Classic Mode

Music Trade Review

Issue: 1925 Vol. 81 N. 26

Page 3 Text:

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
REVIEW
THE
VOL. LXXXI. No. 26 Published Every Saturday. Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., 383 Madison Ave., New York, N. Y. Dec. 26,1925 • l B | g . £ # R ?
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The Outlook for the Reproducer and
the Player-Piano in 1926
General Factors in Economic and Industrial Situation Indicate a Year of Stability and Prosperity—Music
More Alive and a Greater Vital Factor in the Country Than Ever—Seven Keys to Success in
the Sales of These Types of Instruments—The Pedal Player Comes Back
T
H O S E who would plan wisely for 1926
will not' fail to take into consideration
some facts which are not entirely on the
surface, and which might therefore escape a
superficial seeker.
It is being said by industrial leaders, as well
as by prominent politicians, that the business
prospects for 1926 are very bright. One must
always discount such statements, however, be-
cause in the case of the politicians they are
likely to be ill-informed and in the case of both,
superficial. This does not mean that industrial
leaders intend to deceive; it rather means that
they have a way of judging everything by their
own immediate interests. The politicians, of
course, are politicians and their business is to
tell the people what the people want to hear.
Which puts them out of court as judges.
Nevertheless, there are considerations which
can be viewed and correctly evaluated by the
ordinary business men and which reveal the
probabilities for 1926 with an accuracy quite
equal to that of the best advertised prophesying
of the leaders of industry. Here are some of
them.
World Peace
In the very first place, the general political
condition of the world is one of peace. The will
to peace exists and great practical steps have
been taken during 1925 to ensure its contin-
uance. No American business man can possibly
afford to deceive himself by listening to the silly
prattle of the obscurantists who assure him that
world conditions have no bearing upon his inter-
ests. Political events in remotest corners of the
world to-day affect the interests of every branch
of American business, and conversely the move-
ments of business or of politics in this country
have their repercussions north, south, east and
west. When, then, it is pointed out that the
political situation of all the great powers is
vastly improved, that definite steps have been
taken to assure security and peace on the Con-
tinent Of Europe—steps taken by the consent of
all the parties concerned—that Germany is be-
coming a member of the great parliament of the
world, that the purchasing power of nations is
everywhere improving, that the outlook for
a return to a pre-war basis of normality is
brighter than it has been since 1918, the Amer-
ican business man will see in all these facts
an augury of domestic prosperity, and will re-
joice.
Foreign markets, in other words, are likely to
be better markets for the American manufac-
turer than they have been at any time during
the last five years. That spells prosperity for
domestic markets, too.
Domestic Prosperity
When we turn from the world situation to the
situation at home, we find parallel causes for
favorable anticipation. The country has appar-
ently at last settled down after the excitements
of the war period. Employment is very good,
wages are high, and by degrees the great prin-
ciple of co-operation of interest, as between em-
ployer and employed, is being worked out in a
practical way. Generally speaking, it may be
said that both parties recognize the common
sense of high wages, as giving the individual
consumer purchasing power commensurable
with the producing capacity of the nation. The
higher wages are, the more the wage-earner
can consume. The old-fashioned notion of a
wages-fund which could not be increased in
size, and the parallel idea that wages are some-
thing to be kept down, have alike been shown
to be wholly fallacious. Probably one reason
for the comparatively slow recovery of Great
Britain from the waste and strain of the war
lies in the persistence of the low-wage fallacy
on the part of the workers and of the limited
or wages-fund theory on the part of the labor
unions.
Music Is Alive
Turning to our own industries we find that
the activities of the National Bureau for the
Advancement of Music have been most salutary
and fruitful. Music is alive in this country as
it never was before. Municipalities are spend-
ing money on music that never spent it before.
There never was a time when general musical
interest was at a higher pitch. The popular
dance craze, for that matter, may justly be
counted with the higher manifestations of music
appreciation in making this estimate.
Lastly, there is the promised relief of taxation
burdens. It appears that Congress will do
something for the taxpayer, and that it will do
nothing to hurt business.
Now, how does all this affect the industry in
which we are most interested?
Negative or Positive?
In the first place we have the undoubted fact
that the player-piano and the reproducer alike
fill places in the hierarchy of musical instru-
ments which cannot be taken from them by any
concatenation of circumstances within reason-
able probability. The player-piano and the re-
producer have survived the most formidable
competition ever put up in front of any musical
instrument. They have survived it in triumph
and have come out stronger than ever. If the
anticipated conditions of prosperity are realized
during 1926 it is evident that player-piano busi-
ness ought to be very good, to say the least.
It will doubtless be good. It will be good
because there is every reason for anticipating a
general condition of prosperity throughout the
United States, backed up by a general recov-
ery all over the rest of the world, wherever
depression has existed. Of so much one may
feel almost quite certain. But surely no one is
going to be satisfied with a condition of busi-
ness based upon nothing more than general
prosperity and a certain increase in the pur-
chasing power of a population which has added
to its numbers in the regular course of events.
Surely no one will be satisfied with so negative
a state of affairs. Surely we shall try to cash
in more positively upon so favorable a situation
as now impends. Surely, in other words, we
shall want to sell more, a great deal more, than
can be accounted more merely on the hypothesis
of natural increase and that can be expected to
walk in and sell itself.
Seven Keys to Success
Of course, we all feel that way about it, but
perhaps some of us are not wholly certain as
to how to set about cashing in on the cer-
tainties of 1926. The following suggestions
are offered with humility, in the belief that they
embody considered judgment and good sense.
First: Remember that the American people
to-day are getting a musical education of con-
siderable effectiveness through the radio, and
through the phonograph, in tone, in the different
instruments of the orchestra, in a hundred
kinds of music once wholly unknown to the
generality.
Second: Remember that this means deepen-
ing discrimination, not perhaps easy to trace,
but undoubtedly existing. Jazz orchestras may
be noisy and often coarse, but they have given
the people new ideas of musical tone, and their
influence must be taken into account.
Third: Remember that the reproducing piano
remains the most intimate, the nearest approach
(Continued on page 4)

Page 4 Text:

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
"Sell More Uprights!" Is the Advice
of Mark P. Campbell to the Merchants
President of the Brambach Piano Co., Maker of Small Grand Pianos, Points Out Where the
Retail Piano Merchants Are Missing an Opportunity in Their Field
V / I A R K P. CAMPBELL is called the "Father
of the Modern Baby Grand," and one
would think that he has always in mind the
small grand piano exclusive of any other instru-
ment. But no one has given more of his time
to the music industry and the piano trade, in
general than Mark P. Campbell. Heart and
soul, he is a music man. And when one thinks
back to his early training, recollection recalls
that it was in the upright field. As his first love,
the upright must have a great attraction for
him. Consequently, when he speaks of the up-
right piano it is from the bottom of his heart.
"The main work of our industry is to get mu-
sic into the home," said Mr. Campbell, recently.
"Extremely few homes can accommodate the
larger size grands. And there is a saturation
point to those homes that can afford a properly
built small grand. The market comprsing peo-
ple who want pianos but who cannot afford a
real grand is tremendous. Those homes should
be sold uprights.
"It is not worth a salesman's time to split
hairs on controversial points relating to the su-
periority of one or another make of piano. The
big thought to bring into the prospective buyer's
mind is the necessity of music in the home. If
you find people who cannot even afford an up-
right piano, try to sell them a talking machine
and thereby bring to their home that wealth of
music. .But get music into the home, some-
way, somehow.
"There will probably always be more uprights
manufactured than grand pianos. Although the
grands are showing a very large increase, it is
not at the expense of the upright piano. The
volume of piano production is as great as ever.
The method of constructing an upright piano
lends itself to price economy. It is not possible
to build a cheap grand piano the same way that
it is possible to build a cheap upright piano.
Years ago, before getting into the grand busi-
ness, it was my plan to do this. I very quickly
found out that it was not possible to make a
grand piano that was a musical instrument with-
out following certain methods of construction
and adhering to certain procedure which was ex-
pensive, slow and painstaking in its require-
ments.
"One of the greatest pleasures derived from
sitting at the keyboard of a grand piano of any
size is the perfect functioning of its action. It
possesses a smooth, strong feeling; a responsive-
ness and tone control, that is not found in the
upright type of action. This is due to the
grand's construction; but no grand action is
better than its regulation, consequently it costs
as much to regulate a grand piano action as it
does to build it. I once heard a man make the
statement in a hotel lobby: 'If it keeps time,
it's a cheap watch.' How well that would have
checked with our own experience if he had said
'If the action does not give trouble, it's a cheap
action!'
"Every action should function perfectly and
properly in a grand piano. It should be an ac-
tion that is made so that it will adjust itself
with use, rather than made with an attempt to
make it so loose in its joints that it could not
possibly give trouble. That would be a much
cheaper method of procedure, but not nearly as
good for the musician.
"Sometimes I have heard dealers and manu-
facturers of uprights state that in the past their
business has been poor because of the increase
in the vogue of the small grand piano. By
small, I .mean less than five feet. This is not
true. During the current year the production
of uprights will be off 50,000 instruments com-
pared with last year. There will be 200,000 up-
rights manufactured, and only about 20,000 small
grand pianos. This is such a small part of the
whole that it is hardly a factor. Imagine—the
decrease alone in upright production over twice
as great as the total grand production. Even if
all these small grands are sold to customers
who otherwise would have bought an upright,
it would only have decreased their business 10
per cent; whereas they are practically 25 per
DECEMBER 26,
1925
signed to the Story & Clark Piano Co., Grand
Haven, Mich.
This invention relates to improvements in
apparatus for playing musical instruments and
more especially to that kind of apparatus such
as player-pianos, wherein the note-striking
mechanism is actuated by striker-pneumatics
controlled by a perforated note-sheet passing
over the tracker-board.
This invention more especially relates to the
expression means of such devices. One of the
objects of the invention is to provide such de-
vices with means, whereby the notes of the
musical instrument may be struck with varying
degrees of intensity, in order to give more ac-
curate or artistic expression. Such expression
means is adapted to be controlled by supple-
mental expression holes in the tracker-board in
connection with supplemental expression per-
forations or apertures in the music sheet, adapt-
ed to register therewith.
Reading Tuners Meet to
Hear Convention Report
Probable That a Local Division of the National
Association of Piano Tuners Will Be Organ-
ized in That City
Mark P. Campbell
cent behind. So the blame cannot be laid at the
door of the small grand piano.
"The upright business is one that should have
the closest attention, and no opportunity should
be lost to sell one in a home where the financial
restrictions preclude their buying a grand piano,
in order that music may find its way into all the
homes in the land."
The Outlook for the
Reproducer and Player
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to actual personal presence of the playing artist,
more intimate than radio can make it, and more
faithful.
Fourth: Remember that the public does not
know half enough about the reproducing piano,
and can stand an immense amount of additional
instruction yet, besides ever so much more
steady and persistent demonstration.
Fifth: Remember that the social value of
the reproducing piano is quite as great as its
purely artistic value; and go after the trade
which has the money.
Sixth: Remember that the appeal to intelli-
gence, business and social, as well as artistic,
furnishes the only safe principle of merchan-
dising.
Seventh: Remember that the pedal player is
coming back and that it can be sold in greater
numbers than ever before by every merchant
who will study it, learn to demonstrate it, and
then sell it by the appeal to the personal "play"
instinct latent in every normal person.
Those who remember and practice all these
things will do well in 1926.
New Harcourt Patent
WASHINGTON, D. C, December 23.—Patent No.
1,562,163 for a mechanism for regulating the ex-
pression in apparatus for playing musical instru-
ments was last week granted to Stillwell R.
Harcourt, Chicago, 111., and Oscar H. Ander-
son, Grand Haven, Mich., which they have as-
READING, PA., December 21.—A meeting of a
group of local piano tuners and repair men was
held recently at the home of E. D. Kains in
Wyomissing, and was the largest assembly of
local piano technicians ever he.ld. The object
of the meeting was to receive a report of the
recent meeting of the National Piano Tuners'
Association at Detroit, which Mr. Kains and his
eldest son attended. George D. Kirchner, of
Lancaster, who also was present at the Detroit
sessions, was a guest of Mr. Kains for the pur-
pose of stimulating a local organization.
Mr. Kirchner was optimistic as to the benefits
to be derived here, as it developed that among
the tuners present were two graduates of the
New England School of Tuning, one of the
Faust Tuning School, one of the Danquard
Player Action School, one of the Ampico
School, and others who had spent time in some
of the larger player-action factories of the East,
studying the installation of electric expression
and reproducing actions. No decision was made
at the first meeting regarding the formation of a
local division, but those present were favorably
impressed with local possibilities.
Among those-present were E. D. Kains, G.
W. Snyder, Henry Simon, W. S. Hollenbach, R.
Sibley, George D. Kirchner, William A. Unger
and L. R. Kains.
Edward F. Vail Honored
by Technola Go. Staff
On the Eve of Departure to Take Charge of
Aeolian Co.'s Garwood Piano Plant, Superin-
tendent Is Presented With Diamond Ring
Edward F. Vail, long superintendent of the
factory of the Technola Piano Co., in the Bronx,
left recently to take charge of the Aeolian Co.'s
piano department at Garwood, N. J., and the
esteem in which he was held by his associates
in the Technola plant is indicated by the fact
that on December 18 the employes to the num-
ber of 200 or more gathered to bid him farewell
and to present him with a handsome diamond
ring. The presentation was made by Office
Manager J. F. Sullivan, the committee in charge
of the affair consisting of H. Zimmering, chair-
man; J. Siragusa, L. Cabasino, William Ruff
and T. Wieland.
On December 11 the Technola Bowling Club
gave a testimonial dinner to Mr. Vail and took
occasion to elect him an honorary member of
the club.
The Hopper-Kelly Piano Co., of Seattle,
Wash., has filed papers of incorporation recently
with a capital stock of $20,000.

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