Music Trade Review

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WESTERN COMMENT
Facing the Facts
REVIEW OFFICE, CHICAGO, I I I . , JANUARY 14,
1929.
I WAS gratified the other day to receive a letter from the manager
of one of the great Eastern piano factories, in which the writer
said that the analysis of the condition of the piano
Summing
trade made in- my Comment of December 8
Up
was the first sensible one he had read in eighteen
Again
months. He was glad, he went on to say, that some
one was seeing things as they are and in a face-to-face way. Of
c,ourse it is nice to be told both that one has readers and that
sometimes one pleases; but the incident would have no special
importance for the purpose of this week's Comment save for the
fact that in the particular case referred to I did make a definite
effort to analyze the causes which have brought the piano industry
to its present condition. The object of making the analysis was.
of course, to clear the ground for the application of remedies, and
to warn the trade generally against repeating errors which were
thus being exposed and dissected. Those who had the curiosity to
read the observations which appeared on this page on December
8 last will remember that I made two special points. One was
that the manufacturers had allowed themselves to be directed en-
tirely by the demands of a retail trade which had convinced itself
of the importance of price and the unimportance of tone. The
other was that, as a direct consequence of the first, the appearance
of formidable competition of a non-musical nature immediately led
to the discovery that the piano industry had been built up on the
notion that a piano is a piece of furniture and not a musical instru-
ment ; so that, as soon as the public taste was turned away from
the fashion of buying large pieces of furniture disguised as musi-
cal instruments, the bottom fell out of the large-tonnage division
of the industry. The commercial piano began to go by the board,
because it had been merchandised, not as a piano but as a piece of
household furniture, bought mainly because its possession con-
ferred a certain social standing among the masses of the wage-earn-
ing and salaried classes. I went on to make the further point that
the high-grade piano had not suffered in any case where name
value had been carefully preserved, and that the prosperous women
of the land would continue to furnish a market for all the high-
class name-value pianos which could be turned out. The conclusion
then drawn was that the commercial manufacturers will have to
make their pianos into real musical instruments and start to exploit
musical culture among the masses; or else go out of business.
Now I think that this analysis is not incorrect and to that extent
heartily agree with the gentleman who so kindly expressed him-
self as pleased. What now matters, with 1929
The
staring us, as it were, in the face, is whether the
Women's
errors thus exposed can be remedied, forsaken. If
Job
they cannot, if the retailing of pianos is to be con-
ducted for another year along the old "bad" lines, then it is nothing
short of madness not to expect the curve of piano output to go down
steadily. I do not know how many pianos were made during 1928;
but I do not think that the number quite reached 175,000. The
falling-off below the figures of 1927 may indeed have been much
as 25 per cent. Such a state of affairs can continue only for a
short time longer without entirely disrupting the fabric of the in-
dustry. What would happen if the commercial piano fell out of
line entirely, or almost entirely? The high-class expensive piano
would go on because of the simple fact that from one end to the
other of the land, interest in music is almost entirely a province of
the prosperous women, managers of prosperous households, who
support the concerts, the opera, the recitals, whose daughters keep
the teachers of piano and other instruments going, and to whom
culture is something more than a name. Some of the culture may
be very thinly.spread out, but no one but a fool or a member of
the contemporary intelligentsia would sneer at it, for it is sincere
and fruitful. Without it, musical art and musical commerce in this
country would suffer a rapid decline and might almost entirely die
out.
BUT what about the commercial piano? If it dropped out of the
trade entirely, or became so feeble and unimportant as to be vir-
tually no longer of any account in the commerce
What
reports ? What would happen ? Would anyone
Would
be worse off? The answer is plain and simple.
Happen?
The other branches of the music industry could
consider such a possibility only in the light of a tragedy to be pre-
vented at all costs. The vogue of the piano among the masses of
the people must be preserved. If it is allowed to die, then the
sheet music business, the wind-instrument business, the plectral-
instrument business, the stringed-instrument business, the classic
and standard music publishing business, will each and all feel the
effects; and feeV them to their very great discomfort. Let no one
on earth imagine that the piano business could be allowed with any
degree of safety to suffer serious dislocation in any one of its di-
visions. There ,;are not enough expensive high-grade pianos to go
around. If there were enough to go around, there would not be
seen the spectacle of great retail houses taking on a German piano
as a leader (the irony of it!). And if there were enough to go
around, the masses of the public are not yet educated to buying
pianos at the prices which must be asked for the very high-grade
instruments. Moreover, mass production of high-grade expensive
pianos is impossible. On the other hand, if the low-priced piano
should die, then the interest of the masses in music and in the play-
ing of every kind of musical instrument would be fatally damaged.
The piano is the foundation and the pillars of all the practice of
music. A musical home without a piano is a contradiction ih terms
maugre all the prattle about radio and phonographs. Listening
does not make people musical. Musical people are made by learn-
ing to play, if it be only the player-piano. I had to take to the
player years ago. I learned to play it, and it made me musical.
No, the commercial piano must be preserved, and not only pre-
served but built up again to its old prosperity. To do this is the
primary task of the whole music industry during
Let's
the year now beginning. Nor is the task so ter-
Get
ribly difficult. The needs may be stated under
Together
two heads. In the first place there has to be
some clear understanding between manufacturers and retailers on
the question of halting, now and forever, the degradation of
quality. If merchants are going to continue browbeating and bully-
ing manufacturers on the price question, then the general piano
industry will remain diseased, and in due course will die. Manu-
facturers have lacked the courage to stand up against assault; but
unless the}' now take their courage in their hands, as it were, and
stand for their principles, they will die; at least as piano manu-
facturers. I do not blame merchants for getting what they can, and
I am convinced that if once the manufacturers stood together on
the question the merchants would fall into line. For pianos hold
up the music business. Take away the piano and you take away
the foundations, you pull down the pillars which hold up the whole
structure. That is the fact. The moral is plain. It is the manifest
and present duty of manufacturers and merchants to get together,
face the facts, cease from internecine warfare, make better pianos
at decent prices, and join hands in a great campaign to reintroduce
the civilizing influence of the prince of instruments upon the great
American scene.
—W. B- W.
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