Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE
AUGUST 26, 1922
REVIEW
Being the Monthly Outpouring of Wit and Wisdom by the Editor of This
Player Section on Topics of Interest and Import to the Trade Generally,
Written in the Hope That It Will Prove Acceptable as Mid-Summer Reading
the tuners and practical men at every conveni-
ent opportunity. Nothing is more certain than
that, whoever may sell the players, it is the
The player trade is certainly waking up. tuner who keeps them sold or who, through his
Down at Indianapolis the Auto-Pneumatic Ac- ignorance or misunderstanding of technical
tion Co., the Standard Pneumatic Action Co., points, is the innocent cause of dissatisfaction
the United Piano Corporation, the Sigler and ultimate repossessions. I t is the best kind
Player Action Co. and Pratt-Read & Co. of business strategy to go direct to the tuner
thought well enough of the tuners' annual and tell him one's strong points. He will ap-
gathering to make excellent and instructive ex- preciate, readily grasp and quickly apply.
hibits for the benefit of the visiting delegates. Moreover, he will be grateful for the informa-
These exhibits were primarily made for the tion and will act accordingly.
purpose of instructing the practical men who
viewed them in the peculiarities of the mechan-
Congratulations, Q R S
isms themselves and were therefore eminently
Before allowing the Indianapolis affair to pass
sincere, outspoken and above-board.
There
was no nonsense, no camouflage. The tuners into history, however, we must pause to con-
could see everything inside and out. They gratulate the Q R S Music Co. upon Presi-
could ask all the questions they liked and make dent Pletcher's good sense and strategic wis-
any needed number of criticisms, certain that dom in offering a prize to tuners for the best
the answers they should receive would be essay on how to maintain the interest of player
equally sincere, and so far as possible accurate. owners after the player-piano has been sold to
Messrs. Jamison, Duncan Allen, Sigler, Strub them and installed in their homes. Those who
and Leiser have every reason to feel pleased know what the Q R S Co. lias been doing in
with what they accomplished. Indeed, we are national advertising, what wisdom this com-
unable to see how the trade can fail to obtain pany has shown in boosting the general sub-
ject of player-piano ownership while talking
the utmost in advantage and the minimum of
waste in exhibits of mechanism made direct to about the Q R S music—and who does, not
Exhibits at the Convention
know the facts?—must realize also that no
one sees the behavior of the player owner to-
wards the instrument he or she has bought half
so well as the tuner. It is this last who, going
into the home when the family is, as it were,
in undress uniform, hears the candid opinion,
the kicks and the criticisms. He knows the
truth, and he realizes that the trouble with the
player business is that the people are not
taught to play, and that therefore they lose in-
terest in music and cease to buy new rolls
after a month or so. No reproducing piano
invention will solve this difficulty. Education
alone will do it. Merely giving the unmusical
a piano that plays all by itself won't help a
bit. The taste must exist first, and the task of
the trade is to learn this fact and then take
measures to bring music and the player owner
together. The winner of the first Q R S prize
is a blind tuner of Indianapolis, William Edgar
Medcalf, who joins to his tuning activities
those of a writer on musical matters and a lec-
turer before women's clubs and similar insti-
tutions upon music in the home, the care of
musical instruments, etc. The presentation
was made by Earl Holland, of the Q R S Mu-
sic Co., who was present at Indianapolis for
that purpose. This is an excellent idea and
should be followed up by others in the trade.
Essential and Immediate
The article which appears in the present is-
sue of the Player Section advocating a con-
ference or similar intra-trade action to accom-
plish a reform in the present condition of mu-
sic-roll manufacturing, especially in reference
to the roll which is built for automatic ex-
pression, presents the important subject in so-
ber but emphatic language. The fact is that,
just as Mr. Miller, of the Vocalstyle Music Co.,
so aptly says, the player-piano business never
really got on its feet until the manufacturers
had agreed in Buffalo, in 1908, to standardize
an 88-note roll and sec that thereafter all
trackers and all rolls should correspond and
agree. From the moment that it could be said
by a merchant "any music roll will fit this
player-piano" the player business began to ex-
pand and prosper. A similar condition of inter-
changeability is rapidly coming to exist in the
phonograph business, where the present divi-
sion into hill-and-dale and lateral cut alone re-
mains in a region of otherwise complete uni-
versality. Just as a universal talking machine
record is a certainty of the future, so a univer-
sal expression roll is a positive essential to the
prosperity of the player business. The ques-
tion is not half so complicated as it seems, and
demands principally that makers should cease
to deceive themselves or attempt to deceive
their trade brethren. Sincerity and candor will
soon show that there is no real reason for at-
tempting any longer to mention fictitious dif-
ferences and unmeaning distinctions.
You need this beautiful, dignified, worth-while mer-
chandise, because your customers want it, and there
is good profit for you. The Renaissance style is es-
pecially popular now. No. 619, Renaissance Console
player-piano roll cabinet. Finished with mahogany
or burl walnut top and front. Height 39 inches, in-
side depth 14y 2 inches. Capacity 104 player-piano
rolls.
77K>UDELLWORKS
Music, Not Mechanism
28th Street and Barnes Avenue, INDIANAPOLIS
Write
for the Udell
f-OR TONE, BEAUTY
AN.: LASTING
A
•XCCOMPLISHMENT
'
Blue
Book
and Console
Cabinet
Catalog
—AUTO"PLAYER
The more one ponders upon the problems of
merchandising the player-piano in any of its
forms, the more one realizes that the grava-
men of the whole matter resides, not in me-
(Continued on page 8)