Classic Mode

Music Trade Review

Issue: 1946 Vol. 105 N. 2

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
the OPA regarding the deoontrol of piano prices, it is a
sign, in our opinion, that there are more goings on in the
inner circle than are being published. In that communica-
tion the OPA stated it wanted to decontrol pianos but that
the Office of Stabilization wouldn't let it. Huh! At the
same time it declared that the decontrolling of musical
instruments had been discussed but that it felt necessary to
continue price ceilings because students of music were large
purchasers and as musical instruments were deemed neces-
sities in the light of education it was felt advisable to con-
tinue the price control. Huh! Again. So, again we have
one agency classing musical instruments as necessitiies
while another still maintains an excise tax on them as
luxuries. Huh! Again.
The cMusk J/iade
REVIEW
Established 1879
CARLETON CHACE. Editor
OPA Forcing Youth to Buy Used Instruments
Wm. J. Dougherty
Alexander Hart
Associate Editor
Technical Editor
Betty B. Borin
Circulation Manager
Published monthly at 510 RKO Building, Radio
City, 1270 Sixth Avenue, New York 20, N . Y.
Telephones: Cl rcle 7 - 5842 • 5843 - 5844
Vol. 105
FEBRUARY, 1946
Business —As
No. 2
We See It
W
E wonder if the OPA ever thought of the fol-
lowing. While price ceilings are maintained, ma-
terials are scarce as well as labor, and the steel
strike is tieing things up in a knot there is little if any pro-
duction of any types of musical instruments. The youth of
the country, therefore, whom the OPA claims it is trying to
protect, are forced to buy rebuilt musical instruments and in
most instances pay at least as much or more than they would
if they were new. This will go on and on until musical
instruments are decontrolled. It is certain that there will
be no production to speak of whether it be pianos or small
musical instruments until this occurs. No manufacturer
cares to operate at a loss. As one manufacturer has put
it: "Everything but cost of living products such as food,
clothing, oil coal, rent etc. should be decontrolled. Then
and only then will production increase. Prices may rise
temporarily, probably will, but with production increasinp
competition will become rife again and within a reasonable
time prices will seek their own level. People will be em-
ployed, they will have money to spend and commodities
will be plentiful for them to buy. As it is today manu-
facturers can't increase production. With a million and a
half wage earners on strike some $75,000,000 per week i?
being used up for living purposes which would be spent
for commodities. It is being conceded even by Wash-
ington officials that wages cannot be increased with increas-
ing prices. The wage earner will receive higher wages-
some have already. He constitutes the bulk of the pur-
chasing power of the country. But when steel prices have
been increased as they certainly will be, prices of every-
thing will ride up with them. Until production is increased
to such an extent that prices can be lowered the wage earner
is going to find himself right where he was before he re-
ceived his increase and besides his savings will be gone.
At best, for him, it is a vicious cycle." ,<
E had hoped that by the time we got around to
writing this editorial that the wage situation
would be settled but at the present writing the
situation seems to be as tight as ever and the public is
still pursuing "watchful waiting" which is causing greater
disgust by the minute. In our
opinion the unions have just cooked
their own goose this time as has
been manifested by the action of
the Congress which lias finally
shown intestinal fortitude enough
to pass the Case bill which, al-
though it doesn't have teeth enough
in it is something we have not seen
before and may have the effect of
avoiding a nationwide turmoil simi.
W to the present, at some future
time. There is an old saying that
everything works out for the best.
Perhaps later we will see whether
Carleton Cftoce
this is so in the present unrest that
is not only going on all over the country but also within the
Tuners and the Spinet Piano
confines of the Federal Government. That there is wrang-
AST month a letter came to us from a tuner in
ling between the various head of the various agencies in
Ludington, Mich, which was an answer to an:
Washington which are supposed to be controlling recon-
editorial we wrote entitled "Tuners Should Boost
version policies is a sign that price control, on all but
the Spinet Piano". We have had several letters regarding
bare necessities, is nearing its end. When one agency gets
that letter and we have been criticised for publishing it.
to the point where it passes the buck to another, as in the
Someone said that it will be used by some dealers when
case of the last communication which was received from
selling a piano. Well, if any dealer does use it he is
10
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW, FEBRUARY, 1946
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
just as foolish as the man who wrote it, because the spinet
piano is going to constitute 80% of the sales of pianos
in this country and maybe even more, as long as there
is going to be a scarcity of grands. We can't believe that
any dealer, who is out to sell all the pianos he can, is going
to be so foolish as to hurt 80'V of his business by refer-
ring to that letter. When Mr. Alexander said that the
Spinet "as an article made to sell is a success" he told the
truth. It has proved itself as that. And we would like to
ask Mr. Alexander what piano manufacturers, dealers
and he himself are in business for. The former sell instru-
ments and he sells service and if his services are not
bought, he doesn't eat. Then when he says: that the
Spinet "as a musical instrument is a failure" he isnt telling
the truth. The proof that he isn't lies in the fact that
several hundred thousand of them are in daily use by
persons who have purchased them since 1935 when they
were instrumental in bringing the piano back again so
that Mr. Alexander and his ilk could earn enough with
which to live. No—it is high time, in our estimation, that
tuners realize on which side their bread is buttered and not
go around knocking the Spinet or another type of
piano. The National Piano Manufacturers Association has
been working diligently to better the tuner's position and
put him where he can make more money than he ever
dreamed he would see. Advertising, promotion, publicity
and the efforts of the National Association of Music Mer-
chants are all working toward the same ends. The most
lucrative opportunities which tuners have ever had awaits
them. It is time that tuners, as well as the other branches
of the industry, help educate the public to the value of
the Spinet. This is the atomic age. a far cry from the
horse and buggy days.
2,700,000 Homes in 24 Months
V ]f ^ I program should be planned for the erection of
~**~ 2,700,00 homes in the next twenty-four months
should be a stirring item for all piano dealers. We hope
that the National Piano Manufacturers Association as
well as the National Association of Music Merchants will
immediately start a movement to see that, when the plans
for these homes are drawn, there will be ample place in
the living room for a piano. If even fifty per cent of the
purchasers of these homes buy pianos the piano industry
will have no fear of top production for many years. The
tendency in building homes on the mass production scale
is that rooms are so small that no place is provided for
even the smallest spinet. Now is the time to forestall this
with the proper promotion through the proper sources.
Recognition
w
of Long and Faithful
Service
E had the honor and privilege of being present
at a little ceremony recently which proved to
us, that after all the heart of a big corporation
lies* within the attitude of its officials toward its employees
and that if that attitude is right there need be no fear of
an employee not being loyal, and painstaking. "Charlie"
Brady had never become a manager or a vice president or
a president but he had spent fifty years doing his duties
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW, FEBRUARY, 1946
Edwin Marcus In The New York Sunday Times
first as a messenger, then as a shipping clerk and finally
a superintendent of shipping and receiving for The Aeolian
Co. and Wm. Knabe & Co. Hours never meant anything
to "Charlie". The main object was that when a job was
lo be done it should be finished irrespective of time. Forty
hours a week was unheard of when "Charlie" started work-
ing for the Aeolian Co. in 1896. And "Charlie" never
thought about that small amount of time in all the fifty
years he has been with the company. So, on the day
after he had been with the company for fifty years there
was W. Lee White, President of The Aeolian Co., and
executive vice president of the American Piano Corp., in
the presence of Charlie's wife and son, H. B. Wood, gen-
eral manager and over thirty members of the organization,
presenting "Charlie" with a $250 gold watch and Mr.
Wood as host at a dinner in his honor at one of the
smartest restaurants in New York. It was a complete sur-
prise to "Charlie". No wonder he was almost overcome.
But. to all those present, as well as "Charlie", besides being
a tribute to him it was also one to the thoughtfulness
of the executives of a great corporation, so contrary to
the rule of thumb of modern business about which we read
so much in these distressing times.
"/«'* the'Tuning That's So Upsetting"
MARCUS in a cartoon in The New York
Sunday Times recently likened the present efforts to
adjust wage scales to the efforts of a piano tuner
who is tuning a piano, while Uncle Sam stands by with
a copy of "Happy Days are Here Again." We appreciate
the permission of The New York Times to reproduce this
cartoon and commend Mr. Marcus for using the piano
as a symbol. We hope, however, that when wage scales are
adjusted they will last longer than it takes the ordinary
piano to sel out of tune. To be kept up to par a piano should
be tuned every six months at least; sometimes oftener.
^
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