Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
PLAYER SECTION
NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 30, 1922
The Need for Finding a New Market
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The Problem of Retail Distribution in the Player Field Is One That Has Grown Increasingly Difficult of Solution, but the
. Answer Will Be Found by Concentrating on the Task of Finding Ways and Means of Entering New Fields
Which Are Awaiting Development, but Which Have Hitherto Been Sadly Neglected
Should any one ask what is the most pressing
problem presented at this time to the attention
of the player industry we should have to reply:
the problem of distribution. In so replying we
should wish to be taken seriously and to have
it supposed that we do not speak without careful
consideration of the words used and the cer-
tainty that they cover the facts.
The suggestion is not going to be made that
the trade faces any crisis. That is not the case
at all. The cry of "Wolf" has been made so
often that one may be pardoned for refusing to
listen to it any longer. No! that which we
wish to put before the attention of the reader is
something more practical if less sensational.
The Manufacturers' Dilemma
Just at this time the word is being passed
round among the dealers to order early. Never
was word more timely. Dealers indeed have
been besought year after year at the same time
to get in their Winter orders early; and year
after year have neglected the appeal. Now there
was a time when manufacturers could meet any
emergency at the last moment, for there was
a time when it was always safe to accumulate
very large stocks in anticipation of the last-
minute rush. But the general sentiment of man-
ufacturers to-day is not parallel with this. It
has changed its direction. Manufacturers have
had one unfortunate and prolonged experience
with the retail trade which they hardly care to
risk repeating. They feel that before they are
asked to rebuild their personnel, expand their
contracted schedules of production and take on
the additional risks involved in accumulating
stock, they should be assured against further
exposure to loss through a possible failure of
Winter rush orders to materialize.
The feeling is natural. It might indeed be
difficult to find any manufacturer willing to
say in public that his sentiments are exactly
what we have here described, but there is no
doubt that the general feeling has been cor-
rectly interpreted in these words. Is there, then,
any good reason for this feeling? Is it at all
likely that retailers will find it advisable to
continue during the whole Winter the hand-to-
mouth policy of ordering?
Basic Condition Sound
Certainly there is no basic reason for dealers
doing anything of the kind. If one fact is more
certainly true than another it is that the retail
problem is a merchandising problem, not a ques-
tion of utility, of potential market, or of com-
mercial value. In other words, every musical
instrument now in existence as a recognized
medium for musical expression has a place of
its own which is not and never has been suc-
cessfully challenged. No matter what has been
the general state of business, the people have
wanted music in one form or another, have laid
out their money freely in order to obtain music
and have shown conclusively that they cannot
and will not do without it. The statement is
as true in respect of the player-piano in any of
its forms as it is of the music industries in
general. The player-piano in all its forms rep-
resents and fills a definite musical need. As
such it has not merely a right to exist, but a
place among the permanencies of the industry.
To argue whether it can or cannot be sold is to
talk nonsense.
But this does not alter the fact that the prob-
lem of distribution continues to be the most
pressing problem before us. Manufacturers have
a perfect right to ask that the retail trade settle
their own problem of distribution. On the other
hand, the retail trade ought to realize squarely
that the problem of merchandising, of distribu-
tion, alone stands between them and as many
and as profitable sales as they can in their
wildest dreams imagine.
The Two Forms
The player-piano exists in two distinct and
principal forms. It is an automatic-expression
or a personal-expression instrument. In the
first case, the problem of selling it successfully
is the problem of- demonstrating to the pro-
spective buyer that the instrument fills the uni-
versally felt need for home music by means of
reproductions of artistic piano playing, espe-
cially made for it and reproducible at will.
Now, however, we are dealing with any sort of
musical merchandise of any kind whatever, we
are dealing with that elusive imponderable
known as "taste." It is no secret that one of
the greatest difficulties found in the practical
merchandising of reproducing pianos, which are
high-priced, high-grade articles, lies in the ex-
tremely low level of public taste. Magnificent
libraries of the best piano playing, reproduced
with exquisite skill, lie neglected (comparatively
speaking), while the splendfd instruments them-
selves are made the vehicles for dance music,
for popular songs and for the ephemeral stuff
of the hour.
A Real Weakness
Here is a real weakness. For it needs little
insight to perceive that an instrument which is
built for the highest grade of work will not be
filling its place and therefore will not be in
any large sense a permanent success if it is
generally used for purposes lower than those
for which it is actually designed. Inevitably
in these circumstances the type must decline.
The Reproducer's True Field
Now, whether merchants realize it or not,
this weakness must be overcome. The only
possible way to overcome it is by discovering
those who appreciate the proper use of the re-
producing piano and selling it to them. Now,
we hear a good deal in the trade papers about
fine reproducing grands being sold to rich peo-
ple. This is very well, but what is more im-
portant than this is for merchants to realize
that the true field of the reproducing piano is
in institutions, schools, academies of music, mu-
sicians' studios and the homes of musical ama-
teurs. There are enough of these, and to spare,
with money to spend and the ability to appre-
ciate. It is to these that the reproducing piano
ought to go. For they will not only buy it but
boost it. They will buy the music of the best
artists. They will cheerfully look forward to
obtaining large and comprehensive libraries.
Where the Foot Player Belongs
The foot-expression player-piano, too, is in
need of new markets and a new type of con-
sumer. As a mere music-grinder its cheaper
embodiments will always sell it, especially in the
country and the smaller towns, but as a high-
grade instrument it must again be brought in
contact with a musically appreciative class of
users. It is just this class which has been kept
away from the foot-expression player for so
long by the peculiar methods of selling which
the retail trade has adopted.
For since the simulation of piano playing is
now being made by an instrument which needs
no personal intervention the foot-expression
player-piano enters upon another phase of its
existence. Already musicians are beginning to
see its extraordinary powers as an individual
musical voice and are experimenting with the
composition of music for it. In this respect it
stands alone. The two types of player-piano
now stand definitely apart from each other, and
although it will be some time before the indi-
vidual position of the foot-player is thoroughly
appreciated the fact remains that a new phase
has opened in its career.
Of course, these may be called counsels of
perfection. But are they really so? Is it not
better to face our problems and realize what
they are? When we do that we can make plans
for distributing our products and can carry
those plans out successfully. When manufac-
turers are trying to get back to the full produc-
tion which their factories must have if they are
to operate efficiently retailers must join with
them, for the general good of the business, in
solving the distribution problems, or, in other
words, in solving the problem of sales. Where
are the consumers to be found, and how are we
to sell them? Well, the foregoing observations
are submitted as a sort of brief on the subject.
They are possibly erroneous and certainly not
entirely comprehensive. But so far as they go
they are, we think, unquestionably sound.