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The Music Trade Review
But that provides no answer. If the automobile developed as
a formidable competitor to the piano, the player-piano entered the
field, making every family a direct prospect for the product of the
piano factory. This alone offset trie so-called new competitive
elements and invalidates the piano man's immediate reaction to those
figures.
The piano industry during those years developed the widest
market that it has ever possessed in its history and, despite that fact,
it showed this startling relative decline. The player-piano made
music available to the great masses of the people; yet the piano in-
dustry failed to sell it to them.
The average family is worth more than twice as much in money
to-day as it was in 1900. These figures are, of course, slightly de-
ceiving, as the cost of living has showed a great advance during that
period as well. But despite this fact, real income, that is income
measured in purchasing power, has also shown a marked advance.
The increase in wealth figured in money has been faster than the
increase in expense figured in real purchasing power. There is a
greater margin to-day than there has ever been in the history of the
country. Yet, despite this fact, the piano industry has shown a rel-
ative decline. The answer is not to be found in the alleged inability
of the average family to pay the price for an instrument.
Conditions have very little to do with this entire situation.
Methods have everything to do with it. That is a fact that must be
constantly carried in mind. The fault must be found inside the
industry, for it does not exist outside of it.
What was the trouble ? First of all, it may be found, in a cer-
tain degree, but in a relatively minor one, in the manufacturing
problems of the industry. It was a transitional period, one that is
not completed as yet. At the opening of the century piano making
was largely a bench industry. Ever since 1900 it has gradually been
becoming what may be termed, in the full sense of the word, a mod-
ern factory industry. It was one of the last of American industries
to undergo this change, and like all of them, while undergoing it, it
has suffered from a certain period of stagnation. But, as has been
said above, that is only a relatively minor cause and may largely be
disregarded in consideration of the problem.
The problem was primarily a merchandising one. The industry
has not kept pace with modern merchandising methods. It has not,
with but few exceptions, sold the American people in the way they
want to be sold, in the way they have been taught to expect to be
sold, in the way in which the main currents of merchandising prac-
tice have developed during the past twenty-five years. It has too
often stemmed the current instead of swimming with it. And stem-
ming the current invariably means slow progress, or none at all.
Basically, the industry has not created a broad fundamental
market for its product. It has sold pianos as such, not what a per-
son gets from a piano. It has lacked imagination, with the result
that its prospective purchasers have similarly suffered from that
lack and have failed to buy. The competing merchandiser, who
worked upon his prospect's imagination, who visualized with him
the pleasure and profit that he would derive from the product, was
the man who got the business.
Before the automobile could become popular that industry itself
had to sell the idea of good roads. In 1901 there were twenty miles
of concrete road in the entire United States. To-day such roads
are found in every section of the country. No problem ever faced
the piano industry which had such complexity and required so
Mason & Hamlin in Concert
The schedule of concerts and recitals in which
the Mason & Hamlin concert grand is being
used during April in the vicinity of New York
City was released this week as follows: April
1, Victor Prahl at Aeolian Hall; April 5, Oskon
Onoton (a Mohawk Indian) at Town Hall; April
6, New York Historical Society at New York His-
torical Hall; April 7, Rudko-Morrini at Carnegie
Hall; April 7, Louise Stalliings at Aeolian Hall;
April 8, Boston Symphony at Carnegie Hall; April
9, Harriet Seymour at Aeolian Hall School;
much ingenuity to solve it, for to sell automobiles good roads had
to be sold, while the piano man had but to sell music. Which was
the more difficult problem of the two?
To-day the piano industry's problem is to make piano players.
The only direct way of selling the piano in the proper ratio to its
natural market is to cultivate among the children of the country the
desire to play, to make it easy for them to learn, to make it possible
for every child to study at low cost or gratuitously, and thus to
bring selling pressure to bear on the family of that child through the
most direct approach.
It is by no means as big a problem as appears at first glance.
The preliminary steps have already been taken. Instrumental in-
struction, including the piano, is already available in many of the
grade and high schools. More and more are making it available
every year.
But the piano industry, including both merchants and manu-
facturers, cannot afford to wait for the natural growth of this de-
velopment. It needs stimulation and co-operation. It needs the
work and support of the industry as a whole through its associated
activities, and more than that, it needs the aid and support of every
retail piano merchant in his own territory.
"Make America a Nation of Music-Makers" is simply carrying
"Make America Musical" one step further.
The Review has already told of the work that is being done by
some individual piano merchants in all sections of the country in
providing gratuitous instruction on the piano for children through
systems that hold their interest and attention, and by which they
make rapid and direct progress. The mystery surrounding the art
of manipulating the keyboard is gradually being stripped away by
this work. More of it must be and will be done, and the results, in
an increased unit output, will be directly proportionate to the amount
of work that is accomplished.
If the piano industry had held its own during the past twenty-
five years, if it had not made a single clear advance in output over
the natural increase that should have come from the increase in its
market—and this is disregarding the much wider market which it
possessed through the development of the player-piano—it would be
making a good many more instruments to-day than it actually is.
And it would not be in a position where the total value of its
annual output is not equal to the amount of invested capital which
it has.
In other words, it would not be confronted with the problem
of idle factory space, a problem that creates a tax in increased over-
head on every piano and player-piano that is sold.
In all this situation there is no cause for pessimism. Rather it
is a cause for stimulation, for self-analysis, for examination, for
thought and for resolution.
The application of modern selling methods by certain producing
units in the industry has shown what can be achieved in greater out-
puts. Every piano man knows those houses.
But what is needed is not a transfer of business from one pro-
ducing unit to another. What is needed is an advance in the total
output and this can only be had by going out and making a funda-
mental market for the instrument, by developing the amateur musi-
cian, by making the coming generation a generation of music-
makers. Work and brains are needed and the piano industry has
them in sufficient quantities to do the job and do it right. The
sooner it starts the better.
April 11, Alba Nardone at Aeolian Hall; April
11, Yourge Bilstin at Aeolian Hall; April 12,
Harold Bauer, Beethoven Association, at Town
Hall; April 13, Carolyn Le Fevre at Aeolian
Hall; April 14, Walter Hansen, Banks Glee Club,
at Carnegie Hall; April 15, Frank Sheridan, Re-
cital, at First Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn;
April 16, Combined University Choral Clubs at
Aeolian Hall; April 17, Harold Bauer, Harvard
Glee Club, at Town Hall; April 18, Junior Mu-
sical League at Aeolian Hall; April 20, Ossip
Gabrilowitsch, Lenox String Quartet, at Town
Hall; April 21, Harvard Glee Club at Summit,
PIANO
APRIL 24, 1926
SCARFS
N. J.; April 22, Harvard Glee Club at Passaic,
N. J.; April 24, Bauer-Gabrilowitsch at Carnegie
Hall; April 26, Philomelelia Society at Academy
of Music, Brooklyn; April 27, Paul Van Vleet at
Town Hall.
Waltamath Canton Manager
CANTON, O., April 18.—Al Waltamath, for sev-
eral years identified with the Alford & Fryar
Piano Co., in management of branch stores in
different eastern Ohio cities, has been placed in
charge of the new Fourth street store.
PIANO
COVERS and BENCH-CUSHIONS
0. SIMMS MFfi. CO.. 103-5 Weit 14th St.
OSCO
DlaaoM