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WESTERN COMMENT
REVIEW OFFICE, REPUBLIC BUILDING, CHICAGO, I I I . , JUNE 28, 1927
ONE may be forgiven for thinking that hardly enough interest has
been aroused throughout the music industries in the really very
important and significant Committee for the Pro-
Artists
motion of Piano Study, of which the membership
And
comprises so many names eminent in the world
Educators
of musical art and education. It is quite possible,
and perhaps probable, that a good deal of the value of this com-
mittee to the music trade will be found in the names and the per-
sonalities of its members, rather than in their actual work. When,
however, we consider how very eminent these names are and how
many of them are known all over the land to literally millions of
men, women and children who have very little active interest in
matters musical, we cannot but see that in arranging for its appoint-
ment the National Piano Manufacturers' Association had a ver-
itable inspiration. Mr. Boykin was perfectly right when he said
before the piano manufacturers at Chicago that one great need is
to revive the amateur interest in the piano. Without a doubt he
realized from the first, and still realizes, that the piano trade is an
old trade, that it therefore can hardly be blamed for being more
or less hampered, in the storm and stress of to-day, by the bands
of traditional method which have gradually been tightened around
it. Those who slightingly compare the piano trade with new and
ni^gressive industries born of the marvelous electrical discoveries
and achievements of the past decade forget very often that a new
industry has no traditions, and so has nothing to unlearn. On the
other hand, an old industry, confronted by a completely new situa-
tion, always finds itself under the necessity of unlearning a great
deal. So, in the present case, we find that the piano trade has for
years been slipping into the habit of taking for granted public de-
mand for the piano, attributing any occasional falling-off to tetnpo-
• rary economic conditions and failing to make any periodic examina-
tion of fundamentals. And now suddenly it has waked to the
knowledge that for years fundamental conditions have been silently
changing, that they are now wholly changed; and that a new orienta-
tion is necessary to cope with them. The pivotal fact in this new
orientation is the decline of the amateur interest in piano playing,
and the cardinal necessity is, therefore, the revival of that interest.
Here the importance of the committee of great artists and educators,
pledged to revive public interest in the study of the piano, becomes
immediately manifest.
it has vast potential influence and power for good. Let us at
least see to it that it has such encouragement, active assistance and
thanks as we can give for the work it proposes to do.
AND right along with this thought comes another of parallel con-
sequence. The National Conference of Music Supervisors has
authorized the appointment of a special committee
The
from among its members to promote the study of
Supervisors
the
piano. It will be remembered, of course, that
Now
the music supervisors are officials working under
boards of education all over the country into whose hands is com-
mitted the care of all things pertaining to the teaching of music in
the schools. The Conference, as their Association is named, has
the recognition of the National Education Association; and is
recognized by school boards everywhere. The president of the
Conference is now authorized to appoint a sub-committee of three
persons from the Committee on Instrumental Affairs to study all
questions relating to the place of the piano in school music training,
and to promote piano study classes in the schools. The Committee
on Instrumental Affairs of the Music Supervisors' Conference has
never until now considered the question of introducing piano study
into the schools on a large scale. The fact that such consideration
is now to be given constitutes a fact to which piano men surely will
not be blind. Pausing a moment to say that for this new develop-
ment we must principally thank C. M. Tremaine, the very able
director of the National Bureau for the Advancement of Music
(a department of the Music Industries Chamber of Commerce) it
seems proper to insist that the piano industry might do worse than
consider how many friends it has outside itself, for whom it is
never likely to do anything in particular, but who decline to allow
it to commit suicide. Apparently, if the manufacturers and the mer-
chants will not save the piano trade, the musicians and the music
teachers will come to the front and do a job of salvage on their
own account, which is all very nice, and in some way very flattering
and complimentary; but one cannot help wishing that a little of
the same missionary spirit were being displayed by those who are
immediately concerned.
O F course, there is always a reason for everything and we piano
men need not imagine that the action of the pianists and of the
music teachers is wholly mysterious. The piano
Answer
is a good deal more than merely a rather expen-
This
sive
and complex piece of manufactured goods,
Question
hard to make and harder to merchandise-
It is
perhaps mainly these things to the manufacturer or to the merchant
in his darker moments; but to the user, especially to the musician
user, it is something wholly different. To the man or woman, to
the boy or girl who can play the piano, even in an imperfect way
and with halting technic, the piano is as a key opening doors into
a fairyland of tone, a magic ship on which one sets out to float
over endless seas of aesthetic delight, a peep-hole through which
the enchanted eye looks into a new world of loveliness. It is
no mere bulky box of wood and iron and wire and felt, but a thing
of magic and mystery, the speaker of a language which the heart
can understand and the soul crave for, but which the tongue cannot
utter. To the musician, his piano is a holy thing. To the rawest
amateur it is as much. And we of the piano trade have to be
reminded what the piano really is by those who buy it from us
and put it to use. We have to wait for the musicians, for the
music teachers, for the children who love music and beg their
parents to let them learn to play, to tell us what a wonderful thing,
what a lovely, what a desirable thing, a fine piano is. We who
have sold pianos as if they were folding beds and have bitterly
fought the tuners for preaching that pianos need tuning and repair
at regular intervals, we who have played havoc with our own
splendid heritage and have turned the name of piano dealer into
one of almost dubious repute, we, at last awake, at last seeing what
has been wrong with us, at last resolved to turn over new leaves
HENCE, therefore, the very marked need to clear up in the minds of
retail merchants, as well as manufacturers, the place which this
committee should take in the scheme of promotion
Thoughts
now being carried out. It should seem that every
and
merchant should immediately wish to put himself
Dollars
in touch with this committee through the National
Piano Manufacturers' Association, and get from it at once every-
thing which can be given him in the way of inspiration and of
new ideas. Even if the eminent pianists and piano teachers who
comprise the membership of the Committee for the Promotion of
Piano Study do little more than look benevolent, a great deal can
be done, is in fact now being done, in their name and with their
consent, for the immediate benefit of every piano merchant. And
it is, therefore, rather mournful to realize that so far this musicians'
committee appears to have fallen into the lap of the trade almost
still-born. The American people believe in large names. When
a person has once become public property, innumerable virtues are
attributed to him or her, merely on account of the fact of public
interest. A great artist, especially if he have the reputation of
being able to earn a great deal of money, is certain to be thought
a great philosopher, a great politician and a great business man. He
probably is none of these, nor is there any reason why he should
be supposed to be any of them. Yet the public will consider that
if he can earn golden dollars in vast number he must be able
also to think an equal number of golden thoughts. Which may
be absurd, but is true. The musicians' committee has been formed,
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