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OCTOBER 31, 1925
THE
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
The Player-Piano Must Be Resold
Upon Its Musical Capabilities
Its Sales Depend Primarily Upon How Far the Customers for This Instrument Can Be Convinced That
They Can Learn, Easily and Quickly, to Play It With Interest and Increasing Pleasure—A Return
to First Principles of Player Merchandising Is a Necessity to the Industry
T appears that not alone we of the American
music industries are having cause to wonder
whether we are holding our own. There
has been running recently in one of the most
influential of London weeklies, the famous Spec-
tator, a correspondence on "The Alleged De-
cline of the Piano." The writers of the letters are
mostly musicians—women who have studied the
piano, amateur music lovers, and so on. They
generally agree that the piano, as viewed from
the standpoint of the listener to music and not
of the trade, appears to be less cultivated than
it used to be; and they take upon themselves to
advance various reasons for this condition of
affairs. Most of them seem to feel that the
present generation will not concern itself with
what it does not care for, so that, since parents
(even British parents) can no longer compel
their children to do anything they do not want
to do, there are fewer murderers of piano music
in the shape of unmusical girls who have had
to get up the accomplishment of key-strumming
by virtue of spending one or two hours daily
upon a piano stool at scales and exercises.
On the other hand, it seems to be pretty gen-
erally felt that such a change is all to the good,
and that the radio, the phonograph and the
player-piano have made many thousands inter-
ested in music who otherwise would have been
mere philistines.
I
In a word, our British cousins have the same
problem to deal with as bothers us. They have,
in fact, to deal with the problem of the change
of public view. To-day the piano is no longer
a piece of furniture, to be bought by everybody
for show, for pretense or for social prestige.
To-day the automobile has taken its place in
the family scheme as the one big costly thing
to be had at all costs.
This is the point which all of us must realize;
and it is a point which has its reference as
well to the player-piano or the reproducing
piano.
Why Piano Production Was Large
Twenty years ago, let us not forget, piano
production was what it was very largely because
the pride of the average father of a family was
directed towards the idea of a piano in the home
as a mark of social standing. To say that the
American people were more musical in those
days is to talk nonsense, as any dealer, and es-
pecially any tuner, who actually dealt with the
piano buying and owning public in those days
will cheerfully testify. The public was less
rather than more musical in those days, and
even in the midst of the dance mania and the
jazz insanity evidences of to-day's superiority
are to be seen on all sides. What is not so
often realized is that neither to-day nor twenty
years ago has music been rightly brought to the
great masses. Not one person in a hundred
ever hears the great symphony orchestras or
the opera. The remaining ninety-nine go unfed
of good music, with a thousand other pleasures
and distractions beckoning to them constantly.
No wonder, then,"that when the piano has to
stand on its merits its sales begin to show a
falling off.
An Unsound Assumption
Parallel considerations apply to the player-
piano and the reproducing piano. It is too
often assumed that the reproducing piano, for
instance, must win its way by virtue of its own
performance, that its own music making will
sell it. But is this true, when we consider that
we have neglected musical education and
allowed our children so much to grow up with-
out it? Does not even the reproducing piano
require a certain slight, but definite, ground of
music appreciation, to make it successful? And
is not the field which, by reason of this fact
and of its cost, it can be safely calculated to
hold a limited field, limited so definitely that
its constant can be almost exactly computed?
A World-wide Condition
Now, the remedy for these conditions is to
be seen indicated, albeit vaguely, in the British
correspondence which has just been mentioned.
The condition is world wide. There are motor
cars, athletics, dancing, arid a vastly greater
desire and ability to spend money on pleasures,
all existing to an extent which would have
seemed almost inconceivable two decades since.
The remedy then is to be seen in only one
direction; in creating a demand for that which
the piano and the player-piano exist to give.
That is the fact, that we must to-day sell the
piano and the player-piano upon their merits,
upon what they will do. And that means that
we must put upon our merchandising program
the large, the lengthy and the difficult task of
doing our part to help the people recapture
their interest in music.
It is not that there is no love for music
among the people. On the contrary, every at-
tempt ever made anywhere in this country to
give the people good music has been rewarded;
even if often enough there has been no money
in the enterprise. One only has to watch the
crowds gathered around the band stands in
Central Park, New York, the lines waiting for
the opening of the gallery doors at Orchestra
Hall in Chicago on popular orchestra nights,
the crowds who flock to the open-air munici-
pal opera in St. Louis, the thousands who filled
the Hollywood Bowl day after day to hear Sir
Henry Wood conduct the Los Angeles Sym-
phony Orchestra this Summer, to see that the
American people respond to music. It is not
for want of a latent normal love for the tone art
among the masses that the piano industries find
themselves wondering why they do not sell
more pianos and player-pianos. It is for want
of a definite emphasis placed upon that latent
feeling, for want of the music itself in quantity
and quality sufficient, for want of a musical at-
mosphere. That is the trouble, and it is a
trouble that reaches right down to the very
roots of things. Bargain offers, special sales
and clap-trap of that sort will never reach the
deep-seated causes here described. The music
industries, if they are to continue to flourish,
.must take their share in producing a musical
atmosphere throughout this land.
If this be true (and it is true), then how do
the facts touch the question of selling player-
pianos ?
One Answer Only
As regards the foot player, there is one and
one only answer to make. The foot player will
sell to-day only upon its merits. It will sell
just in so far as prospective purchasers can be
convinced that they can learn easily and
quickly to play it with interest and increasing
pleasure. What sells the golf idea to the elderly
business man? The belief, in fact, the convic-
tion, that he can learn to play it well enough
to give him pleasure. His talk may be about
the exercise he gets, but men will not tramp
for miles every day over the hills and dales
of the links if they have no belief in their
ability to play pretty well. It is the sense of
accomplishing something which sells golf; it is
the same sense which alone can sell the player-
piano.
It is time to be done with the pestiferous
idea that a player-piano possesses any magic
virfue of its own which makes it intensely,
irresistibly attractive to persons who have no
interest in music. Obviously such a belief un-
derlies the whole principle of bargain selling,
for a bargain is only offered on something
which is generally considered desirable, but
which for some temporary reason is selling
slowly. The player-piano has no inherent virtue
of its own, it can only be sold on its merits,
and the bargain offer is an offer appealing to
everything else than those merits. Which is
one of several reasons why bargain sales do
not make profits for dealers.
Old-fashioned Doctrine
What is the remedy? As for the player-piano,
the remedy is to apply the idea of a musical
atmosphere to the particular case this instru-
ment presents. Is that clear? Then, if it is not,
here is the whole thing in a single sentence:
Go back to demonstrating, public and private;
demonstrate, play, teach playing; demonstrate,
play and teach!
It is the old doctrine which for long has
been very unfashionable. But it happens to be
true doctrine and when the retail trade learns
that this is so, and condescends to go back to it,
sales will look up.
There is nothing about this of patent panacea
or smart scheming or making deals or being
clever. It is simply common sense, hard work,
less of being an executive and more of being a
sincere, intelligent salesman, believing in what
he has to sell and translating his belief into
fact.
Ghickering Grand for
New Louisville Hotel
Special Instrument in Ivory Finish, as Well as
One in Mahogany, Together With Marshall &
Wendell Upright, Placed in Kentucky Hotel
LOUISVILLE, KY., October 26.—The piano depart-
ment of the Stewart Drygoods Co. has received
an order from the new Kentucky Hotel for a
Chickering grand, specially decorated in old
ivory, which when completed will be installed in
the hotel for use by the Royal Peacock Orches-
tra. Another Chickering grand, mahogany, has
been installed in the ballroom of the hotel and
a Marshall & Wendell upright has been placed
on the mezzanine floor.
Starr Nashville Alterations
NASHVILLE, TENN., October 26.—Alterations and
improvements on the four-story building of the
Starr Piano Co., 240 Fifth avenue, North, will
include the addition of two more stories, which
will be utilized as studios for music teachers.
Part of the ground floor will be leased to an-
other concern, and improvements will be made
on the retail store. R. K. Woodruff, manager
of the Starr Piano Co. Sales Corp., has an-
nounced that in the future the wholesale busi-
ness will be handled directly from the factory.