Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW.
12
WARDROOM HUMOR,
li}exp probably have an idea," said a well
known piano manufacturer in this city,
" that all that is necessary to sell a piano is to
play Mendelssohn's ' Spring Song ' to show the
purchaser what a beautiful tone the instrument
has, and then sign a receipt for the money. But
bless your simple heart, when your man has got
so far that he asks you to play on the piano the
sale is half made. If I could get one visitor out
of every ten who come in here interested in the
tone of the piano I would retire from business a
millionaire in a few months.
" I have been a manufacturer of pianos for
nearly thirty years and I have had many experi-
ences of many kinds, and I have found that no-
where are the idiosyncracies of human nature so
much displayed as in a piano wareroom. Peo-
ple don't know what they want or what they
are getting. They come into the wareroom sus-
picious and alert, without understanding exact-
ly what it is they fear.
"Yes, we have some queer visitors here.
Several years ago a big, rough miner with a
diamond stud in his flannel shirt, came in with
his wife and two little pale-faced children. It
was a bitter cold day, and the snow was nearly
a foot deep in the streets.
" ' How much do you charge for yer bestpian-
ner ?' he asked.
" l Oh, we have them up to sixteen hundred
dollars,' I said.
" ' Jumping Jerusalem ! ' he cried, and before
I could stop him he had bolted out of the store.
I told the office boy to close the door, and then,
laying my hands on the heads of the children, I
said, ' Madam, what pretty children you have ! '
' Oh, yes.' said she. ' The little boy is 9 and
the girl is 7. They had the measles last winter
and they 're not looking as well as they might.'
' Supposing I play a little song for them ? ' I
asked. She was greatly delighted when I
brought out two piano stools and seated the
children on them. Presently the door opened
and the miner poked his head in. ' Hurry up,
Mary ! ' he cried, ' What's keeping ye? ' She
paid no attention to him, but listened with deep
interest while I played all the popular airs of
the day. Several times the miner stuck his head
in and urged her to hurry. At last he slouched
back into the room and listened to my playing.
His eyes sparkled with pleasure as he said to his
wife: 'Gee! Mary, that's great, isn't i t ? '
When I assured him that his two children would
be able to play just as well as I could after a
year's practice on one of our grand pianos he
was slightly mollified, and after a while I said to
him : ' Now, see here ; you've got plenty of
money, and $1,000 is nothing at all to you. If
you get one of these pianos you'll have every-
body in your State talking about it.' Well, the
upshot of it was he bought the most expensive
piano in the store, and then, while the little
children were kicking their toes into it, he took
me out, and treated me to a drink, saying:
' That wuz a pretty slick game o' yours
keeping me out there in the cold. Have one
on me.'
" Another man who once came in to purchase
a piano had an idea that he knew all about it.
He was from the country, and he had read in
some newspaper that a piano with eight octaves
had been made somewhere. After a lot of ques-
tions, and when the salesman was about to make
out a bill, he wanted to know how many octaves
the piano had.
"'Seven and one-third, like every grand
piano,' the salesman said.
" 'No, }ou don't,'the man said very decided-
ly. ' I want eight octaves and I got the money
to pay for 'em. The man across the street told
me his pianners had eight octaves, 'n', by gee,
I ain 't goin' to get left.'
" We argued with him half an hour trying to
explain that none of the standard makes of
pianos had more octaves than ours, but he in-
sisted on the extra two-thirds of an octave, and
we had to let him go.
" On another occasion a lumberman came in
and asked what we charged for an ordinary
piano. We told him and he asked to see one.
When we showed him one he took out a foot
rule and measured it. Then, shaking his head
knowingly, as though he had caught us in an
attempt to cheat him, he said :
" ' No, sir-ee. I can buy a piano next door
that's lyi inches longer and costs $200 less.
Good day.'
" But that is not the only kind of people we
have to deal with. Here is another class.
'• One afternoon a thin little fellow with long
gray hair came in here and asked us for per-
mission to come into the wareroom after busi-
ness hours with a pupil or two to play on our
pianos. ' You see,' he said, ' I am a music teach-
er, but just now I'm traveling in pretty hard
luck. I have a couple of pupils and if I only
can find a place where I can have the use of a
piano to teach them I know that I will get more.
If you will give me the use of your wareroom
after dark I may in the near future be of some
service to you.'
'' Well, it was rather an unusual proceeding,
but I gave him the permission he asked for. He
seemed very grateful. About two months later
I was returning home from the club rather early
one night and happened to pass the corner be-
low here. I noticed quite a crowd standing in
front of our store, and fearing that the place
might be afire I rushed down the street. As I
neared the store I heard a loud rumbling sound
which, becoming more defined, resolved itself
into a piano chorus. I pushed my way through
the crowd and unlocked the door. Well, sir, the
scene that I beheld takes my breath away even
now every time I think of it.
1
' On one of the desks in the room stood the
music teacher frantically waving a baton with
one hand and brushing his long hair back ex-
citedly with the other. At twenty of our grand
—our grandest—pianos, instruments costing at
least $1,000 each, sat little boys, all pounding
out the same melody in one ear-splitting chorus.
Well, the music teacher had thrived, but he
never came back to our wareroom alter that
night.
'' Not long ago an old lady came in and asked
if we had a piano that had the curve on the left
side. We explained that it was necessary to
have the curve on the right side, as the long
bass strings were on the left side and needed
more foom than the treble strings, which were
on the right.
" 'That's all very well,' she said, but unless
the curve is on the left side the piano won't fit
in my room !' "—N. Y. Sun.
SHIFTING TRAD£
ever shifting centers of music trade
interests.
Always a matter of keen interest to the
chronicler of music trade events.
In this busy, matter of fact age we have hardly
time to think of the past—always the present—
and planning for an active future.
In the march toward progress we must keep
pace with the leaders, or back we fall—lagging
behind the procession.
Glancing backward in music trade history we
find that Albany once figured prominently as a
piano manufacturing center.
In the early days of the pianoforte industry
men were gathered there who afterwards came
to New York and elsewhere and founded suc-
cessful enterprises, and gradually the glory of
the early Dutch settlement, as a musico-indus-
trial town, declined.
The McCammon interests, through innume-
rable vicissitudes, still clung to the old town,
but since their removal to another spot have
been more fortunate. In their case, however,
the dropping out of the old and the infusion of
new blood has evoked the change. Their old
factory—and there are some who stoutly assert
that the old walls are cursed, that they will work
the ruin of all who inhabit them—is now occu-
pied by Lockey, the case man, formerly of Leo-
minster.
How the early traditions have worked against
him since his removal can best be answered by
himself.
The only concern remaining of what may be
properly termed the Old Guard is Boardman &
Gray.
This concern have always conducted their
business on a conservative basis. From the
very first they manufactured a first-class piano
—a piano which has a good reputation wherever
known. But the conservatism of the conductors
—and from conservatism alone—the Boardman
& Gray product has never entered conspicuously
into the great trade matters of the past decades.
The Albany supply trade has been kept alive by
the piano and organ hardware manufacturers, R.
W. Tanner & Son. Thorough workmen are
they, and inventors as well, controlling a very
snug business. But the early glory of Albany
as a manufacturing center has long since de-
parted. Will it ever return ?
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT is due the Estey Organ
Co., Brattleboro, for a very handsome and at-
tractive calendar.
JOHN O. MONTIGNANI, one of the veteran
piano makers of this country, died at his home
in Albany, January 8th. He was connected with
the Marshall & Wendell piano factory for quite
a long time.
MR. NAHUM STETSON, of Steinway & Sons,
went to Chicago to attend the funeral of Geo. W.
Lyon.