PRESTO
February 19, 1920.
the comfort of the dealers, until some returning whim of this restless
world brings back again the shining cases, the blue "smoke" and the
finger marks with which we have so long been familiar.
WOMEN PIANO WORKERS
There is a curious and characteristically English estimate of
women in the world of music—especially practical or industrial music
—in this issue. It is a dispatch from London, and it is so unfair as
to be worth while reproducing and contradicting.
While it is true that there is no woman's name among the great
inventors of piano improvements there have been many of them in
the lists of the smaller things that have helped to make the instru-
ment popular and, without the encouragement of music in the home
that comes from the women, there would be little demand for pianos
at all. In the ranks of pianists the women loom large. We have
had them from the very first. From Clara Schumann and Annette
Essipoff to Teresa Carreno, Julia Rive-King and Fannie Bloomfield
Zeisler, the list of women's names in concert programs has almost
equalled those of the men. And it was a woman who invented the
"silent piano," or practice clavier; it was a woman who wrote the
book of short sketches that, more than others, have lasted. And we
believe that Elise Polko was an English woman, at that. Amy Fay,
also a pianist, wrote the best book of foreign piano study, with Liszt
for her background. Women have been very prolific writers on the
piano and the latest novelty in piano practice is a color-note curricu-
lum by a woman.
As to the practical, or industrial, side of it, there are probably
twice as many women as men working in the London piano factories.
In the United States there are few piano factories in which there are
no women, and the player piano industry employs them in numbers
almost equalling the men. There have been piano industries con-
trolled, and personally conducted by women. In one of them two
sisters employed many men, among them being their paternal sire
himself. In several of the piano factories there are female executives,
one of the largest employing a woman as head of the advertising
department. In Chicago one of the oldest and largest of the piano
houses has a woman in charge, not only of the advertising department
but as principal advisor to the president of the concern.
It is said by at least one of the progressive piano manufacturers
that women make the best workers in some of the factory depart-
ments. In the Hobart M. Cable Co.'s factory, at La Porte, Ind., Mr.
Howard B. Morenus takes pride in the special apartment furnished for
his women workers in the stringing and other departments. He has a
complete rest room with every convenience for dining on the "light
housekeeping" plan. No doubt other American piano factories are
similarly equipped. And one of the largest wound string industries
in this country has, for many years, been under the direction of a
woman. She has carried forward the industry ever since the death of
her father who founded it.
The average Englishman doesn't seem to have much faith in the
capacity of his sisters. Some of the English writers have given em-
phasis to this fact. But, nevertheless, it was a woman who made the
best ruler the English people have had, and in music women have
been the queens, also, whether as pianists, violinists, vocalists or writ-
ers. And today they are becoming efficient in the practical matters of
piano building, promoting and selling. Perhaps the great war was
responsible for it, but the women have arrived, and it will be a long
time before the women again leave the piano to the men, if ever they
do.
of old industries, for young men may possess antiquated ideas and
notions. And the absolete men are often the ones who criticise without
thinking and condemn without reason. In that they are dishonest,
for they fool themselves while they try to hurt the objects of their
prejudice.
In the retail piano trade there are obsolete dealers, who fail to
see anything that is good in the methods of their competitors, and
cling to antiquated methods of selling, that long ago fell into disuse,
or even disrepute. They are obsolete in their advertising. They are
obsolete in their attitude toward their sources of supply. They are
obsolete in their ways of judging instruments, and they employ
obsolete systems in their collection departments.
But most pathetic is the obsolete piano, in which may be the
dormant and decaying power of a great name .and a one-time admir-
able ambition. This kind of piano may be found in the stores of man-
ufacturers who believe that they can "sell all they make," and do
not care what the other manufacturers are doing. They cling to the
old idea that a large retail profit, once in a while, is better than a
smaller wholesale profit many times multiplied by cumulative and
steadily increasing numbers. Unfortunately there are some very con-
spicuous examples of that kind of obsoletism. And the pianos that
are slowly dying under that sort of management are often of the kind
that in earlier days were filled with vigor and promise.
The world—even the piano world—is forgetful. It will not be-
lieve that because a piano was a great one fifty years or less ago, it
must be a fine one today. Other pianos, into whose ambitions not
half that time has been invested, may have slipped past the one-time
specimens of distinction. And what was said and done fifty years ago
doesn't much interest the average piano buyers of today.
Don't permit yourself to become obsolete—disused. Never was
there such an opportunity for fine pianos as now. And the men are
easily at hand for the promotion of fine pianos. Look ahead in your
promotion, in your ambitions, and don't be satisfied with anything
you made in the past, or that you sold last year or even last week.
A NEW DAY
The spirit of competition gives zest to the business of selling
pianos. And that zest is not all due to the fact that the margin of
profit is enough to make battle of wits and skill worth while. It is
equally a matter of honest pride in the instrument to be sold. It is
faith in what is being sold, and admiration for the piano and the
name it bears.
That's the spirit of the "game." It's because all men possess in
seme degree the sporting instinct, and selling pianos is a species of
sport. It demands energy, alertness and diversified abilities. It isn't
like weighing sugar or potatoes, nor like fitting shoes or measuring
carpets.
No one will say that it is a source of enthusiasm to sell a really
poor piano. The size of the profit will not justify the discrepancy in
merit. The salesman with a fine piano to deliver will employ a bet-
ter enthusiasm, and more convincing argument than one who repre-
sents an indifferent or nondescript instrument. Isn't that true?
And that is one reason the piano man would not change his call-
ing. He likes to be in a business that affords scope for the exercise
of his personality, and his power, to send home conviction which may
be followed by the satisfaction of profiting his customer while he
profits also himself.
Equally comforting is it just now that selling pianos is no longer
a business of the coupon and guessfest, the stencil and false-pretense.
It is now, once more, the best business on earth, and one of the
cleanest.
OBSOLETE
There are men who find some sort of satisfaction in referring to
anything that fails to meet with their approval as belonging to things
obsolete. Not that the things that do not please them are really in
disuse, but that they are not in exact accord with the critical minds
of the people who do not, for some reason usually concealed, measure
up to expectations. Usually the critics of things that are good, but
unwelcome, are themselves "obsolete" because they can not lift
themselves above their own pet prejudices. They are everlastingly
looking back into the past and contrasting whatever may not tickle
their own vanity, or purposes, with something that has remained in
the days gone filled with suggestions of crudity or questionable
purpose. There are a few obsolete pianos in the sense alluded to. And
there are more than a few piano men who unfortunatelyi belong td
the same classification.
Of course, until perfection dawns there must remain piano details,
constructional and theoretical, that are in some sense obsolete. They
are the instruments made by men who can not progress because per-
sonal prejudice will not let them. They are the products not always
Piano men, who are heavy taxpayers in our great cities, ought to
take an interest in the waste of moneys by old-fashioned ways of doing
work on the streets. Many of those who went to New York last week
were astounded at the complete tie-up of that city by snow. They
were more surprised at the quaint, old-fashioned attempts at snow
removal, as practiced in New York. Some of the piano men say that
we might still learn some things from Europe. For instance, Liver-
pool, England, has practiced street flushing as a method of snow
removal. During the last twenty years not a cart has been used to
haul away snow that fell on Liverpool's streets; it is all washed into
the sewers. A Brooklynite estimates that New York City has wasted
$6,000,000 since 1915 in hauling away snow.
Probably the next show, in connection with) the piano trade con-
ventions, will be planned for the special, if not exclusive instruction
of the members of the trade. The big? New York event of two weeks
ago was a wonder. It was planned and executed by the best brains
and enthusiasm of the industry. It could not have been other than a
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