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THE
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
JULY 12,
1924
THE POINT OF REVIEW
'"P'HE music industry this year will see an experiment in asso-
1 ciation activities that will be watched with a great deal of
interest, and, if successful, is likely to develop local association work
to a greater degree than has ever been the case in the past. That
is the Western Music. Trades Convention, which will hold its first
session in San Francisco on July 22 and which will represent the
first attempt to hold a sectional convention of the industry in its
history. The meeting will have representation from all of the
Pacific Coast and Rocky Mountain States, an important part of the
retail music trade, and will consider a number of questions that
are directly applicable to the problems of the merchants who supply
the people of those States with musical instruments.
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T is an interesting development, not only because it is new, but
because the men who have promoted the idea and brought it to
fruition have done it to fulfill a real need in the trade which has
required a remedy for a good many years. The retail music trade
has never been really organized in the true sense of the term. The
National Association of Piano Merchants, which broadened its scope
by becoming the National Association of Music Merchants, has been
since its inception an organization of individual memberships, whose
officers and committeemen represented in most cases individuals,
and with an attendance at its annual meetings of individuals purely.
Due to this form of organization it has been quite impossible for
the Association to represent the industry in an entirely adequate
way, a thing which has been recognized by itself in its plan to en-
courage the formation of State and city associations in the future.
The National Association, despite this handicap, has done good
work, much better than really could have been expected from it, but
if its usefulness in the future is to be expanded and increased, a
reform of its membership plan is essential.
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HOSE who have come to this conclusion, and they are many
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in the trade, see in the National Association of Music Mer-
chants essentially a co-ordinating body. In other words, their con-
ception in the retail field is very similar to what has been accom-
plished for the entire industry by the Music Industries Chamber of
Commerce. Their idea is that the National body should be made
up primarily of city, State or sectional associations, each represented
by a number of delegates, based on proportional representation.
The annual meeting of that body would thus be confined purely to
the discussion of broad, national questions which affect the interest
of every retail merchant, and the amount of inconsequential detail
which at the present time clogs the National program would be
eliminated to some extent. The executive body of such an or-
ganization would be composed of a board of directors representing
the local associations, so that every section of the country would
have adequate representation and so that it could meet at stated
intervals, more frequently than is at present the case, and thus keep
the Association in closer touch with actual conditions. The sup-
port of the National body, if this form of organization were carried
out, would come from the local associations themselves, divided,
of course, according to the number of their membership.
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N annual meeting of a music retailers' association formed ac-
cording to this plan would consist entirely of delegates, each
one responsible to the local association which he represented, and
therefore bound to attend and take an actual and active part in it.
He would probably come with instructions and would be bound to
do his best to see that they were carried through. If this asso-
ciation were confronted with such a situation as that of the excise
. tax on musical instruments, it would have the entire trade organized
already and would not have to build an organization while simul-
taneously fighting the tax. It is extremely likely that such situa-
tions will arise in the future, for with the present trend of legis-
lation towards paternalism in business, and with the growing repre-
sentation in Congress of blocks representing economic groups and
striving for advantages through what is really class legislation, all
business must be organized for self-preservation or suffer the con-
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sequences. Those who are not so organized, and organized effi-
ciently, are in the long run bound to suffer.
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A SIMILAR advantage which such an organization would bring
•*• *• would be the greater interest in association activities by the
individual retail music merchant. At the present time the indi-
vidual who is a member of the National Association, with few ex-
ceptions, takes no active and continuous interest in his organization.
The reason for this is simple enough. During the average twelve
months he loses contact with it, for there is nothing to maintain
that save the occasional letter he receives from headquarters. Nor
can any further contact be had. As a result, when it comes time
to pay his annual dues, he sometimes feels that he is paying for
nothing, and collections become so much the harder. The member
of this type is no asset to the Association, nor will he ever become
one. More often than not he is simply a drag upon it.
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OUCH a form of organization, if carried through successfully,
^ would make the National Association truly national in every
sense of the word. With approximately one-fifth of the trade in
its ranks at the present time, it cannot be said to be that. Any
means it may take, under its present form of organization, to in-
crease its membership are too costly for its resources as experi-
ments along this line in the past have fully shown. On the other
hand a local association can run a membership campaign at a com-
paratively low expense; its own members can do the work directly
within the scope of their own influence, and every member they
gain for their own association becomes automatically a member
of the National Association. The cost is low, and if the plan were
carried out, there is hardly any question at all that within a com-
paratively short time the National Association would have within
its ranks more than a majority of the members of the retail music
trade in the country.
T N all this there is no attempt to merge the identity or individuality
-*• of the local association in the larger body, no more than the
National Association of Music Merchants has lost its identity by
becoming a divisional member association of the Music Industries
Chamber of Commerce. In fact, if this were to take place, the plan
would defeat its own purpose, for it cannot succeed unless healthy,
local associations exist. What will happen is that the National
Association will receive a much stronger support than is at present
the case, and that, in turn, the local association will have the entire
retail music trade of the country to draw upon when they are in
need of it. In other words, it will place at the service of the latter
resources which, depending upon itself, it would never be able to
utilize for the cost of these would be too great for it to undertake.
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HE present plan of organization of the National Association
of Music Merchants is a survival of a time when conditions in
the retail music trade were much more simple than they are to-day.
The advent of the general music store, the expansion of the num-
ber of lines carried by the average music merchant, the development
of more intensive selling methods all these have created a condition
which the present organization of the National Association no
longer efficiently meets. At least 75 per cent of the average music
merchants' problems which are susceptible of solution by commlon
action are to-day of purely local origin and need purely local means
for their remedy. With these the National Association cannot deal
efficiently. It has neither the means nor the aptitude. The re-
mainder of the merchants' problems are broadly national in their
scope and beyond the means of the local association to cope with.
Yet these latter are perhaps the more important and they make
essential a broadly representative national body. The efficient or-
ganization is the one that unites these two within itself, and is thus
competent to deal with whatever may arise. And the trend towards
this is marked to-day in music association work. What it needs,
however, is a stimulus so that it may be hastened and the end
achieved for the benefit of all concerned, within a reasonable time.
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