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THE
MUSIC
TRADE
REVIEW
(Registered in the U. S. Patent Office)
PUBLISHED BY EDWARD LYMAN BILL, Inc.
President and Treasurer, C. L. Bill, 373 Fourth Ave., New York; Vice-President,
T B Spillane, 373 Fourth Ave., New York; Second Vice-President, Raymond Bill, 373
Fourth Ave., New York; Secretary, Edward Lyman Bill, 375 Fourth Ave., New York;
Assistant Treasurer, Wm. A. Low.
J. B. SPILLANE, Editor
RAY BILL, B. B. WILSON, BRAID WHITE, Associate Editors
WILSON D. BUSH, Managing Editor
CARLETON CHACE, Business Manager
L. E. BOWERS, Circulation Manager
Executive and Reportorial Staff
EDWARD VAN HARLINGEN, V. D. WALSH, E. B. MUNCH, LEE ROBINSON, C. R. TIGHE,
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and
Departments conducted by an expert wherein all ques
alltl
tions of a technical nature relating to the tuning,
qrlniAnk
regulating and repairing of pianos and player-pianos
lC
p a r i m e n i S a r e dealt with, will be found in another section of
thi9 paper. W« also publish a number of reliable technical works, information concerning
which will be cheerfully given upon request.
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Vol. LXXV
NEW YORK, OCTOBER 14, 1922
No. 16
RURAL TRADE AN INCREASING FACTOR
the steady improvement in the industrial situation in
I N the spite larger of centers,
and the cutting down of the ranks of the un-
employed, the fact is quite evident that the agricultural element is
going to play a highly important part in the absorption of manu-
factured products during the coming months, for although in some
sections crops have not turned out quite so well as expected and the
prices realized have been rather disappointing, farmers as a rule
have very substantial quantities of cash and appear to be in a mood
to spend it when properly approached.
There are, of course, numerous retail music houses who are
so located that they must depend almost entirely upon city trade,
but for those who can in a measure choose their customers from
either urban or rural cities there has developed a strong tendency to
cater to the country man with his cash rather than to the city man
with a doubtful job and a greater credit risk.
FIXED SCHEDULES FOR USED PIANOS
NCE again has come up the question of compiling a schedule
of values for used pianos according to make and age for the
use of piano retailers throughout the country, the proposal this time
coming from the Music Industries Chamber of Commerce, as the
result of a letter sent to that body by C. Alfred Wagner, of the
American Piano Co.
This question of establishing a fixed schedule of the values for
used pianos is not in any sense a new one, but has come up at
intervals for a number of years past and more or less serious and
successful attempts to draft and establish such a schedule have been
made by national and local trade bodies. It remained for the New York
Piano Merchants' Association a few years ago to prepare a schedule
of used piano values that for a time proved most valuable to local
piano merchants and was in fact adopted by associations and in-
dividuals in various parts of the country.
The difficulty of presenting a fixed schedule is that adherence
O
REVIEW
OCTOBER 14,
1922
to it is strictly voluntary on the part of the individual merchant
and there have been authentic cases where such a schedule, pre-
pared for the protection of the retailer in making his allowances,
was used by competitors for the purpose of impressing the cus-
tomer with their generosity in making excessive allowances duly
covered by increased prices. That a schedule of allowances is
possible has been proven in the case of the New York association, as
well as in the cases of various concerns that have established their
own standards. It is, therefore, possible to draft a schedule of
allowances on used pianos that prove of genuine benefit to the
dealer who wants to be fair both to himself and to his customer.
The fact that such a schedule may be misused in isolated cases
should not prove a serious obstacle.
THE VALUE OF WINDOW DISPLAYS
the discussion of window displays it might be well to para-
I N phrase
the slogan of one of the large automobile companies and
declare, "Ask the man who uses them," for music merchants who
have given proper attention to this important form of publicity are
as, a unit in testifying to its effectiveness not only in developing
actual sales, but in building for the merchant a reputation for pro-
gressiveness among the other retailers of the town.
At one time the excuse was given that pianos did not lend
themselves readily to display purposes, despite the fact that certain
merchants through their ingenuity proved this excuse to be more or
less of a fallacy. To-day the average music store'handles a variety
of lines, including talking machines, records, band instruments,
musical merchandise and sheet music, which lend themselves readily
to interesting window arrangements.
It is not always the elaborate window that has the appeal, but
rather the ingenious one. We have seen, for instance, a half dozen
windows featuring the musical number, "Hot Lips," with a negro
blowing a saxophone or. trombone, and yet only one dealer had the
ingenuity to have the lips transparent and place a red light behind
them to make them really look hot.
There have been many attempts made to impress the customer
with the convenient size of the small grand piano and the fact that
it occupied no more room than an upright when placed in a corner.
Charts and measurements have been used galore, and yet it remained
for a Western dealer to spend the few dollars necessary to build
a papier mache model of an upright and fit it around the grand in
the corner to visualize for the public the statement so often made.
NATIONAL DANCE WEEK
suggestion of Mark P. Campbell, made before the conven-
T HE
tion of the American Association of Dancing Masters, held in
New York recently, that there be held a "National Dance Week"
along the lines-of the very successful Music Weeks celebrated during
the past few years, is interesting to those who have the cause of
music at heart for the reason that dancing without music is prac-
tically impossible and a Dance Week means a real week of music,
even though it be confined to dance music alone.
Dance music is not necessarily jazz—in fact, much of it is
distinctly of the better sort—and the music for folk dancing par-
ticularly can, for the most part, be accepted as national music in
the fullest sense, the dance in many European countries providing
the only means for expressing the national spirit. As "Dance Week"
will mean more music, let's have it.
A CENSUS OF QUESTIONABLE VALUE
by the Government that a monthly census be
T HE made suggestion
of the output of pianos and talking machines' is interest-
ing as indicating the development of Federal service in the matter
of providing information for the use of business men, but the prac-
tical value of such a census is to be questioned. There are a num-
ber of factors besides the census alone that tend to indicate the
trend of the music industry and these factors are quite well under-
stood by the members of the trade, so that the compilation of figures
for Government use simply means more work without adequate
recompense.
An annual or biennial census is unquestionably of value for the
purpose of calculating the progress made by the industry over a
given period, and gives to the trade some basis on which to plan
future development, but a monthly census would simply represent
a mass of figures without any real import.