Music Trade Review

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8
THE
MUSIC
TRADE
WHAT IS THE FUTURE FOR THE PIANO RETAILER?
(Continued from page 5)
PIANO BUSINESS HAS BEEN ASSAULTED
BY ITS FRIENDS
Piano retailing has also suffered assaults
from within the industry. During the high
prosperity years the greater percentage of
piano selling effort was concentrated on the
player piano. From about 1918 to 1927 what
piano manufacturer or what piano retailer
emphasized the importance of keyboard in-
struction or of using the keyboard of the
piano? Who did anything to encourage chil-
dren to take piano instruction? Isn't it a
fact that nearly everybody in the industry
allowed people without musical training or
appreciation to show the public how to put
rolls on to the player and use the pedals
and levers and let it go at that? Is it any
wonder that the sound-reproducing inventions
of the past twelve years made such inroads
into the piano business?
And yet, is it not a fact that every one
of these sound-reproducing inventions de-
pend upon the piano? Can you imagine
radio broadcasting if there were no piano?
Can you imagine musical artists or perform-
ers in any branch of music if there were no
piano?
The piano industry did very little for
many years to encourage the study of the
piano or the study of music. Is it not sur-
prising that the sound reproducing instru-
ments did not entirely eliminate the piano in
the public's estimation when so little was
done for so many years to encourage the
public to use the player piano as a piano
and not exclusively as a sound reproducing
instrument.
It seems to be a basic fact that the player
piano continues to be the most useful piano
that any family can buy. The future sales
possibility of the player piano seems to de-
pend more upon whether the piano industry
will recognize this fact and promote this fact
with the public than it depends upon the at-
titude of the public.
There also appears to be a pretty general
impression among piano men that it was
the player piano that brought the greatest
prosperity to the piano business. Did you
know that the greatest number of pianos sold
in any one year in the United States was,
according to the United States Department
of Commerce, the year 1909? In that year
there were no player pianos. There were
push-up cabinet players but the inner player
had not been commercially perfected.
It is true that the player piano brought
the highest amount of dollar sales to the
piano retailer in any one year. That year,
according to the United States Department
of Commerce, was the year 1923. Is it not
open to argument, however, as to whether
the player piano brought the most net profit
to piano retailers that they ever realized in
a single year? Think of the large losses
there were in the player business due to re-
possessions which were made necessary by
the depression. The straight piano never was
subject to shrinkage in profit on such an
enormous scale.
If the greatest number of units of piano
sales took place before the player was a
commercial success, and if it is a fact that
there never were such excessive repossessions
of straight pianos as player pianos, is it
proper to consider the piano business doomed
because of the record of the past few years?
THE IRRESISTIBLE CHILD APPEAL
OF THE PIANO
Did you ever hear of a time in history
when parents were more interested in the
proper education of their children than to-
day? Is it not the almost universal ambi-
tion of parents to prepare their children to
meet the conditions of modern living in a
better manner than the parents have been
able to meet these problems? Is it not a
fact that parents are forced to give con-
sideration to preparing their children for the
problems of leisure time? Have you noticed
the articles in child magazines, magazines
for parents and magazines of a more gen-
eral character emphasizing the proper use of
leisure hours and the preparation necessary
for this proper use of leisure hours.
In his recent book "20,000 Years In Sing
Sing," Warden Lewis E. Lawes, of Sing
Sing, says: "98% of the prisoners never
learned how to spend their leisure."
There is no preparation for leisure that
even approaches piano and other musical in-
struction. Making music is the only social
art. It brings people together under the
most favorable conditions. It develops other
faculties such as memory, accuracy, coordina-
tion, and concentration which are valuable
in all other human activities. When par-
ents once have been convinced of these facts,
they become eager to give their children
piano instruction. There is no other spe-
cialty in the whole realm of merchandising
today that offers so much "child appeal" as
the piano. "Child appeal" is one of the
strongest merchandising appeals there is.
You need only leaf through the advertising
section of any magazine to see how strenu-
ously advertisers labor to build some child
appeal around their product or their service.
Very few if any other commodities or serv-
ices have the intimate and legitimate child
appeal that is found in the piano.
MODERN PIANO INSTRUCTION METHODS
AS AIDS TO PIANO SELLING
One of the great obstacles to piano instruc-
tion in the past was the long, tedious hours
of scales and exercises and the many lessons
that had to be taken before the beginner could
play tuneful and familiar music. More
musical interest and musical ambition was
choked out by the old system of teaching
than by any other cause. Happily, this has
been revolutionized in the past few years and
today nearly every community has its progres-
sive, modern piano teachers who teach the
children to play and to sing familiar, tuneful
music and reserve the dull, uninteresting
fundamentals for later days or work it in
as a mere incident in teaching the children
to play familiar music. We have just gone
through one experience with a mother who
took five years of piano instruction as a
little girl. This mother is a college graduate.
She had the most unpleasant recollections
of her music lessons. She stated that she
would not compel her children to endure
the uninteresting practicing and lessons
which she suffered for five years. She did
REVIEW,
December, 1932
recognize the advantage of being able to
play. It took a number of interviews and a
demonstration to convince her that her chil-
dren could learn to play and enjoy taking
lessons the modern way. She was finally
persuaded to buy a piano and give her
children piano lessons and today expresses
the regret that she did not start her chil-
dren earlier because under the modern system
of teaching the piano is a joy to them where-
as she missed most of the joy in the dull,
uninteresting practicing and teaching which
she was compelled to endure as a child. We
count it one of the favorable trends for .the
piano that music teaching has been revolu-
tionized.
SUCCESSFUL RETAIL PLAN
Here at York we have worked out a plan
for selecting children and persuading their
parents to allow us to introduce them to the
joys of playing the piano. Through this
we have greatly increased the number of
pianos we are selling. We have secured the
whole-hearted cooperation of most of the
piano teachers of our community. Our cus-
tomers who have bought pianos for the
musical education of their children express
gratitude for having shown them the advan-
tages of piano instruction and for having
started their children in music. No industry
that today so arouses the gratitude of its
customers can pass out. The piano retailers
of America have a great opportunity to make
the present generation of children not only
a music-loving but a music-making genera-
tion and to greatly increase the sale of
pianos thereby.
RETURNING REGARD FOR THE PIANO
During the period of greatest decline of
public interest in the piano many families
sold their pianos. Where there are young
people in the families some of these people
have recently bought new pianos. They ex-
press regret at their short-sightedness in hav-
ing sold their pianos a few years ago. Can
there be any more severe test of the sound-
ness of an industry than that those who
turned their backs on it a few years ago
should now be returning to it and acknowl-
edge their mistakes by purchasing anew?
TIME TO TAKE A N
INVENTORY
It seems to us that this is the time for
every piano retailer to take an inventory of
the sales possibilities of the piano. If the
above statements are "facts" the piano re-
tailer should muster all of his enthusiasm
and ingenuity and integrity, to sell the maxi-
mum number of pianos during the balance
of this depression. Retailers in all lines are
fighting for their commercial existence. To
survive in business seeins to require faith in
the future, a love for the business and
courage to fight the battles that are necessary.
The faith that is required must be an en-
thusiastic expressive faith. The love for the
business must be founded upon a substantial
respect for the benefit derived by those who
study and use the piano. Courage to carry
on must be accompanied by energy directed
at the sale of pianos.
Is it not, therefore, time to take an in-
ventory of the future possibilities of the piano
and to determine if there are fallacies in
the reasoning contained in this article and
to add to this article any other pertinent
facts ?