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Player Demonstration
Has a Great Publicity Value
Player-Piano Playing Contest Among the Tuners by the Standard
Pneumatic Action Co. Indication of What Can Be Done by Exten-
sion of This Work to Take in the General Public in Similar Event
T
WV. player-piano is really looking up.
Here are the tuners of Cleveland, Detroit
and Toledo planning a contest among
lliemselves to determine who is their champion
player-pianist. This man they plan to send
to New York to their national convention in
August, with the hope that he will be able
to carry off the trophy of victory from all
other contestants who will take part at that
time in the national player-piano-playing tour-
nament which will be held by the Standard
Pneumatic Action Co. This is all to the good,
for it indicates that these important men are
awake to the needs of the player-piano business
and to the rather critical situation in which it
begins to find itself.
The player-piano-playing contest held last
year by the Standard Pneumatic Action Co.
at the tuners' convention was distinctly an ex-
perimental thing. But although it had very
little, too little, advance publicity and attracted
far too few entrants, it was very instructive
and gave many good pointers for future work-
along the same lines. Among other things it
distinctly showed that the tuners are hardly
better than the salesmen in an understanding
of the art of playing the player-piano. In fact,
it only tended to pile up more evidence in
support of the now quite general belief among
the well-informed that this art, on which the
whole player business originally was built, has
almost disappeared.
Tuners
Yet, the present writer may say with truth
that he has never met a tuner yet who did
not confess to an interest in the music of the
player-piano and who did not betray a con-
sciousness that he understood at least some-
thing of its musical possibilities. There are
tuners who play the player-piano very well.
There are tuners who make it a point to teach
their customers all they themselves know about
this wonderful hobby, and who freely say that
their professional success is greatly facilitated
thereby. But on the other hand, it is no more
than the simple truth to say that almost every
intelligent tuner confesses that he knows far
less than he ought to about the art, although
he usually feels, with some justice, that he
knows much more than most of the merchants
within his circle of acquaintance.
Revival Wanted
Of course there may be those who do not
care whether the pedal player-piano ever comes
back into its original splendor. To them what
follows will be of no interest whatever. But
so long as there remains one man in the trade
with some understanding of the selling possi-
bilities of the player rightly demonstrated, it
will be worth while to repeat and again repeat,
that a large sale revival of player playing is
urgently needed. Such a revival can hardly
better proceed than along the lines which the
piano promotion committee has found to be
fruitful. In a word, contests, regional and
national, are indicated in this case just as clear-
ly as they were indicated in the other.
It is no time to be mealy-mouthed about the
matter. The present writer has had as much
experience as any man now living on this par-
ticular subject, and he says without the slightest
hesitation that the player-piano can be played
well by any normal man or woman, by anyone
not actually feeble-minded, who will give to it
one-quarter of the time required to learn the
art of playing golf badly. And he says, too,
that once a normal man or woman has sensed,
or been put in the way of sensing, the playing
possibilities of the player-piano, that man or
woman has been provided with a hobby that
r
HE value of the player piano as a mu-
sical instrument, and therefore its in-
herent sales quality, stands or falls on the
way in ichich it is demonstrated to the
purchasing
public. Of recent years this
factor has been generally disregarded and
to that can be traced the loss in prestige
which has come to the foot-power instru-
ment. Its revival is essentially a question
of publicity based on musical ideas instead
of price and terms.
will never seem to be old, never stale, that
will never cease to delight. It is nothing short
of shameful that the trade as a whole should
have allowed their own enthusiasm in this
marvelous instrument to lag.
Contests Indicated
This is not the place to discuss causes. Wha'.
now interests is the matter of revival. And
the statement is here made unequivocally that
the first step towards revival is the organiza-
tion of a nation-wide player-playing contest,
to be confined for the first occasion to the
trade, and to carry prizes of sufficient value
to attract the interest and attention of everj
tuner, salesman or other member of the trade
who has ever tried to differentiate between a
strong and a gentle push on the pedals of a
player-piano. Such a contest, properly staged,
with regional eliminations and a finale open to
the public, will excite quite as much interest
as the ordinary piano-playing tournament
among children.
Technic and Intelligence
For just consider the possibilities of the
thing. The player-piano contest has to be
thought of as something quite different from
an ordinary contest among amateur players of
the piano. The question of finger technic does
not even enter here. Everything is tone,
phrasing, general musical intelligence as applied
to the interpretation of the pieces provided. In
fact, the whole thing ultimately becomes a
contest to decide on two points only, (a) mas-
lery of the pedal and tempo lever technic and
(b) general musical understanding. Of course
each influences the other. A man who has
musical intelligence cannot fail to obtain good
pedal technic. A man who has taken the trou-
ble to acquire good pedal technic will certainly
have meanwhile acquired, a fortiori, something
of musical intelligence. Either of the qualities
may be greater in any case, but the supreme
master will be he who combines them, to the
greatest possible excellence of both.
The player-piano is no hurdy-gurdy. Let
there be no mistake on that score. The player
piano, even without hand-played music to help
interpretation, can be played to such astonish-
ing musical effect as to awaken the admiration
of every listener, and, moreover, this without
departing from sane and accepted standards of
musical interpretation. The player-piano, more-
over, need not be used merely as a solo in-
strument. It is an excellent accompanist, it
furnishes an impeccable partner in an ensemble
and even with a second piano, hand played,
j-hows itself worthy to take part in the most
serious exhibitions of musical art. In a word,
the player-piano is a musical instrument, in
some ways the most wonderful of all such
instruments. It gives musical results exactly
equal to the powers exerted by the man who
plays it. And these powers may be pushed
to almost any extent of excellence.
Well, Why Not?
Why should there not be, then, for this Fall
or for next Spring, a gigantic player-piano-
playing tournament, open to all the trade, with-
regional eliminating contests and a grand finale
in Chicago or New York? Given fairly decent
management, the thing could be kept in the
papers, generating interest and enthusiasm
among the public for months, and ending in
a blaze of glory such as even one of the great
piano-playing contests could not outshine. For
the player-piano, be it always remembered, is
still almost an absolute mystery to the average
American citizen. Still, it is something the
average man hardly knows at all. Still, most
people believe that it cannot possibly be played
well. A demonstration on a large scale in;
every region where there is a regional mer-
chants' association would not only be a won-
derful thing to read about, but a still more
wonderful thing, for the trade's sake, to put
across.
And it can be put across. The half a dozen
large manufacturing houses which have inter-
ests in the player-piano game could ask no
better opportunity to do something for them-
selves than that which is presented here. The
matter of organization is not difficult and the
matter of program, judging, etc., is equally
simple. The requisites are (a) to take it seri-
ously, (b) to have expert advice musically and
as a matter of trade diplomacy, (c)» to look'
after the publicity.
And when once a trade contest had been
pulled off successfully, what would there be to
prevent us pulling off next year a double event, •
one for the trade and one for the owners? •
New Doll Manager
O. Freund, Jr., who has been identified with
the New York piano trade about twenty-two
years, has been made manager of the retail
store of Jacob Doll & Sons, 39 Second avenue.
Mr. Freund was for many years identified with
the Biddle Piano Co., New York, representing
this house on the road in New England ter-
ritory and in later years acting as manager
of the 125th street store.
Consult the Universal Want Directory of
The Review.