Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
FEBRUARY 25,
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
1922
Wherein Recent Happenings in the Trade Are Reviewed by the Editor of the
Player Section, Who Draws Certain Deductions Therefrom, Hoping That His
Comments Will Prove of Value and of Interest to Those Who Read This Page
"With a Long, Long Pull"
There was once a song—the sort of rollicking
sea chanty calculated to stimulate and enliven
even the sea food of an inland restaurant—which
contained, among others, these stirring lines:
"With a long, long pull,
And a strong, strong pull,
Cheerily, my lads, yo ho!"
The purport of this sentiment undoubtedly was
that those who would pull long, long, long and
strong, strong, strong would in due course reach
the harbor. Platitudinous as the statement may
appear, we insist that the present state of the
music industries, and especially of our branch
thereof, may be regarded as exemplifying the apt-
ness of the maritime poetry above quoted. It
has, for all of us, been a fearfully long pull. In-
deed, most of us have pulled not only longly (if
that is the way to put it) but strongly, too. Per-
haps if all of us were to pull as strongly as we
undoubtedly are pulling longly, the industries
which are nearest to us would recover even more
rapidly than they are now doing. Of course, the
fact is amply demonstrated by now that there
is a marvelous amount of what may be called
survival power in the music industries—a power
which is quite sufficient to carry them through
periods of even more severe depression than that
which they have recently undergone. At the same
time the fact is equally demonstrated that we
have been scratching a surface beneath which
is to be found an untouched depth of riches never
yet discovered to our commercial senses. We
have all been pulling long, and some of us have
been pulling strong. Perhaps the coming year
will also teach us to dig deep.
Moving Music Rolls
The problem of merchandising is always, in
our business, very much a problem of keeping
sold the instruments that have already left our
floors. Even though a player-piano may have
been paid for in cash, and the merchant's re-
sponsibility in respect of it has, in the strictly
commercial sense, ceased long since, the fact
remains that if that instrument does not continue
to furnish the entertainment for the sake of
which it was originally bought the effects of its
failure will be felt far beyond the limits of that
one transaction. Bad news travels fast. To build
up a wall of prejudice in neighboring minds which
ASK TO
HEAR IT!
will militate silently against every sale for the fu-
ture it is only necessary to start the rumor that
So-and-So's reproducing piano or player-piano is
not giving the same fun it used to give. The old
saying that "the best advertiseirnent is a satisfied
customer" is completely true as regards our in-
dustry. A satisfied owner of a player-piano is
the best advertisement a music house can have.
And a satisfied customer can be discovered by
one simple test, and measured by one simple rule.
If a customer is buying music steadily, that cus-
tomer is getting out of the player-piano what
is in it. If he or she is not buying rolls, then the
ownership of the player-piano is not bringing
satisfaction. This is demonstrably true, and holds
good as a rule even when there is no outward
sign of complaint. So long as the owner is buy-
ing music, the owner is satisfied. When the
buying ceases, pleasure paralysis has set in.
Many a music merchant who cannot understand
why he does not get any further with his player-
piano business in spite of all the new ideas which
come out each year, and after each new one of
which he so desperately chases, may be able to
understand the cause of his difficulty if he will
remember that there is a disease in our indus-
try peculiarly fatal to merchants. It is called
customer-paralysis and can only be relieved by
copious supplies of new music rolls.
The problem of moving the music roll from
the store shelves to the customer's roll cabinet is
the livest problem in the merchandising field.
The Reproducer Tie-up
Since the problem of merchandising the repro-
ducing piano has become important enough to
justify its inclusion among the permanent prob-
lems of the trade, it is interesting to observe how
opportunity is being utilized by the better-
informed advertising managers. For instance,
we notice that in N«w York, Chicago and else-
where the leading music houses are tying up the
reproducing pianos they handle with the concert
appearances in their cities of artists who record
for these instruments. The idea has already been
worked out to some extent by the leading houses
in the talking machine business, but it is quite
as readily applicable to the reproducing piano.
Ey thus coupling the interests of the music mer-
chant with the events in music which come into
his community the advertising man is building
doubly well. In the first place, he is telling the
community in the most direct and positive way
that the reproducing piano is an art-instrument
which exists solely to bring, within the home, the
same musical beauty that is radiated from the
concert platform. In the second place, he is
letting the community know that the music in-
dustry is awake to the musical activities going
on all around and at least is willing to take cog-
nizance of them. When it is remembered that
a standing complaint against the music industries
has been that their members are a thoroughly
unmusical lot, the value of any action with a
contrary indication will be appreciated.
Once More, Thanks
The thanks of the industry are due the Stand-
ard Pneumatic Action Co. for again launching a
Player-piano Demonstration Week. No matter
what opinions one may hold as to the right kind
of player-piano to sell, the fact remains that good
demonstration is the backbone of all success in
such selling. Whether this demonstration be
undertaken for the purpose of showing that the
prospect will be best satisfied by learning to play
for himself, or whether the major effort be put
on making him see the beauty of enjoying
passively a reproduction more or less exact of
another's play, the fact remains that demonstra-
tion it must be. Now, the present need is for
more intelligent demonstration—that is to say,
for demonstration which shows an understanding
of the musical requirements and which has been
worked out in such a manner as to convey the
salesman's own convictions to the prospect. In-
telligent demonstration, whether of personal play-
ing or of the power of a reproducing mechanism
to bring into the home the atmosphere of great
art and the flavor of individual mannerisms, is
the greatest need of the player industry at this
moment. May the week of April 15 be thor-
oughly successful.
AMPICO CONCERTTS^ROUSE INTEREST
NEWARK, N. J., February 20.—Energetic sales
methods are creating sales at the warerooms of
the Armstrong Piano Co., Broad street, this city.
Considerable interest has been aroused by the
series of Ampico concerts which the company
has staged in several churches here, and several
sales have been the direct result. Other concerts
will he conducted as soon as the necessary ar-
rangements have been completed. Chickering
and Knabe instruments are featured here.
YOU CANT GO WRONG
V/ITHAN?FEIST SONG'