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TECHNICAL^SUPPLY DEPARTMENT
William Braid White,Tec/twcel Editor
The Part a Research Institute Can
Play in the Piano Industry's Advance
Suggestion Made at the Meeting of the Eastern Division of the National Piano Tech-
nicians' Association Brings Attention to Real Need for Such Work
M
Y friend, Edwin Werolin, head of the
service department of the American
Piano Co. in New York, is a technician
who knows his business from beginning to end.
The other day, at a meeting of the Eastern
members of the Technicans' Association, he
brought up a subject concerning which he and
I have more than once talked, but which has
never seemed to be of more than academic-
interest. At this meeting, in fact. In- proposed
*hat the technicians should petition the National
Piano Manufacturers' Association to establish
a laboratory or institute of research for the
purpose of investigating the problems of tone
production, testing new inventions and in gen-
eral improving the present inactive technical
condition of the industry.
President Gutsohn thought the moment in-
opportune for any official action by a member
association of the Music Industries Chamber
of Commerce. He may be right; but I am
not an association, and so can say as an in-
dividual what an association might not wish
or be able to say.
For the piano industry is about to meet once
more in its annual gathering. Much of what
it will do or say will be colored by conditions
now existing in the industry, conditions not
too favorable to piano manufacturers or re-
tailers. There is, in fact, a very general feeling
that the piano trade has too long been asleep
and that it badly needs a general awakening
and a good deal of cleaning out. No one in
his senses, I imagine, would be foolish enough
to suppose that the piano, as a specific musical
instrument, has lost one jot of its ancient
influence. The difficulty is not in that direc-
tion. Very largely it is a difficulty of meeting
certain highly organized and very aggressive
modern forms of merchandising competition,
the very existence of which was ten years ago
outside the range of practical thinking. To
the extent that the causes are to be found here,
they are, of course, outside the province which
we mark out for ourselves in this department.
The Other Explanation
Merchandising explanations, however, are not
sufficient for the whole case. It is also true,
to what extent exactly we need not here dis-
cuss, that the piano business owes any de-
pression from which it may of late have
suffered to the almost complete dormant state
of its technical department. The piano indus-
try has become an industry looking backwards
and not forwards. And the only remedy for
such a state of affairs lies in the establishment
of some central point of research and inves-
tigation from which may flow outward to every
factory an invigorating stream of new, scientific
facts and new constructional ideas.
The past history of the piano industry lends
color to the belief that the establishment of a
research institute would lead towards fruitful
and stimulating improvements. When we ex-
Punchings
Washers
Bridle Straps
581437th
amine a grand piano action of to-day's best
make we are struck at once with the exquisite
adjustment of details, with the careful working
out of the leverages and with the beautiful
completeness of the structure as a whole. And
when we reflect that this remarkaBle piei.e of
mechanism is made out of little pieces of wood,
put together with tiny brass pins and a little
glue, and that for months and years at a time
it performs its function without even lubrica-
tion of any kind, we are compelled to realize
that this mechanism, which we now take so
much for granted, can only be the fruit of
much convergent work by many minds over a
considerable period of time. And history tells
us that from the time of Cristofori to that of
Pierre Erard and Robert Wornum nearly one
hundred years elapsed, while fifty years after
the first announcement of the Erard grand
action were still to elapse before the art of
action design and construction could be said
to have arrived at something like perfection.
What History Teaches
Consider, too, the patient bringing to-
gether of many threads from many different
directions which finally found completion in the
achievements of the great pioneer tone-makers.
And consider, too, the very remarkable de-
velopment of the pneumatic art, which
represents a real triumph of physical science,
coupled with engineering ability, often ex-
ercised by men far too humble in thought to
call themselves either physicists or engineers.
Consider, lastly, the technical attainments de-
manded of those who brought to practical
perfection the art of drawing tone wire. Or
of those who reduced to reliability the special
arts of plate founding and of hammer making.
All these separate and yet allied arts together
combine to endow the industry with a great
scientific and historical prestige.
As a matter of fact, the supply .trades have
always been the breakers of new paths, the
explorers of trackless wastes. Pneumatic im-
provement has not yet come to a standstill
by any means. We learn of improvements in
piano-plate founding, in wire drawing and,
even to some extent still, in action design.
We could leave the supply trades to work
THIS EXPENSE
CAN BE ELIMINATED
HOSE losses heretofore sustained
T through
mark-downs caused by scar-
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valuable booklet, "How to Repair Dam-
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A copy will be sent to you free—upon
request. Why not write for your copy
now?
The M. L. Campbell Co.
1OO8 W. 8th St.
Kansas City, Mo.
George W. BraunsdorS, Inc.
Direct Manufacturer* of
TUNERS' TRADE SOLICITED
William Braid White
Associate, American Society of Mechanical
Engineers; Chairman, Wood Industries
Division, A. S. M. E.; Member, American
Physical Society; Member, National Piano
Technicians' Association.
Consulting Engineer to
the Piano Industry
Tonally and Mechanically Correct Scales
Tonal and Technical Surreys of Product
Tonal Betterment Work in factories
KofereacM
to manufacturers of unquestioned
petition in Industry
For particular!, address
209 South State Street, CHICAGO
Piano Tuners
Also—Felts and
Cloths, Furnished
in Any Quantity
Woodside, L. I., N. Y.
35
out their own problems without aid from a
research institute, if they alone were to be
considered. But there remains the most im-
portant department of all, the department of
which I have no doubt Mr. Werolin was think-
ing when he put forth his plea.
Where the Shoe Pinches
I refer, of course, to the tonal departments
of the piano, strictly so-called, and to the state
of knowledge concerning the production of tone.
its analysis and its possible improvement. In
all the features of tone production, strings,
sound board, hammers, we are still floundering
around in a sort of bog. True enough is it
that action, wire, everything, more or less de-
pends upon the requirements of the tonal
department and ultimately stands or falls by
these; but that docs iml alter the general
argument. That argument states a simple and
profound truth, namely, that tone production is
still a mystery to the piano trade and still is
left to the caprice, the skill or the fortune of
individual men, who are supposed alone tr
possess the secret of its evocation. And that,
let it be said, is a disgrace 1 to an industry as
old and as splendid as ours. Tt is a disgrace
to our industry, because we have had ample
time to learn that tone production is a scientific
and not a haphazard matter, and that sooner
or later, unless we realized this, we should find
that public taste was growing away from us
and that we had no mechanism prepared to
enable us to catch up with the procession. We
have not learned; and we must now begin to
con our lesson when already we are stiff
and crabbed with prescription and custom,
when new ideas come to us hardly, and we
receive them reluctantly.
It is at this point, where the tonal invades
the mechanical, that we above all need to arrest
any possible decline in the commercial and
social position of the piano, by establishing
an institute for research collectively managed
and financed. Its object should be to solve
tonal problems, to give accurate information
on everything which may concern any manu-
facturer or superintendent in relation to design
or construction, and to pursue independent lines
of investigation in the expectation of discovering
new and profitable directions for invention and
(Continued on page 36)
and Technicians
are In demand. The trade needs tunera, regru-
lators and repairmen. Practical Shop School.
Send for Catalog M
Y. M. C. A. Piano Technicians School
1421 Arch St.
Philadelphia, Pa.