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The Player-Piano
In the Piano Promotion Drive
Promotion of the Straight Piano by the National Piano Manufacturers' Association
Campaign Will Have Direct Repercussion in Developing Sales of Player-Pianos and
Reproducers if the Dealers Properly Handle Prospective Customers in Their Stores
IANO promotion in its relation to the
player-piano is a live issue.
More than once during past months we
have referred to some phase of this. But new
phases are constantly coming into view. For it is
a large question and has many implications. It
is a question which, needs to be faced very
openly and frankly. For, in fact, it is pretty
well loaded with dynamite, any way one looks
at it.
The present advertising campaign being car-
ried on by the National Piano Manufacturers'
Association is stressing the basic importance
of the piano as the substructure on which all
the contemporary practice of music, either ex-
plicitly or implicitly, is based. Necessarily,
such copy cannot enter into extended side
arguments. It must deal with simple prin-
ciples, and with only one such principle at a
time. That much is surely fundamental.
The question at once arises, then, how the
player-piano industry is to be affected by these
facts.
The answer is, we think, quite simple and
straightforward.
The Main Objective
Assuming that the straight hand-played piano
will necessarily be the immediate beneficiary
from the national promotional advertising, we
have at once to note that the main point of
the copy, the main objective, is reached as soon
as public attention has been directed towards
the idea of "piano in the home." Once this idea
has been brought forward, the details matter
very little. Even if the principal effect upon
the minds of the millions who will read this
copy is to stimulate only a desire to have chil-
dren taught to play the piano keyboard; would
that be working any disadvantage to those who
have been making, advertising and selling
either reproducing or pedal-player pianos?
And the answer is No, not at all.
That answer is straight and sincere. It
means what it appears to mean. For every
head of a family who reads that copy and
thinks of having a small son or daughter taught
to play the piano must himself or herself be
unconsciously led in the direction of giving
more thought to the basic idea of music in
the home. This basic idea appeals to the very
deepest of normal, mental instincts. In every
way it is beneficial, constructive, creative. It
needs only to be caught and turned to account
to be of the utmost value to the player trade,
just as the main theme of the copy is to the
straight piano trade.
And since, on both the retail and the whole-
sale side, the two are intimately bound up
together, the process of turning to account is
even simpler than might at first thought ap-
pear.
One Way Out
For surely the wise merchant, who is ap-
proached by a father or mother interested in
a piano for son or daughter, will tactfully
discover the extent of the interest which the
parents personally have in music.
In most
cases it will be found that one or the other,
if not both, has such an interest, perhaps long
buried, but never entirely dead. Obviously,
the way is then open to suggest (when the
P
question of some kind of piano has been pretty
well settled) that a player-piano would be the
very thing. Of course, the mother will have
an objection ready. She will say: "Why, we
want our little son (or daughter) to play the
piano. If we have a reproducing piano he
(or she) will only want to turn a switch. If
we buy a player-piano he (or she) will only
want to 'pump.' Where will the music lessons
be?"
These are objections which must be answered.
They can be answered, too.
And the first thing to say is this: "If you
allow the reproducing piano in your home to
be swamped with trashy music, turning your
place into a bad imitation of a dance hall, then
you may have some trouble in getting the
youngster to practice. But suppose you use
it to give your little son or daughter an eye-
opener to the best music. Suppose you have
only good music, as, for instance, rolls showing
the proper playing of pieces the little one is
learning. Suppose you put it up to the music
teacher and let him or her decide how the
reproducing piano shall be used. Suppose, in
fact, you take it into your home as a powerful
friend, and not as an enemy, of the music
teacher. What then?"
•'And, of course," our wise dealer will con-
tinue, "you older ones will have your own
days of musical ambition brought back to you
by deputy. You, by your own appreciation
and use of the reproducing piano, may turn
your home into a paradise and assure your
child's constant interest and the maintenance
of the ambition which is necessary to success-
ful piano study."
On the other hand, if it be a case where a
good player-piano is among the possibilities,
the dealer might say somewhat as follows:
The Other Side
"The player-piano is a man's instrument. A
child cannot play it with any satisfaction, be-
cause it requires an amount of physical effort
which, while it is nothing to the mature
muscles of a grown man or youth, is too much
for the feeble strength of a child. The player-
piano is ideally the man's piano. It enables
him to play music, really play it. By taking
rather less trouble than it takes him on the
average to get a decent swing at golf, he finds
that he can accent, to some extent, phrase,
and therefore personally interpret, up to the
limit of his understanding, the music he him-
self likes, in the way he likes it. If such a
man is wise, indeed, he will not absolutely
forbid his child to touch the player, but will
wisely allow him or her to use the pneumatic
action only on condition of trying by its means
to master accent, phrasing and tone. In other
words, he will treat the player-piano as an
alternative and painless exerciser for the young
student in those difficult elements of playing
which usually are not mastered until a key-
board technic has been acquired. With the
judicious use of the player-piano, the acquire-
ment of tone and phrasing can be much
facilitated, to everybody's benefit."
Of course, this means an abandonment of
the idiotic "no study needed, a child can do
it" talk which has been so fatal to the player-
piano; but in these days it is not too much
to ask dealers to put themselves abreast with
facts and up to date.
Here arc merely suggestions, but they may
do some good at that.
Darius Milhaud New
Welte (Licensee) Artist
Leader in Modern French Music Added to
List of Artists in Welte-Mignon (Licensee)
Library
A most distinguished addition to the ranks
of Welte-Mignon (Licensee) recording artists
is Darius Milhaud, who has gained interna-
tional fame as a composer of music of the
modern French school. He exhibited a talent
Darius Milhaud
for music in his early youth and his first in-
strument was the violin. After completing his
schooling he entered the Paris Conservatory
and won several prizes in violin playing, com-
position and counterpoint. He began to com-
pose in 1917, when he was sent to Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil, as diplomatic attache.
On his return to Paris in the same year he
became affiliated with the leaders of modern
French music, who became known as "The
Six." In successive years he developed as a
pianist and has toured Europe and America in
the capacity of pianist, conductor and lecturer.
After hearing his recently made Welte-Mignon
(Licensee) recording, Darius Milhaud felt in-
spired to write the following in praise of the
reproduction of his playing: "A lake on which
no breezes play reflects the surrounding land-
scape; a mirror portrays the face bending
above; and so the Welte-Mignon (Licensee)
reproduces with the same accuracy the most
minute details and nuances of the artist. The
rendering of a musician, his personal interpreta-
tion, cease to be fleeting moments and remain
fixed forever—thanks to the absolute technical
perfection of the Welte-Mignon (Licensee)."