musical noises which horrify the judi-
cious. But this does not alter the fact that the
player business has been built up entirely upon
an appeal to the human sense of co-operation
and the human sense of play. On the bare facts
of the case no one could seem to doubt that the
automatic expression has much the best of the
argument, but human beings are not guided by
logic in their human transactions. The ordinary
human being prefers grinding out a lot of noise
by himself to listening passively. Such, at least,
is the opinion of many who have had much ex-
perience in selling these instruments.
Such salesmen allege that at first the argument
is all with the automatic expression and all
against the foot-power. But they add that the
first soon palls upon its owners and that if the
second ever does pall it is because of neglect
in keeping up a stock of music or for some simi-
lar reason.
Room for All
Now, the present writer believes sincerely that
there is room for every improvement which the
ingenuity of inventors can achieve, no matter
what form it takes. He believes that the form
of the player business is not yet solidified and
that it is too soon to dogmatize or to insist that
one and only one direction is the right one to
take. But he likewise believes firmly that, so
far, no one has proposed a substitute able to take
the place of the human appeal which is at the
basis of the foot-power player-piano's popu-
larity.
The New Competition
In other words, suppose that the progress of
invention runs in the automatic direction until
it is just as easy to make and sell an automatic
expression player of whatever sort as it is now
to make and sell a foot-power instrument, the
word "easy" being used in the sense of commer-
cially easy, as in matter of price. Then what
will happen? At once, surely, save in the cases
of the pianos which can actually be linked up
with great pianistic names and can reproduce
the play of great artists, the player-piano will
find itself in competition, not with the straight
piano, but with the talking machine! In what
other way can we imagine the public to reason?
If an automatic musical instrument is satisfac-
tory to the prospective purchaser why should
that purchaser pay several times the cost of a
talking machine for something which, to the
average buyer, is in reality no better? If there
must be some piano in the home, then that is a
different matter, but the tendency is away from
piano playing of the ordinary sort among the
masses and in the direction of substitutes like the
talking machine. The foot-power player-piano
stands between the two extremes, and its popu-
larity will necessarily keep the straight piano
alive among the masses. But the abolition of
the foot-power player-piano simply means that
competition will be between the many kinds of
music to be had from the talking machine with
the one kind of music to be had from the player.
Which will win?
The answer is not so easy as it might appear
to be.
A Plea for Caution
Precisely for this reason, which we believe
not to be unsound, we do not wish to see the
manufacturers and dealers lose their interest in
the foot-power player-pia.no. Of course, the
manufacturers will be guided in this by the
action of the dealers. At present the reproduc-
ing piano is all the go, and the reproducing
piano, when rightly so designated, is a highly
valuable addition to the player industry. But
we are not at this moment thinking of the true
reproducing piano, which stands all by itself and
is not to be compared with anything else. We
are speaking of the threatened irruption of com-
mercial automatic expression player-pianos and
we are arguing that the tendency to substitute
these for the foot-power player is a tendency
which may be carried too far. We think there is
room for such a tendency, but we do not want
to see it dominate the industry.
Let us have during 1922 a deliberate try-out
of the commercial expression player as against
the foot-power instrument. Then we can judge
fairly what to do. But let us not fall into the
gross error of changing everything before we
know what we are doing.
HOLIDAY SPIRIT IN NEWARK TRADE
NEWARK, N. J., December 27.—Christmas songs
and old-fashioned seasonable melodies enjoyed a
return to popular favor during the past few
weeks preceding the holiday season, according
to heads of music roll departments in various
stores here.