Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
WESTERN COMMENT
Art, "Art" and Business
REVIEW OFFICE, CHICAGO, I I I . , JULY 30,
easy to keep before the mind steadily the great fact that a musical
instrument business is a business of creating the raw material of
music, that is to say, the raw material of an art; so that there is
not the slightest possibility of disconnecting the art of the fac-
tory from the art of the performer. A music business cannot
live in one of the meadows; it must live in both of them at once,
and be a business in art and art in business. That is the paradox,
the fate, and, just as much, the glory, of the music industry.
1928.
IF one wished to point out a weakness in the civilization of to-day
he could hardly do better than select for his attack the attitude
which most men and women to-day take towards
What
If there is anything which
w h a t t hey c a n " a r t . "
Is
distinguishes a good from a bad civilization it is
Art?
the recognition by the former of the true mean-
ing of the word "art." Rightly speaking, anything is art which
represents the conscious adaptation of means to an end; so that
any piece of human workmanship emerging as something useful
or capable is a piece of art work. The difference that matters
is not between art and practical life, but between good art and
bad art. Good art is good workmanship, no matter how humble,
but done honestly and with a sense of pride in achievement. Bad
art is work, no matter how pretentious, done dishonestly, insincere-
ly, and with a sense of pride in sharpness or shrewdness rather
than in skill of hand and brain. An artist is, thus, any man or
woman who does fine, honest work with greater pride in the fine-
ness and the honesty than in the success of some smart trick
worked in the course of selling. Thus, an honest, low-priced piano
made by a man who strives to do the very best he can for
the money is a work of art made by an artist. A pretentious ex-
pensive piano made by men who think that achievement once per-
fected need never be practiced again, and who deem it fair to
make the buyers of to-day pay for the honesty of yesterday, is
a work of bad art, in fact is truly not a work of art at all; nor
are its makers artists. And precisely here is all the meaning of
that much-abused word art, which silly posers have brought into
dsrepute among honest men. Art does not mean long hair, sneers
at business, a contempt for material success, the twaddle of "self-
expression" or anything else silly and contemptible. It does mean
honest work applied to a useful end, producing something per-
fectly adapted to its intended use and, therefore, perfectly appro-
priate, which is only another way of saying beautiful. That is
what art is; and what it is not.
I HAVE heard a piano manufacturer laugh considerably at the bare
suggestion that he might care to listen to a piano recital. I have
heard a dealer laugh with worse than contempt
In
as the door of his store closed upon a musician
One
with whom he had been doing business. Once
Boat
upon a time conduct like this was accounted the
sign of a good business mind. One then had no time for long-
haired musicians or for caterwauling concerts, and would not be
talked into feigning an interest in them just because one happened
to be in the business of making or of selling pianos and music.
Yes, once upon a time those were the brave words. They may
still be brave, but they sound deplorably thin and silly to-day, like
the cacklings of a superannuated rooster vainly trying his outworn
tricks on a farmyard full of bored chickens. For the fact, as
all of us rapidly, and some of us reluctantly, are finding out, is
that this music business of ours, particularly the piano business,
has to face the future from a radically new standpoint. It has
to learn that its principal need of the moment is an alliance,
offensive and defensive alike, with the very elements which it has
hitherto disliked and condemned. It has to learn, in a word, that
it is sitting in the same boat with the music teacher and with the
pianist, sharing the same chance of making land or of being sunk
without trace. To put it in other words, the music industry is stark
up against the grim word Art; and is in a fair way to learn what
that word really means; and likewise what it does not mean.
we like it or not, for the rest of our existence we are
bound up with Art. It sounds terrible, but all it really means is
that we must do for our business what other busi-
Terrible
n e s s m e n ^ o f or theirs. We must take an interest
in the uses to which our product is put, and strive
_
meanwhile to give ever better value for the money
we get. Which after all is only another way of saying that we
shall have to treat our business as an art hereafter. Better pianos,
better made and better sold: that ideal realized will be making our
business into an art. Promoting music, taking an honest interest in
the things musical, and ourselves developing an enthusiasm for what
we want others to do enthusiastically; that, too, will mean making
our business into an ?rt. Better pianos are a possibility than can
be realized here and now. Better pianos sold by promoting better
music are a present possibility of piano salesmanship on the grand
scale. A complete reversal of prejudices and of the belief that in
some way or other it is rather shameful to confess a love for
good music are steps along the road to the future. A sincere
interest in that musical world without which we could not exist
or our business have any meaning, is no longer a luxury, it is a
present and pressing necessity. The music industry of to-morrow
must be a scientific, sincere and music-loving industry, an industry
turning out better instruments, selling them in better ways, and
refusing to believe any longer in the absurd delusion of an an-
tagonism between those who make and those who use. In a word,
it must be and, therefore, will be, an art industry, art in business,
within the true and only exact meaning of the words.
—W. B. W.
WHETHER
ALL of which is said with and for a purpose. The music industries
always find themselves as if on a fence running along between
two meadows. One of these is called Art and the
The
other is called Business. The important question
., ,
is whether one can get down from the fence on
Meadows
° . .
either side without getting into trouble. To alight
in the meadow called Business and stay there all the time is simply
to proclaim that one expects to be able to deal with the Art of
Music and all that goes with it, while taking not the least interest
in it, refusing to look at it and avoiding all real contact with it
as one would avoid a plague. To take the opposite course, and
to spend all one's time in the Art region, in a state of contempt for
Business, is equally absurd, for it is to lose all contact with real-
ises". In point of fact, of course, the division between Art and
Business is purely imaginary. A great business leader is an artist,
and a great artist is necessarily a great executive, even though
his field of action may be restricted to his own highly organized
individuality. In this mechanized age of ours the music industries
are beset always with the temptation to forget that the field of
their operations is a highly specialized, highly organized and yet
extremely individualistic form of art work. They are tempted to
forget that a musical instrument is an instrument of music; and
that its existence as a piece of elaborate manufacture, involving
all sorts of organization and executive ability, is only ancillary to
its being as a maker of musical sound. In other words, with all
that one hears of mass production (most of which is exaggeration)
and of mass selling (all of which is lies), it is sometimes not
10