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MARCH 28, 1925
THE
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
Educating the Player Service Expert
The Situation in the Middle Western Territory and the Means Which Must Be Taken to Meet Existing
Conditions—A Still Wider Development of Educational Facilities for This Work Is
Needed — Private Enterprise Should Be Strengthened by General Work
-"
~^HK Middle West of the United States,
whatever may be said of the East, is in
^
straits for want of another dose of tech-
nical education. The Middle West has had a
little, but only a little, in the way of educa-
tional facilities given to it by those who can
control such things. It needs a great deal more.
The whole player business is suffering because
this need remains unfilled.
In a word, the Middle West needs more
player schools, a great many more, needs more
teaching on every aspect of player mechanism,
and needs this not only once in a while but
regularly, persistently and for an indefinite time
to r come.
It is now something like nine years since the
piano trade of Chicago organized, under the
auspices of the Board of Education of that city,
a series of classes in player construction, opera-
tion and repair. These classes ran as part of
the city's technical night-school system, in the
spacious rooms of the Harrison Technical High
School. They were attended by some hundreds
of men, mostly tuners, but including also fac-
tory superintendents and foremen, who repre-
sented pretty thoroughly the entire local trade.
The classes were extremely successful and only
an irresistible' pressure upon the facilities of the
building in which they were held was sufficient
to end them at the close of their second season.
Since then there has been nothing in the way
of a systematic attempt to give general instruc-
tion in player work, although admirable in-
struction has been given by experts represent-
ing different reproducing players. No such par-
tial work, however, can possibly handle a situa-
tion in respect of player education which is al-
ready serious and which must become more and
more serious as time goes on, unless something
is done.
Mid-West Situation Unique
The situation is not the same, in the Middle
West as it is in New York. There the Dan-
quard School has maintained itself, through the
munificence of the Kohler Industries, through
every storm and every strain. It has even cov-
ered territory outside its own immediate juris-
diction, by sending out traveling offshoots from
itself, intending thus to assist those men who
need it but who do not see how they can afford
the time to come to New York. But even this
admirable work is not sufficient, nor can the
equally admirable traveling Ampico school
cover its field as it ought to be covered. This
is not because cither of these enterprises is
badly managed; for as a matter of fact each
one is admirably managed. It is because the
problem is bigger than can be handled by any
palliative.
The whole difficulty arises out of the fact that
the men who need the technical training on
•player mechanism are mostly independent tun-
ers, more or less widely scattered over a large
extent of territory, almost all very busy dur-
ing all or the greater part of the year, and
quite unable to travel very far to attend in-
struction classes. It. is true that hundreds of
such men at great expense of time and income
have traveled to New York and have there
taken the Danquard courses to their own great
advantage; but it is also true that such men
Attract the
Most Critical
Customers
have been always very few compared with the
numbers who need to be reached. Since, more-
over, it is to the immediate interest of every
manufacturer and of every dealer that player
service should be organized everywhere upon
the broadest and best of practical bases, it
follows that the question of teaching player
work to outside service men, especially to tun-
ers, is one of paramount importance in the
Middle West, because precisely here are to be
found at once the greatest need and the smallest
facilities for filling it.
Private Enterprise Inadequate
There can be no doubt whatever that the only
possible successful method for bringing to the
tuners and other practical men of the Middle
West that opportunity to obtain player instruc-
tion which is their undoubted right, must be
based upon the action within the trade. Private
enterprises will not suffice, both because the
task is very large and because it cannot at once
be profitable and efficient. If it is conducted
as a profit-making industry, it cannot be con-
ducted as an educational enterprise seeking only
to give infonnation. Its object must be to teach
every man who comes to it what that man needs
to know; and that means that the cost of teach-
ing each man must ultimately be based upon
that man's personal needs, and, hence, on the
idea of service.
Hence again, this is something which ought
to be done by the trade at large, not left to
the private enthusiasm of any private manufac-
turer. There is not the least chance that any
scheme for player instruction could cover the
Middle-Western field unless that scheme had
the backing and the interest of every manufac-
turer in the trade and of most of the important
dealers in the field. Thus, whatever is at any
time done ought to be done at least with the
general consent of the trade, even if some one
group has to do most of the actual work.
A Tuners' Association Job
The present writer is of the deliberate opin-
ion that the National Association of Piano
Tuners is the proper body to take upon its
shoulders the organization of all technical in-
struction; and he thinks moreover that in the
Middle West, where the Association is particu-
larly strong, there should be no great practical
difficulty involved in doing this. It would be
possible easily enough for the Chicago Divi-
sion of the Association to arrange for needed
space and to gather together the students in
the Chicago district; and moreover to make ar-
rangements for the holding of classes at stated
times. Then, there would be probably no diffi-
culty at all in getting every important manufac-
turer to help in the actual instruction. Thus,
for instance, the Danquard school authorities
would probably make no difficulty at all about
bringing out an instructor and a carload of
models, if only all the other matters were ar-
ranged in advance. Precisely in the same way
the Ampico traveling school, the Duo-Art
School and the Welte School could no doubt be
brought out again to Chicago, to take up still
longer and more thorough work with a still
greater number of students, if only, that is to
say, all the arrangements were made in advance.
Obviously this organizing job is a job for the
National Association of Piano Tuners, and ob-
viously, too, this job is one for which that As-
sociation is especially fitted. The important
matter of selecting the students could not by
any other body of men be so authoritatively or
so well performed. The equally important mat-
ter of arranging the order and the length of the,
courses, for similar reasons, is a work for $
group which represents the tuners.. For player?
service is in essence a service to be given by'
tuners. Tuners need the special training, tuners;
have to do by far the greater part of player
service, tuners have to carry practically the
whole burden of field work.
Again, speaking for the Middle West gen-
erally, it is evident that if a season of technical
education along these lines were once organized
in Chicago, as the capital of this great median
territory, similar arrangements could be made
in subsidiary capitals such as St. Louis, Cleve-
land, and Cincinnati, so that the whole field
might be covered. In all these cases the locaf
division of the Tuners' Association would be the
one body rightly competent to supervise the
work as it should be supervised.
'• •
A Complex Problem
;
Once started, such a scheme should be made
annual. The education of Middle West service
men cannot ever be entirely completed; and in
the present state of things it is safe to say tha'1?
five years would hardly suffice to reach every
good, competent tuner now working in the vast
territory, and give him a thorough grounding
in player construction, operation and repair.
Only when we realize what a complex thing
the player business has become can we under*
stand how impossible it is to obtain any worth 3
while results through half-way measures. On.Jy ;
a thorough, regularly recurring system of visit-
ing experts and schools organized under the
eyes of the Tuners' Association can, in the
present writer's opinion, suffice to the covering
of this vast and very important field. ;
i
$1,407,599 Net Income of ;
American Piano Go. in 1924
Company Does Gross Volume of Business
Amounting to $14,327,901 During the Yejar,
Showing a Substantial Gain Over 1923 Figures
An unusually interesting annual report is
recently made public by the American
Co., covering its business activities for 1924,
the net income after depreciation, Federal tax&s,
etc., have been deducted amounting to $1,407,-*
599, or $22.74 a share on the $4,341,230 of out-
standing common stock of the company. v
The consolidated income account for the ye'&j*
showed net sales of $14,327,901, with expenses^
depreciation and Federal taxes of $12,920,36|£
After the payment of preferred dividends;
amounting to $420,000, and common dividends
of $347,058, there remains a surplus of $640,541.:
The figures for 1924 show a very substantial
increase in the company's business.
r.''
Consult the Universal Want Directory Of
The Review. In it advertisements are inserted
free of charge for men who desire positions.
AMCO BENCHES
415 W. Superior Street
Chicago
Give the
Best
Satisfaction