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SEPTEMBER 27,
THE
1924
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
5
Education Makes More Player Sales
Survey of Work of This Character in the Retail Music Trade During the Past Nine Months Shows Low Pro-
portion of Proper Presentation of the Reproducing Piano and the Player-Piano to the Public
—Analogies That Lead the Music Dealer Astray in His Campaigns
OW that the Summer is past and gone
we can all pause for a moment before
taking the plunge into the serious busi-
ness of Fall and Winter, to reflect upon certain
experiences which have been common to the
whole trade during past months. The year 1924
has been rather disappointing to the music in-
dustries, although these industries have by no
means stood alone in their disappointment. Cer-
tain other equally legitimate trades and manu-
factures have been experiencing similar dis-
appointments, and to no less an extent are ask-
ing themselves why this should have been.
Seems that there are now evident on all sides
signs of manifest improvement, it will be no
more than wise to pause long enough to ask
ourselves what has been wrong and why. Per-
haps at the least we may draw some useful con-
clusions for our future guidance.
It is the deliberate opinion of many men in
the music industries that whatever slackness
characterized the Spring and Summer of this
year in retail sales of music and musical in-
struments has been mainly due to the incapacity
of retail merchants to deal with a slackening of
public interest in the goods they sell. It is the
belief of many, especially, that the people arc
not half so much, to blame as are the dealers
in musical instruments.
On the other hand
most dealers are quite ready to combat this
belief and to say that you cannot sell music to
the people when the people are not musically in-
clined; whHe probably every dealer will say,
upon question, that the people always are ready
to forget musical instrument buying at the
slightest excuse, and that the music business
suffers first and foremost in all trade depres-
sions, no matter how temporary or how slight.
Don't Blame the People
This last belief, however, is not tenable. Sta-
tistics show that the music industries run along
pretty much the same, year in and year out, and
that although we do have seasons of general
inactivity from time to time, the people never
do stop buying altogether. The straight piano
business is specially interesting in this respect,
for the statistics show that just so many pianos
manage to get sold, year in and year out; while
on the other hand the figures indicate unmis-
takably that the annual sales are not up to the
parallel increases in population and in purchas-
ing power.
When we turn to the player end of the busi-
ness we find that the conditions are somewhat
different. The player-piano does not sell gen-
erally to persons acquainted with piano playing
or anxious to learn this art. It sells to music
lovers of all kinds, and mainly to two classes
of these: the entirely untrained, who want
simply musical noise and lots of it, and the
slightly better trained, who want to have occa-
sional interpretations of good music done by
artists. The first-named lot are the buyers of
the foot-player, and the second, of the repro-
ducer, roughly speaking.
How Vast a Field
Of course these classifications are very rough,
but they serve to show that the field for ex-
ploitation of the player-piano in its various
forms is not merely very vast but has been
very slightly cultivated. No one can suppose,
upon any fair analysis of the facts, that the
past nine months, for instance, have shown any
general nation-wide depression of business or
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prevalence of unemployment sufficient to cause
a general slump in retail player sales. Why
then has there been such a slump?
Allowing quite candidly that the general con-
ditions of business have been sufficiently slug-
gish to account for some definite falling off
from the 1923 figures, which were unusually
high, one simply cannot help believing that the
trouble with the sales of 1924 lies principally
at the door of the trade itself.
Anyone who will take the trouble to go over
the news of the trade during the past nine
months will be astonished and taken by surprise
at the bareness of the chronicle with respect
to player exploitation in the retail field. The
retailers have, it appears, not been "on the job."
They certainly have not been exploiting, by
demonstration and by systematic advertising,
the virtues of either the foot-player or the re-
producer. To some extent, of course, the manu-
facturer can be blamed for this, that is to say,
insofar as he has been slack in stimulating and
aiding the retail man. It is the unmistakable
experience of our trade that player exploitation
on any large scale has always been originated
by the manufacturer.
Player Selling Is Education
So far, of course, all that goes before will,
by some, be set down as mere carping, no mat-
ter how true it may be. It leads, however, to
something more important and practical. The
truth is that the player business moves and
grows through one principal stimulation only;
and that is the stimulation of steady, practical
and persistent sales-demonstration.
Selling
players is not a matter of commodity selling.
We are not even dealing with an article like
the motor car, which is something actually
wanted by virtually everybody and which virtu-
ally everybody is willing to take considerable
pains to acquire. When there is any general
depression in business, due to whatever eco-
nomic causes, the consequent drop in automobile
sales simply shows that everybody lias a little
less to spend; but in the case of the player
business the indication does not follow at all.
Any and every sale of a player has to be worked
up by a sort of process of education, against
the general prejudices of the purchaser in many
cases, and nearly always against a tide of ig-
norance and (at first) indifference.
Against
these obstacles scarcely any other large and im-
portant industry has so much to struggle. The
selling of player-pianos, in whatever form, is
therefore a matter of scientific understanding
of the facts and of means devised to control
these and turn them to advantage, instead of
being controlled by them.
Motor Car No Parallel
In fact, the general conditions of business
have far less to do with the sale of player-
pianos than with that of automobiles or clothes.
It is more nearly parallel to the case of the
sale of books or of fine furniture. Even the
last named probably has a better chance be-
cause the appeal of fine furniture is to that love
of display and of luxury which is so nearly
universal. On the other hand, and this is the
secret of the whole matter, the sale of a player-
piano depends upon the success of our appeal
to the love for music, which is an aesthetic
emotion embodying no social advantage in par-
ticular, and remaining a matter of individual
culture.
Hence, then, the motto of the merchant who
sells player-pianos must be "education." How-
ever, the implications of the word may be un-
pleasant when rightly understood—that is what
the whole business conies to. Just in so far
as we sec this and carry out all it implies, so
shall we be successful. It is a case of for-
getting the misleading analogies of other in-
dustries and of devoting ourselves to the knowl-
edge that so far the public does not yet demand
player-pianos spontaneously, but must be edu-
cated still to the point of making that demand.
Education means advertising and demonstra-
tion, persistent and ever more elaborate. Upon
that basis player-pianos can be sold year in and
year out; and for years to come without much
question of the condition of other industries,
since, for years to come, the quota already long-
since reached in other industries will not have
been reached in ours.
Buffalo Dealers Refuse to
Find Weather an Obstacle
Despite Cold and Rainy Spell, Which Lowered
the Demand, They Foresee Good Sales Within
the Next Few Months
BUFFALO, N. Y., September 23.—Cold, rainy
weather has had a rather depressing effect
on the music trade of Buffalo, during the past
week, but it has not in the least chilled the
enthusiasm of dealers who predict a record-
breaking Fall trade.
"We have every reason to believe that the
first part of October will bring a good volume
of trade to us," one east side dealer declares.
"Buffalo is one of the first cities of the country
to emerge from the recent period of depression
and we are bound to feel a great part of the
prosperity that is now coming over the city."
In the past three weeks Buffalo has risen
from twenty-fifth to tenth place in building
operations. Practically every available carpen-
ter, plasterer and painter in the city is em-
ployed. The steel mills are steadily taking on
workers and the rubber plants are also gradu-
ally increasing their employment list. Laborers
are finding plenty of work.
Martin Kappel, of Kappel Bros., believes that
a material improvement would have been ex-
perienced this week had it not been for the
bad weather. He looks forward to a good Fall
business in Gulbransens, having a pretty live
list of prospects for early buying. Talking ma-
chine business has shown some improvement.
The Lauter Humana is receiving a great deal
of attention from prospective buyers at the
Charles Hereth store, in Genesee street. Mr.
Hereth is looking forward to a brisk Fall trade
in both players and Edison phonographs.
VerBeck Musical Sales, Inc., of William
street, has had a good month. They have just
completed installation of a Link Reproducing
Pipe organ at the Star Theatre, in Tonawanda.
George VerBeck, head of the company, said
their exhibit at the Hamburg Fair greatly stim-
ulated sales in Gulbransen and electric auto-
matic reproducing pianos.
The Victrola Dealers' Association will meet
on October 1, in the Hotel Statler, for its an-
nual election of officers. Luncheon will pre-
cede the business meeting.
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