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VOL. LXXXI. No. 21 P«bli$hed Every Satwday. Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., 383 Madison Ave., New York, N. Y. Nov. 21,1925
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"Back to the Class Room" Should Be
the Piano Dealers' Slogan
William Lincoln Bush Points Out the Necessity of the Retail Piano Merchant Not Only Supporting Class
Instruction on the Piano in the Schools but in Developing This Work in Conjunction With His
Own Warerooms — The Necessity of Expanding This Work on a Greater Scale
T
H E R E is a growing interest and a grad-
ual awakening among the thinking,
progressive men of the piano trade, both
manufacturers and retailers of pianos, regarding
the present opportunity of greatly increasing
the market and normal demand for pianos by
establishing a fundamental basis of education
in piano music and piano playing through the
creation and maintenance of a regular depart-
ment in the public schools throughout the en-
tire United States of regular courses of piano
class lessons. These lessons must be given by
capable, musically qualified and graduated
teachers, fitted and prepared for the work by
actual study and mastery of a complete, offi-
cially approved and established system of teach-
ing, including textbooks, charts and equipment
installed in classrooms especially adapted to
this educational work of practical musical ad-
vancement that will soon be national in charac-
ter and unselfish, democratic and practical in
manner of application. Thus can be created in
the children of America a love and appreciation
of piano music. The piano affords the highest
instrumental and individual form of musical ex-
pression contained in any one instrument, which,
with equal facility and effect, lends itself and its
great breadth of tone, scale, comprehensive-
ness and scope to either solo work, ensemble
work or concerto, also as an accompaniment to
voice or chorus, as well as to any solo instru-
ment or combination of instruments.
The Piano the Basis
The piano is really the basic and leading mu-
sical instrument of this present musical epoch.
My familiarity with educational work in mu-
sic, through my close affiliation and association
with Bush Conservatory in Chicago and the
Bush Temple School of Music in Dallas, Tex.,
where every branch of musical education is rep-
resented and taught, has given me special op-
portunity to judge of the advantage of teach-
ing young children of the fifth, sixth and sev-
enth public school grades the piano, in group
or class formation, under advanced perfected
systems adapted to class work, such as the
Fletcher-Kopp System, the Dunning System,
the Curtis System, the Premier System and the
system which, through the efforts and energy
of W. Otto Miessner, has become the most fa-
miliar and best known to the piano trade as the
"Melody Way." This is in use in many public
schools, private schools, conservatories and in-
stitutions, besides many classrooms created and
established by piano and musical merchandise
dealers, and represents the most practical, eco-
nomical, effective and productive form of funda-
mental musical education. It sets forth an
example and an undertaking well worthy of
emulating and adopting as the great oppor-
W. L. Bush
tunity and practical means of creating a gener-
ation of piano players and prospective pur-
chasers that, if properly conducted and ad-
vanced, will stimulate piano production beyond
the hopes or visions of our most enthusiastic
and optimistic advocates for the straight piano
and its logical companions for favor, the player-
pianos and reproducing pianos, of which true
appreciation can best be realized by those who
know and study the piano and its possibilities.
What Is Being Done
On my recent trip West, and preceding ones
in other directions, I have talked with many
educators, piano teachers, supervisors of public
school music, directors of conservatories, lead-
ers of bands and orchestras, instructors of
classes in both instrumental and vocal work,
seeking opinions, suggestions and actual ex-
periences regarding the real progress and de-
velopment of children working in classes, where
the stimulating effect of competitive strife and
endeavor is emphasized by ardent, enthusiastic
work of the individual, spurred on by the intel-
ligent, sympathetic appeal of an instructor who
glories in accomplishment and work well and
faithfully performed, and who strives to im-
press the parents of children engaged in such
class work with the moral benefits and social
advantages that accrue to the successful stu-
dent of music, and of the piano especially.
I have talked with children engaged in the
work and have heard expressions of childish de-
light and enthusiasm seldom found in a child
working in solitude over intricate tasks assigned
from week to week in the form of lessons on
elementary rudimental work. That loses its bur-
den of drudgery under the stimulus of class
association.
I could cite numerous outstanding examples
of successful work now being conducted, but it
would require too much space for details. I
specifically call your attention,
however,
to the outstanding examples of established
classes being conducted in some of the
public schools in Dallas, Tex.; Kansas City,
Mo.; Topcka, Kan.; Milwaukee, Wis.; Des
Moines, la.; Mankato, Minn., and numer-
ous other cities. In addition, a large num-
ber of dealers have equipped special rooms
with regular school or classroom equipment and
have engaged graduate teachers in normal class
work to conduct classes, and with surprising
success in securing capacity enrollment of en-
thusiastic, ambitions children, whose parents
gladly welcome this economical class tuition
given by experienced graduates in class work.
The cost is about 10 per cent of the cost of
private lessons under a capable teacher.
Of Vital Trade Interest
This subject is important and should be of
vital interest to every piano manufacturer and
dealer in the country, once its value, sig-
nificance and relation to piano output and sales
is realized and grasped by the members of our
trade bodies and organizations. It is most en-
couraging to note the special reference and at-
tention paid to this very important work at the
last meeting of the executive board of the Na-
tional Association of Music Merchants and the
proposed placing of this great educational cam-
paign to stimulate the study of music under a
(Continued on page 4)