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The Player-Piano
and Its Place in the Piano Industry
Why Should the Buying Public Be Interested in This
Instrument if the Retail Salesman and Music Merchant
Fail to Merchandise It Properly in the Retail Stores
T seems to be time to consider the position
of the player-piano in the American piano
industry.
As things stand, to speak quite frankly, some
merchants in the big cities tell us that the
foreign-speaking residents are the principal pur-
chasers of these instruments. It is said that
the native Americans are not taking any in-
terest in the player-piano during these present
days, but that they are either buying high-
priced reproducing grands or no pianos at all.
Is all this true?
The question is not easily answered. Manu-
facturers have a somewhat different viewpoint,
for manufacturers distribute their goods over
the whole nation and their aggregate of output
may often be quite high, while the average dis-
tribution per State, per county or per city may
be very low. Some time ago a very well-known
manufacturer mentioned a certain very pros-
perous community north of Chicago, a suburb
of the mid-Western metropolis, inhabited by
the prosperous though not extremely rich class
of business executives, professional men and
others of like kind who are said to make up
the backbone of this nation. It appeared, ac-
cording to the manufacturer, that by actual
count only one-fifth of the houses in that pros-
perous community at the present day contain
pianos of any kind, manual, player or repro-
ducing. If this be true, and it probably is, who
is to blame?
Twenty-five Years Ago
When the player-piano first came out
it actually was for a time the salvation of the
piano business, which business, by the way, is
always dying and always being revived. The
cheap upright piano had done so much harm
to the piano business a quarter of a century
ago, that the cry was being raised that is being
raised again now, namely, that the American
people no longer wanted pianos. Then along
came the player and entirely changed this sit-
uation almost overnight. Demand began once
more to creep upward, the trade again took
breath and began once more to live. All, in
fact, was for a moment well.
The Child Bunk
The foot-player for a time remained in the
hands of high-class distributors, who put it
before the American people in a high-class way.
Then dealers began to object, saying that the
thing was too high-brow and must be made
more "popular." So the thing was made
cheaper, every piano manufacturer began to
put out a player and distribution among the
dealers became general. This was all to the
good in one way, but in another it was just
the very reverse. For while the demand for
a time increased steadily, the merchandising
went all to pieces. In place of the carefully
controlled sales talk, with its emphasis on the
personal production of music, came the parrot
cry, "A child can play this instrument." At
once every musician turned against the player-
piano. At once, on the other hand, every
short-sighted merchant abandoned every effort
to sell intelligently and rushed forward to sell
to persons wholly ignorant of its possibilities
something which he thought it not necessary
even to teach them how to "operate," much
I
less "play." Salesmen, in fact, soon ceased to
talk of playing and spoke only of "operating."
And when the newspaper cartoonists began to
draw pictures of Pa "pumping ..he player-piano"
it was clear that the mischief had been done
and that only a radical reselling of the whole
idea to the people would ever get us anywhere.
The Reproducer Arrives
It was at this juncture that the reproducing
piano came on the scene. This instrument
again opened a new door, again created demand
r
HY should it be regarded as unprac-
ticable or impossible to sell to that
fraction of the American public which is
not in the market for the manual player,
and still likes personal production of music,
the player-piano? The American public has
been sold over and over in fads; and this is
much more than a fad, for it is a thoroughly
worth-while hobby, if nothing else."
in a new direction, again gave the industry
new life and hope. It was, it is, a wonderful
thing. With it one brings into one's own
home the art of yreat pianists, in every
pianistic genre. Hut the reproducing piano is
emphatically not the instrument for the wholly
unmusical. It is the instrument for the intel-
ligent and for the prosperous. It is the instru-
ment for those who wish to absorb music and
who at the same time are discriminating enough
to know what they want in music and to choose
that. Its influence upon the appreciation of
music has been and will be enormous. It is
the greatest teacher and best of exemplars. In
many ways it is the very finest aid to the
piano promotion idea, since no other instru-
ment combines the possibility of hearing the
best, with the convenience of manual playing
for the student, whom that best is stimulating
to greater efforts.
Musical effort, musical ambition ran never
be killed. Music is the only fine art having
vital significance to modern life. The place of
the reproducing piano is secure.
Explanations Wanted!
But the player-piano is on a different foot
ing. It fits into a niche all its own. On the
one hand it has the out-and-out cold-blooded
power of relatively low price. It is cheaper
to build than a reproducing piano, and can
be sold, even in an equivalently costly piano,
at lower retail price. But this is not all. This
alone might explain its sale to the foreign
speaking residents of the great cities, to the
inhabitants of smaller towns and cities, and so
on. But it does not explain the fact that one
house is manufacturing now somewhere near
to one-tenth of all the pianos sold yearly, and
that almost all of this great output is in player-
pianos. It does not explain the fact that one
great house manufactures player actions by the
hundred every week to send out to piano manu-
facturers all over the country. The foreign-
speaking residents of our great cities are not
absorbing so many instruments of this type; not
by a long shot. It may be that they are not
absorbing them only because merchants are
not going after their business. But however
that may be, it is certain that there remains
a large number of player-pianos being sold
which are not accounted for by any of the
causes as yet assigned.
However the player-piano may be bought, it
is certainly kept in use for what it does. The
player-piano is being sold to some native
Americans and is being used by them, hot in
adequately large quantity, but nevertheless in
some quantity. Why should it be regarded as
unpractical or impossible to sell to that frac-
tion of the American public which is not in
the market for the manual player, and still
likes personal production of music, the player-
piano? The American public has been sold,
over and over again, on fads; and this is much
more than a fad, for it is a thoroughly worth-
while hobby, if nothing else.
Golf and Bobs
Business men have been sold on golf, women
on bobbed hair. The first induces thousands of
elderly gentlemen to chase little balls over
miles of tall timothy once or twice a week and
to imagine they like the process. Bobbed hair
makes nine women in ten look like something
that was shot at and missed, but they all do
it just the same. Twenty-five years ago the
American public was on the point of being
thoroughly sold on the player-piano. Then the
trade stepped in and proceeded to spoil its own
game. Now, unless we are to throw away the
player-piano entirely, or abandon it to the for-
eigners, we have to do our selling all over
again.
There are in this country right now thou-
sands, tens of thousands of homes in which a
player-piano stands idle, because no one has
ever been taught to play it. Does that make
for new sales?
Ask a Salesman
There are salesmen by the thousand through-
out this land pretending to sell pianos and
claiming that sales are slow. Ask them why
they do not sell player-pianos. They will tell
you that player-pianos are not wanted. That
is what they will tell you. But what will they
really mean? Simply that, as they, these sales-
men, try to sell those instruments, the public
is not interested. But then why on earth should
the public be interested?
It is time for an awakening to the facts.
The retail trade has been doing its best for
fifteen years to kill the player-piano forever.
But the trade cannot kill it, as Gulbransen and
the Standard Pneumatic well know. If now
the trade will wake up, start in once more to
sell the player-piano intelligently, get behind
an intelligent campaign to put the virtues of
this instrument before the people, and ever-
lastingly keep at the job of demonstrating,
demonstrating and again demonstrating, the
player-piano will come back with the biggest
rush this trade has ever l^nown in all its
chequered career.
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