Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
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VOL. LXXV. No. 20 Published Every Satnrday by Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., 373 4th Ave., New York, N. Y. Nov. 11, 1922
Single Copies 10 Cents
92.00 Per Year
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The Problem of Simpler Music Roll Arrangements
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VERY once and so often the question of music roll cutting is brought to the fore for general trade
discussion, the last instance being at the recent Toledo convention, where several speakers took occasion
to refer to the need for better arrangement of popular rolls and for giving more attention to the stand-
ard rolls if player-piano owners are to be kept satisfied and serve as boosters for that instrument.
The music roll situation as it stands now represents a ftrst-class example of "passing the buck." The
dealers tell the manufacturers that what are needed are simpler arrangements of popular numbers with less
interpolated notes and jazz and with more attention paid to the bringing out of the simple melody of a com-
position. The manufacturers state in reply that they are simply meeting the demands from the dealers for
popular rolls of the jazz type and are perfectly willing to simplify the roll arrangements if the roll sales can be
maintained or increased on that basis. Then both sides get together and blame the trouble on the public,
which, buying the rolls, creates and maintains the market.
It is a moot question just now how much the public is to be blamed. It is a known fact that between
eighty and eighty-five per cent of all music rolls sold are of popular numbers, and that the people select that
proportion of popular numbers is not due so much to the jazzy arrangement as to the fact that if they want
the particular selections at all they must perforce take them in the form that the music roll arranger offers
them.
There are many player owners who would be larger purchasers of rolls if it were possible to get the
songs of the day, particularly the ballads or word rolls, so arranged that the melody could at least be dis-
tinguished over the brilliant accompaniment. Perhaps an analysis of the music roll situation would show that
the rather poor business that has prevailed in that field for the last few months is due quite as much to the
arrangements offered as to the prices asked.
It is to be conceded that the music roll manufacturers, being good business men, would be inclined to
cut just the sort of rolls the public wanted, provided that the public requirements were set forth clearly. The
fact that practically all the music roll manufacturers cling to brilliant arrangements of popular numbers points
to the fact that they earnestly believe that the people want such numbers, and it is rather an expensive propo-
sition to carry on experiments to gauge the fickle public taste while business hangs in the balance. The num-
ber of retailers, however, who have commented upon the excessive brilliancy in the arrangement of popular
rolls should lead to some effort on the part of the arrangers to simplify their work and produce rolls that are
not permeated with jazz.
It is probably quite right that the average popular song, recorded just as it is played from the sheet
music, would prove a very disappointing music roll, but it would seem possible so to elaborate it as to make
it interesting without subordinating the entire melody. The question in the music roll field, both in the manu-
facturing and retailing ends, is not so much that of developing public taste to an appreciation of better music
as it is of offering popular music in a form that will be most desirable. If, as it is claimed, and apparently
with some measure of truth, the average player owner becomes tired of building up a library of brilliant or
over-jazzy popular numbers which soon become tiresome and are thrown away, it might be well to study
the situation with the idea of offering at least some of these popular numbers in a form that will make them
a permanent basis for the player pianist's library. There are many numbers termed popular that have lived
for years and still find favor, especially those of the ballad type, but even such numbers are now arranged on
music rolls in many instances in a form that makes them satisfactory for dancing but unsuited for other pur-
poses. A return to simpler, more melodious arranging w r ill do much to solve the rather perplexing problem
which confronts the music roll industry at the present time.