Classic Mode

Music Trade Review

Issue: 1921 Vol. 73 N. 27

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
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.
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
DEEMS TAYLOR PAYS TRIBUTE TO REPRODUCING PIANO
Prominent Music Critic Attends Recital at Aeolian Hall, at Which Ignaz Friedman Played in Com-
,t
parison With the Duo-Art, and Writes Enthusiastically of His Impressions
' ;An unusual tribute to the musical qualities of
the modern reproducing piano was offered in the
New York World on Sunday by Deems Taylor,
the talented musical critic of- that paper, who
attended the recital given by Ignaz Friedman
at Aeolian Hall last week in which he played
one part of a selection for two pianos with the
Duo-Art playing the other part from his own
recording. Mr. Taylor handled the subject ex-
haustively and seriously, and his .article, which
:is reproduced herewith, represents a real addition
to the literature of the modern player or repro-
ducing piano. Mr. Taylor said:
It was in 1909, writing in "Tono-Bungay," that
H. G. Wells made what was probably the first
mention in literature of the mechanical piano-
player, or, as it was then called, the Pianola.
He called it "a musical gorilla, with fingers all
of one -length. And a sort of soul." But that
was twelve years ago, and the musical gorilla
has climbed the Darwinian ladder so high that
he can fairly claim to belong to the order of
homo sapiens. Ignaz Friedman's recital at
Aeolian Hall the other night brought home
rather forcibly the tremendous strides the player-
piano has made as an instrument of genuine
artistic potentialities. Two of the numbers on
his program, Liszt's "Les Preludes" and his own
suite, were works that called for two pianists.
In each case Mr. Friedman at the first piano was
accompanied by himself at the second, through
the medium of a player-piano.
Frankly, I have always been prejudiced against
mechanical pianos, accepting the "Tono-Bungay"
characterization of them as being still funda-
mentally true. Granting that they could play
notes faster and more accurately than any human
fingers, I would never have dreamed of taking
them seriously as instruments for the production
of real music. The Friedman recital, therefore,
seemed a good opportunity to compare the living
pianist with his mechanical replica and so settle
forever the fate of the latter. So when Friedman
and the player-piano began to play his suite for
two pianos I proceeded to put the performance
to the much-advertised test proposed by the
manufacturers: I would shut my eyes and try
to tell the real Friedman from the imitation.
•The pianist himself began; that much I made
sure of before settling back to what an un-
charitable neighbor scornfully mistook for slum-
ber. After two or three minutes I began to
wonder when the player-piano was going to
start. I opened one eye, to discover that the
keys of the player-piano were moving. It had
been playing for some time.
Disconcerting, this, but hardly conclusive. I
shut the eye and prepared for further investiga-
tion and research. I would wait for some pas-
sage—it was sure to come—that would betray
the essentially mechanical nature of the syn-
thetic pianist. For some time the two instru-
ments were plainly sounding together, but at last
came the moment for which I had waited-—a
series of rapid solo scale passages played in the
smooth, colorless, effortless style that only a
player-piano could achieve. So I looked. It was
Friedman.
This was too much. Music critics are noto-
riously opinionated and irascible, and here was
a mechanical device threatening to disprove sev-
eral of my most treasured theories. It was
obviously absurd to claim that a player-piano
could reproduce Friedman's playing so perfectly
that no one could tell the difference, and I was
there to prove it. So once more I closed my
eyes, prepared for the ultimate, conclusive trial.
Somewhere the pianist or the player instrument
would render a pass-age in a style so utterly
characteristic as to be unmistakable; there re-
mained only to wait for it. I waited. Minutes
passed. Two or three times I said, "That must
be Friedman;" "That must be the player-piano."
But I wasn't absolutely sure. Finally it came—
a series of bass chords, played with the tremen-
dous power and sonority that only human fingers
can produce; the sort of tone in which the hearer
can almost detect the impact of the hammers
against the strings. No mechanical device in the
world could play the piano like that. "That's
Friedman!" I announced triumphantly to my
incredulous neighbor. Then I looked. There
sat Friedman with his hands in his lap, gazing
idly out into the audience—counting up the
house, for all I knew—while that confounded
player-piano thundered away by itself with the
very touch and tone of its human instigator.
This much is certain: that the player-piano
must be taken seriously. It is possible to buy
a mechanical device that will reproduce the
"DECEMBER 31, 1921
touch, style and interpretation of any concert
pianist with uncanny fidelity. The player-piano
is bound to exert a tremendous influence upon
the musical taste of the American people during
the next generation, an influence which, if in-
telligently directed, cannot fail to raise the level
of that taste. Even an Alaskan, nowadays, can
hear the masterpieces of piano literature played
by great artists.
Not that all of the player-piano advertising
is strictly true. The instrument will not make
a great interpretative musician of the man who
sets the tempo lever at 116, pushes down the
forte button and pumps out Dvorak's "Humor-
esque," any more than the possession of a kodak
is going to turn a Summer boarder into an
Arnold Genthe. On the other hand, the camera
made it possible for men like Genthe, Steichen
and Alfred Stieglitz to express themselves in
terms of pictorial art without necessarily being
able either to draw or paint. Similarly, the man
who has a genuine instinct for musical expres-
sion without possessing any talent or training
as a performer can learn to interpret, and inter-
pret with real artistry, upon the player-piano.
The present-day mechanical perfection of this
instrument is both a credit and a challenge to its
makers. Theirs is the privilege and in a sense
the duty of doing something for music as well
as for their stockholders— r a duty that the spon-
sors of the talking machine have pretty generally
shirked. The invention of the talking machine
made it possible for great singers and violinists
to record their art. So far, so good; but singers,
violinists and manufacturers made the more or
less simultaneous discovery that records of great
artists playing and singing musical rubbish sold
better than records of those same artists play-
ing and singing music worthy of their inter-
pretation. So artists and manufacturers began
an indiscriminate scramble for money that en-
riched everybody concerned but let art go hang.
You can now buy a fox-trot record by one of
the greatest violinists in the world, or turn on
your talking machine and hear a great tenor
singing "The Little Gray Home in the West,"
while at the same time you would have difficulty
in picking from the catalogue of any one talking
machine company enough true art-songs to make
up a decent song recital program.
The pianists and the player-piano manufactur-
ers have so far behaved much better. Friedman's
hand-played fox-trot rolls are as yet things of
the future, and no enterprising business man has
yet persuaded Harold Bauer to record his inter-
pretation of "Hearts and Flowers" for the good
of his bank account. If both sides will only keep
it up the player-piano can write an important
chapter in the history of American music.
HEIM'S MUSICJ>TORE OPENS
LEERNOTE
TRADE MARK
Bee. U. S. Patent Offlc*
Player-Piano Cleaner
Outstanding features of the
Kleernote Pump
Made from the very best grade polished aluminum.
Weight of device 7J4 ounces.
Equipped with special dust screen and valve arrange-
ment causing the dirt, while being drawn from the
tracker-bar, to be collected and held in receptacle for
removal when desired. This plan makes the device the
most practical, efficient and thoroughly satisfactory
cleaner of its kind for use by player owners known
to the trade.
The use of Kleernote because of the service rendered
avoids many player complaints.
American Device Mfg. Co.
4520 Shaw Ave.
St. Louis, Mo.
Export Department: 130 West 42d Street
New York City, N. Y., U. S. A.
Representatives of Prominent Music Houses
Attend Opening of New Danbury Store
DANBURY, CONN., December 27.—Heim's Music
Store was formally opened here on Thursday of
last week by Messrs. Jackson and Hanson. The
store was crowded throughout the opening day
and many representatives of prominent music
concerns were present. The new establishment
is one of the finest in this section of the State,
and the installation of up-to-the-minute fixtures
makes it one of the most convenient for patrons
as well.
Among those present were the following rep-
resentatives of music concerns: Harry G. Rus-
sell, of the Victor Talking Machine Co.; Ed-
ward Gallo, of Horton, Gallo, Creamer Co., and
H. B. Merritt and Larry Walsh, of the New
York Talking Machine Co. Beautiful flowers
were gifts of the Horton, Gallo, Creamer Co.,
Shoninger Piano Co. and the New York Talk-
ing Machine Co.
A complete stock of pianos, musical instru-
ments and supplies, Victor talking machines and
records is carried.
There are no level paths to success. One must
keep climbing or slide back.

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