Music Trade Review

Issue: 1923 Vol. 77 N. 3

THE
rw~~ADE
VOL. LXXVII. No.3. Pablished Every Sat1lrday. Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., at 383 Madison Ave., New York, N. Y. July 21. 1923
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Training Workers in the Piano Factories
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ESPITE the activ iti es of the Committee on Vocation al Training of the ~ew York Piano Manufac­
turers' Association and the annual repo rt of that committee testifying to the fact that a number of
manufac turers had seen fit to taKe up this matter as a practice rath er than a theory, there does not
seem to be any general move in the trade to place the training of piano factory workers on a gene ral
and sound basts. ' Perhaps the manufacturers feel that training worke rs in any large nu mbers would prove too
expensive, a proposition invi evv uf the results that might be expected. Thus the fact remains that what has
been dq.t). ~ ,along the' lines of vocational trail),i.nghas been done by the indi vidual.
.
i;~ 'this connection it is interes ting' to ~10te that the British piano industry has served its labor problem
in a considerable measure by maintaining a trade school in which apprentices are taught the various divisi ons
of piano manufacture, the school having' at its·command a well equipped fact ory wherein the students can have
th e advantages of practical instruction.
The English plan has wo rked out very successfully, the school having been in exic;;tence for a number of
years \",ith the attendance increasing regularly. Over 250 youn g men were in training at the scho(Jl recently
and spent 45 ,000 hours in improving themselves.
In addition 200 di sabled men, mostly war veterans, were
trained in special branch es of piano making and placed in the factori es. Th e school has now under considera­
ti on a plan whereby those already employed in piano fact ories may have the advantages of ad vanced and speci training by attending- it one day each week. Under thi s plan th e ambitious \vorker receives fifty-two days
training annually at a cost to the manuf,acturer of on e day'!' pay each week and a tuition fee 01 .£3 . The
plan has been developed as a result of th e belief on the part of the piano men that next to bringing new
workers into the factory the best plan f or overcoming the labor shortage is to impro\re the efficiency of the
workers already employed, and it .is held that instruction one day each week at the school will enable the young
man to do better and more rapid work and aid in carrying the in'creased burden which · would ordinarily he
placed on the shoulders~ of new and perhaps inexperienced men.
The Review on numerous occasions has called attention to what the British trade is doing in connection
with training piano workers, and it-might be well f or the Committee on Vocational Training of the ~ational
Piano Manufacturers' Associati on to look into thi s matter with a view of utilizing, if possible, some of the
methods of their British brethren.
Some time ago the Un ited States Training Ser vice of the Department of ,Labor compiled a rather ex­
tensive treatise on "Instructi on in Piano Making" for the guidance of those who contemplated courses for
workers or prospecti ve workers, but there is no record of such information havi~g been put to practical use
on any large scale. It has been demonstrated that piano manufacturers by co-operating with the local high
schools can sec ure boys for training on a basis that proves sat isfactory both to the school authorities and to the
factory management , and it should be possible to present this plan in pamphlet form Lefore the :YIanufacturers'
Association for the guidance of piano makers as a body.
The question is not so much that of getting a worker f or the factory as it is of getting workers of a
satistactory type- those vv'ho are interested in the business and who find it sufficiently alluring to make them
consid er it as a regular vocation . Factories that have built up this interest and family support have very little
trouLle in keeping their force s well organized although the problem increases in difficulty in ratio to the size
of the city in which the fact ory is located. Nondescript and temporary labor regardless of how skilled, gen ­
erally proves an expensive proposition because the manufacturer is never jUS( sure of the solidarity of his or
ga nizati on. vVhen the training of youn g wo rkers includes not on ly practical piano building but also an or·
g-anization spiri t then much \vill have beC"11 accomplished for the permanent good of the indl1stry as a whole
and \,,,ill eliminate one of its greatest obstacles.
D
THE
4
MUSIC
TRADE
REVIEW
JULY
21, 1923
not so ve ry lon g ago were crying about inll ation and the neces sity
for some sort of liquidation at an ea rly date. It happens in thi s
pa rticul ar case that the ca utiou s ones outnumbere d th e pessimists
ancl saw to it th at any attempts at inA ation in bu siness did not be­
come gen e ral.
!INSTRUr...iENT P-URcHASES . BY SCHOOL CHILDREN
(Registered in the U. S. Patent Office)
PUBLISHED BY EDWARD LYMAN BILL, Inc.
President and Treas"re r . C. L. Bill 383 Madison Ave., New York; Vice· President,
T. II. Soillane, 383 Madison Ave., New York; Second Vice-President, Raymond Bill, 383
\{ ,,,, isa u'>.'·'·, "ew York; Secretary. E dwHd Lyman Bill, 383 Mad ison Ave., New York;
A.sslstan~ Treasurer, Wm. A. Low.
J ., B. SPILLANE. Editor
RAY BILL. B. B. WILSON, BRAID WHITE. Associate Editors
WM. H. McCLEARY. Managing Editor
CARLETON CHACE. Business Manager
L. E. BOWERS, Circulation Manager
Executive and Reportorial Staft
THOS .
E. B. MUN C H, V. D. \VALSH , EOWARJ) VAN J-IAULIN CEN, LEE ROBINSON,
W. BRESNAHAN, E. J. NEALY, C. R. TIGHE, FRE DER ICK B. DIEHL, A. J.
A. FREQERICK CARTER, FREDERICK C. SANlIB LOM
NICKLIN
WESTERN DIVISION:
BOSTON OFFICE:
ARTHUR NEALY, Representative
JOHN H. WILSON, 324 Washington St.
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Telephone, Wabash 5242·5243.
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NEWS SERVICE IS SUPPLIED WEEKLY BY OUR CORRESPONDENTS
LOCATED IN THE LEADING CJTIES THROUGHOUT AMERICA
Published Every Saturday at 383 Madison Avenue, New York
En/ered
GS
N o
better indi cation of the growing interest in mu sic among the
school children gen e rally throughout the co untry is to be
found than in th e r eports received at frequent intervals of th e
erYurb mad e b y pupils and their t eac h e rs to raise funds for the
purchase of I1lusical instrum en ts of various so rts. It is no un­
usual thin g for pupils of o n e or two g rades, or eve n a whole
school, to pool their pennies earned by d o ing errands and other
little jobs, for the pur pose of buying som e musical instrument
for the gen eral beneht of all.
Perhaps th e m()st int eres ting case is that reported in Cin­
cinnati where th e jlupils of the \ \f incj,;or School, assisted by
their teachers, gath ere d and so ld a sufficient quantity of old
n ewspa pers a nd nl 'lga7.ines tu raise an amount sufficient to buy
a n ew 1~;t1dwin ;.;r;lnd. The'-e is no qu es tion but that pupils
stich :IS these w h o have centered their int eres t in th e purchase
of the in s trlllllent will feel that prid e of possessi()n th a t will in­
~ ure th e co ntinuan ce of that interest.
1 t is a spirit th a t s hould
b e enc()uraged b y the local p iano m a.n to th e gTeatest degree
possible.
second ·class matter September 10, 1892, at the post office at New York, N. Y.,
u"der the Act of March 3, 1879.
SUB8CRIPTION, United States and Mexico, $2.00 per year; Canada, $3.50; all other
countne., $5.00.
ADVERTISEMENTS, rates on rCQuest.
REMITTANCES, should be made payable to Edward Lyman Bill, Inc.
Exposition Honors Won by The Review
Grand Prss..•..••• • Pari. Exposition, 1900
Silver Medal.. . Charleston Exposition, 1902
Diploma . ... Pan·American ExpOSItion, 1901
Gold Medal . .... St. Louis Exposition, 1904
Gold Medal·-Lewis ·Clark Exposition, 1905
TELEPHONES-YANDERBILT 2642-2643-2644-2045-2647-2648
Cable
Vol, LXXVII
Addre~M:
"'Elbill. New York"
NEW YORK. JULY 21. 1923
No.3
SAVINGS BANK DEPOSITS SHOW GAINS
N increase of $6~O,()UO,O()O in savin gs deflosits made by th(c
A meric an people in llanks and trust compa nie s throughout the
coulltry , according to th e must recent recurd .~ of thf Savings Bank
1 )ivisi on uf the Amer ican Kankers' Association, may be tak en as a
_ favorable umen tu uu siness in gene ral. The amount of the ave rage
·. avin g~ accuunt fur the cuuntry as a whule cannot Ile det erm ined
with a sati s factory degree of precision, but the following conclu­
sions a re fairly accurate: In mutu a l sav ings banks th e average ual­
ance on June 30, 1922, was $456 in Massachusetts, $571 in Con­
necticut, $489 in a ll New England, $713 in New York State, $670
in the Middle Atlantic States, $495 in \,yashin gton and $978 in
California. The ave rage accounts in S tate bank s, trust companies
and national banks we re a trifle smaller, but proportionate.
\iVhen one consider s that the above figures include more than
30,000,000 individuals, or nearly a third of the nation' s population,
one grasps more fully the true significance of the data. Pian o
dealers in California, reali zing- that one person in three has a bank
book shovving nearly $1,000 dollars balance, sho uld utili ze those
figures in figuring their pos sible business. New York me rchants
have even more to be optimistic about, with the more co ncentra ted
population of this State showing $7 13 in reco rds obtained in th e
Summ ert ime. Bank examin e rs nO\\7 tell us that sa vings deposits a re
not only substanti a l, but are growing. There is no excuse, th en,
for the mu~ic indu stry not to show a proportionate gain.
A
CAUTION MADE PESSIMISM BASELESS
CCORDI NC to Juliu s H. ~arnes, Pres id en t of th e C hamber of
Comrncrn.: of the l Tn lteu States of Am e rica, 111 an address de
livered before Ba ltimore bu siness men recently, the sel f· restraint
and cauti on practiced by _\merican business enterprise within recent
months has established a basis which may well presage a new ad­
vance in bu sin ess activity.
It is to be assumed n a turally that as President of the Chamber
of Commerce Mr. Barn es is well in formed r egard ing the exi st ing
situati on and it::; development::;, for he has available facts gathered
from all sections of the country. His s tatement, therefore, provide~
a fitting an s wer for those pessim ists in and out the music trade who
A
I
.KEEPING DOWN THE REPOSSESSIONS
A
CCOP' I)I ~G
to figur es compiled by the Dreher Pian o Co., only
two instruments were r e pos~ess e d by that com pany during the
first fiv e months of this yea r , a very in significant percen tage of
th e total volume of uusiness clone. The secret as explained by
I-iarry R. valentine, vice- presid e nt of th e compa ny, lies in getting
all cas h or at least large down pay ment s o n all instruments that
arc se nt out of the wa reroo ms, for he ha s fou nd that when the
flfst payment is su bstantia l a.nd is followed up by othe r goo d ­
sized pa Ylllents the cust()mer is not at all likel y tu c;acrifice hi s
t.:q u ity th rough repossess ion pruc eedi ngs.
The expe rience of the Dreher Pi ano Co. shows by exampk
what careful se lling- can accompli sh in m ak ing in s truments stay
in the h OJll e ()f the purcha se rs. vVhen the payments are low
and th e terms lung th e Cll:-,t, jJller saeriflces on ly renta l when h e
lose s the illc,trllill en t. 1t is a mattn to be cons idered by piano
lllerch,lnh genera lly .
NOW THEY GIVE RUGS WITH PIANOS
T HE
resid en t of New Y (Jrk w h o follows the pian o adverti sing
in local n ewspapers consistently and buys carefully and ac­
cording to the promises of the acl ve rtisers sho uld not have th e
furnishing of his h om e included among his worries. For som e
time pa st va rious concerns have advertised fr ee floor lamp s, free
docks and o ther h ousehold ac cessories with all pianos and
players sold in addition t o the u s ual assortment of rolls, cabinet,
bench, etc. Now comes a piano dealer with a generous soul who
insists that he "vi II give a free parlor rug t o anyone who bu ys
one of hi s pianos . It would seem that if this genero u s spirit
amo ng local piano men con tinues the hopeful newl ywed need
on ly buy hi s piano and leay e the furni shi ngs of the rest o f his
apartment t o the piano merch a nt. _'\ncl yet they say th a t the
prnfits in th e retail piano busin ess are n ot s ubstanti a l.
SPECIAL POST AGE STAMP FOR MUSIC WEEK
HE sugge stion advan ced from Texas that the Postoffic e De­
partm enl iss ue a spe cial postage stam p in honor of the next
Nat ional Music \\' eek in 1924, the stamp to bear the portrait of
lYl ae \)owell, Foster or some oth er famou s ;\mnican composer, is
deserving of the endorsement of bot h the 11lu~ie trad e and mu sic
publishers. Perhaps the advertising va lue of th e sp ecial sta mp may
be overrated, but the usc of millions o f stamps fea turing National
Music Vlcek is bound to h ave a defin ite effect upon the public
at large .
p to thi s time the postal authorities have not ye t given their
con sent to th e plan, bu t it is certain that spec ial stamps have been
issued for purp oses less important or less valuable from the stand ­
point of the publi c at large.
T
o

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