Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
JANUARY 20,
9
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
1923
The World-wide Distribution of Music
Henry S. Jewett, of the Aeolian Co.*s Wholesale Promotion Department, Shows How Music Knows No Geographical
Boundaries and Therefore Musical Instruments Are Products of Universal Distribution— So Staple a Demand
Means a Stabilized Business if the Men in the Industry and Trade Will Have Faith in What They Sell
Music, the art universal, admits of no geo-
graphical boundaries and no limits of apprecia-
tion. It is really the true Esperanto, the one
language which all understand and which pro
vides a tnode for communication between all
peoples. In the transportation of musical in-
struments to the far corners of the earth many
obstacles have been overcome and where rail
and ship transport ends the backs of camels,
donkeys, and even men, have been and are
being utilized to carry such products as grand
pianos.
Musical instruments arc among the few prod-
ucts that are distributed to every part of the
room to carry a piano. I recall being reminded
by telephone that I was to have lunch with
some Italian surgeons at the Piave front and
the 'phone conversation ended with the remark
"and Colonello Giglio would appreciate it if
you would bring a piano with you."
Another honor was conferred on an American
phonograph in Italy, the land where music was
born, lives and never dies. An American consul
was impressed by the beautiful tone of this in-
strument which he heard on its weekly tour of
the hospitals. He requested that it be sent to
Venice for a reception being given to the ad-
miral and officers of the Italian navy. A special
dividual regardless of age, occupation or previ-
ous condition of servitude. It may be the re-
producing piano, the player-piano, the straight
piano, the phonograph or some other instru-
ment that has found its way to the most distant
places where the feet of men have trod.
With such a vital all-season, all-country de-
mand for music there should be little hesitancy
on the part of manufacturers to promote and
produce instruments. By the same token deal-
ers who refuse to reorder when piano prices
rise because of the increased cost of production
due to labor conditions will find themselves
with no instruments to supply a booming mar-
American Musical Instruments Distributed to the Four Corners of the World
1. Steck Duo-Art Pianola Piano in Rio de Janeiro, T'razil. 2. Portrait of Liszt in Lobby of Capitol Theatre, New York, When Duo-Art Piano Aided in Celebrating Anniversary
of Great Composer. 3. Steinway Duo-Art Grand in Magnificent New Keith Theatre, Cleveland. 4. Transporting a Pianola in Australia. S. Queen of Belgium's Duo-Art Grand
in Palace of Larcken. 6. Duo-Art Piano in Home in Osaka, Japan. 7. Weber Grand in Music Room in Buenos Aires, Argentina
world regardless of poor transportation facili-
ties, which in itself emphasizes the international
appreciation of music and the steady develop-
ment of that appreciation. Whether it be the
Japanese music room with its rice-paper win-
dows, framed by cherry blossoms; the Arctic
cabin with its window looking toward the
Midnight Sun; or one of the myriad of South
Sea Isles east of Suez, the inhabitants are priv-
ileged to enjoy the musical interpretations of
the greatest of artists through the medium of
the reproducing piano and the phonograph, just
as they are enjoyed bv the residents of such
great centers as New York or London.
Timeliness which limits the sales of many
commodities need have no terrors to properly
promoted musical instruments. In the moments
of greatest prosperity in the social calendar of
the most brilliant society music is guest of
honor; in the tragic Russian upheavals opera
and musical reviews lessened the pangs of pov-
erty. In peace music creates its own demand
and in warfare as a morale builder in the dug-
outs and through hospitals music served a great
purpose and many a piano and phonograph
should have won the distinguished service cross.
Even in the congested traffic of battle there is
launch and automobile assured its return in time
for its scheduled work at the hospitals. No
prima donna was ever transported with more
consideration or acclaimed more enthusi-
astically.
Democratic and decorative, too, are the ap-
peals of musical merchandise. It is difficult to
imagine a palace or mansion without its music
salon and, with the small models of pianos and
styles of phonographs, the smallest cottage or
apartment may have the joys of music.
It all tends to prove that, with this world-
wide market ready and eager for music of the
best sort and for the instruments that will pro-
duce it, the manufacturers, and for that matter
the retailers of musical instruments, have a
limitless field in which to work.
With music firmly established in the man-
sions of royalty and the plutocrats and likewise
in the homes of the comparatively* poor, there
is appreciated at once the fact that in between
these two is the great and dominating middle
class of all countries that in its growth alone
provides a steadily increasing market for mu-
sical instruments of all types.
The musical instrument is the one product
which has an appeal of some sort to every in-
ket. The very element of working people who
have forced production prices upward creates
a new prosperous market for these instruments,
so it seems to resolve itself into the old prob-
lem of "stick beat dog, dog chase cat" of the
Mother Goose jingle.
If the dealer will not order and the manu-
facturer does not produce and the consumer
cannot buy distribution stops on musical in-
struments, but a dead season can be but short-
lived for an article demanded yesterday, to-
day and to-morrow, here, there and everywhere.
The experience of 1922 has proved this and
the Western dealer who, when asked why he
was- carrying so many pianos in April, replied:
"So I won't worry next Christmas" has every
reason to say "I told you so."
From the very fact of its universal appeal
music and the sale of musical instruments
should not in any sense be regarded as sea-
sonal. The desire for music is persistent and
ns strong in Summer as it is in Winter, in
Spring as it is in Fall. With this year-round,
non-seasonal interest before him, the retailer
has but to crystallize that interest into sales to
overcome in a large measure the problem of
fluctuating demand.