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REVIEW
THE
VOL. LXXXIII. No. 22 Published Every Saturday. Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., 383 Madison Ave., New York, N. Y., Nov. 27, 1926
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The Music Teacher and the Merchant
and Also the Reproducer
Development of Master and Pupil Music Rolls for the Reproducing Piano Opens New Vistas for Co-
operation Between the Music Teacher and the Piano Merchant — The Teacher, Properly
Cultivated by the Merchant, One of the Strongest Factors in the Latter's Selling
M
ASTER and pupil music rolls whereby
the reproducing piano becomes a veri-
table teacher of piano playing—here is
the very latest and by all odds the most fasci-
nating idea that the piano trade has known in
many a long day. So fascinating is it, indeed,
so full of suggestive possibilities, that one can
hardly let it go without considerably more than
passing attention.
For in point of fact the reproducing piano is
forever opening up to us new and hitherto un-
suspected possibilities, forever showing to us
sides of its usefulness which had not before
been apparent. Just for this reason we must
conclude that it represents an actual and basic
need of our modern life. If the reproducing
piano were no more than merely a source of en-
tertainment, its life would be short, for it would
inevitably be deposed in favor of some later
novelty. The truth of the case is, of course,
the very opposite of this. New uses for the re-
producer are constantly being discovered, and
that is why we know that it is, in reality, a
thing really needed and not merely a fad.
The Next Step
Rut if it be possible to use the reproducing
piano to give to aspiring students the other-
wise quite unattainable benefits of actual prac-
tical teaching by great artists of the keyboard,
why is it not possible to go a step farther and
enlist the general sympathy of the teaching pro-
fession? Speaking quite candidly and not in
the vein of the advertising copy writer, we have
to confess that hitherto the efforts made to in-
duce the rank and file of music teachers to take
up with the player-piano in any of its forms
have been unsuccessful. Here and there we
find bright and up-to-date thinkers among the
teachers, men and women who look beyond the
mere routine they have learned and who try
to see music and music teaching from an objec-
tive point of view, as it were. These were the
men and women who declined to stand aloof
when the first player-pianos came onto the
jnarket, but tried sincerely to find out whether
or no there were something in this new inven-
t i o n which they might use to good advantage.
They even looked with interest upon the still
earlier cabinet player. And it is extremely
probable that if only the piano trade had shown
as much interest in the musicians as the best
among these did in the player-piano, years ago,
there would have been a very different tale to
tell to-day. Unfortunately, however, the piano
merchants turned their back upon the minority
of thinking musicians and proceeded to pro-
Y T OW many retail piano dealers really
A. J. make the music teacher a part of
their selling organization? Not many, if
the truth is to be told. Too many retail
piano merchants have come to regard the
music teacher as more or less a commission
fiend, and, in their opinion, have made the
great majority suffer for the sins of the
comparatively few. The article on this
page treats of one of the most difficult prob-
lems in the relations between these two
classes, the reproducing piano, but shows
that even that is susceptible of solution.
claim to the world the blatant He that the
player-piano could be played artistically by an
infant. Naturally the musicians were disgusted,
especially after they had heard some of the
infants playing. And a great opportunity was
lost.
But not, one hopes, forever. The false start
which was made with the pedal player-piano
cannot indeed be made good now through any
easy willingness to admit that we all once made
a mistake. The reproducing piano, on the other
hand, is in a quite different case. Here, unless
we of the music industries deliberately kill it,
is a favorable impression created in advance.
The rank and file of the musicians may not
know, as yet, much about the reproducing
piano, but there can hardly be one of them who
has not heard about the claims made for this
instrument, if nothing else. And so it may be
taken for granted that every music teacher in
the country is aware that the reproducing piano
reproduces the actual play of an artist, includ-
ing some of the greatest pianists known to this
generation, who have severally stated in writing
that the reproductions are satisfactory to them,
their originators and authors. In the circum-
stances, it is not a question of enlightening the
teachers as to the claims, but only as to the
truth of these claims.
The Fruits of Error
And here, it seems, the music trade has been
making a good deal of a mistake. The mer-
chants in geneVal have largely ignored the body
of the musical profession, apparently thinking
that music teachers are persons of little ac-
count. Now, of course, the fact is that the
music teachers, as a result of this treatment,
have followed their own natural inclinations
and prejudices. To them, in default of proper
demonstration and explanation by intelligent
persons competent at the task, the pedal player-
piano has been and remains a mere hurdy-
gurdy. To them likewise, and for parallel
reasons, the reproducing piano is hardly more
than a name. It is, to most of them, an "auto-
matic" or a "mechanical" piano. Every in-
stinct of the teacher revolts against the ideas
implied by these adjectives. The very thought
of such an instrument brings dreams of fewer
pupils, less interest in music teaching. To ig-
nore this natural prejudice, ignorantly founded
though it be, is not merely bad policy but is
actually absurd.
For the music teachers wield a great deal of
influence. As things stand, it can hardly be ex-
pected by the merchant that teachers of piano,
to take the most obvious example, should wel-
come with joy the advancement of the repro-
ducing piano. In fact, it ought to be seen as
perfectly plain that, wherever the parents of a
piano student ask the teacher for an opinion
upon the influence the reproducing piano may
be expected to have in the home, the reply will
be that it will probably discourage practice and
the pupil's consequent musical progress. The
opinion will be one-sided and manifestly dis-
torted, but that it will exist no wise person can
for a moment deny.
All of which is urged because nothing can be
plainer than the unwisdom of deliberately creat-
ing prejudices against a product on the part of
any group which can have any influence for or
against it. The height of merchandising fool-
ishness is to neglect any significant group, just
because it is not noisy and does not come much
out into the open. The music merchant in the
(Continued on page 37)