Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
PLAYER SECTON
NEW YORK, JANUARY 27, 1912.
Again, the musical people, the people with in-
telligence, with leisure, with money to buy, are
precisely not the people who are rushing to buy
Has Been the Weak Spot in the Player Situation in Recent Years—Too Many Dealers Treat player-pianos. Why not? Simply because those
the Player-Piano Indifferently—This Is Evident in Their Advertising, in Their Demon- people cannot see where the pleasure arises in
stration, in Their Methods of Selling—Manufacturers Also to Blame for Handing Over a "pumping" at a machine and getting from it noth-
ing but monotonous noise. Why do they th;nk
Complex Situation to People Lacking Knowledge of Conditions.
this?
Because the average dealer cannot show
The year 1912 marks the fifteenth anniversary of
terms they are selling; and you will be lucky it
them anything better, and himself does not know
player mechanism. Beginning as a crude exterior you find a substantial agreement among twenty-five
how to put people in touch with the secrets of
attachment, the genius of inventors, designers and of them on any one of these points. Then go to a playing the instrument. The kind of people who
mechanics has transformed it into a highly refined, similar number of persons who have bought
should buy players—women of the leisured culti-
considerably standardized and markedly efficient player-pianos and find out what is the reputation vated class, for instance—are buying motor cars.
engine for the playing of pianos. The exterior at- of these instruments in the home. Find out how Why, again? Because they can learn easily and
tachment is dead, and the mechanism built into
many of these already-purchased player-pianos pleasantly to master their cars. They can get out
the piano has by this time been long enough on give steady satisfaction, how many are usually in
of the car what they cannot get out of the player-
the market to be considered as a staple commod- normal playing condition, how many people are piano ; the ability to master it and control it to suit
ity-
still enthusiastic over them after six months' use, themselves. Why again? Because nobody is at
The first great stage in the development of the how many continue to buy music. And you • will hand to show them the secrets of the player-piano,
while there are hundreds to show them all about a
player-piano may thus be said to have come to an again be lucky if you find a substantial number
end. The instrument has been definitely created. giving satisfactory answers to any of the above im- motor car.
Its general forms have, in all human probability, plied questions.
Then consider the matter of advertising. What
been settled forever. Constructional development
The object of this article is to help, not to dis- is the sense in repeating over and over again the
in the future will busy itself with refinement of
old stale stuff about "a child can play this instru-
courage, and so perhaps there is little to be gained
the forms already in existence, rather than with by trying to point out exactly where lies the re- ment like a master." Nobody believes it, nobody
the creation of new forms. We are ready to enter
sponsibility for this state of things. And yet, it ever did believe it. You cannot answer this by say-
upon the second stage.
may be worth while to note the very plain fact that ing that people are incapable of judging. For,
Obviously, the principal feature of the second the primary responsibility, in the very beginning of
whether incapable or not, they do judg.e At least
period will be found in the solution of the prob- things, for planning the campaign of exploitation
they pronounce judgment, and their judgment is
lems of distribution. We have created an efficient should have been assumed gladly by the manufac-
that the player-piano is a machine like, unmusical
engine for performing a useful and potentially pop- turers. They had no business to hand over a com-
thing.
ular function. We should now have leisure and in- plex proposition like the player to the retailer and
Mistakes That Must Be Remedied.
clination alike to consider what we are going to tell him to make a success of it, even though he
Somehow or other all this must be remedied.
do with it.
For if it be not remedied, the second great
knew less than nothing about it, and had small op-
What we are likely to do in the future might portunity ever to learn. Or, again, one might period of player development will also be the last.
perhaps be considered as deducible from what has point out that even now it would pay the player
If the player-piano were fundamentally incapable
been done in the past. Yet, for a variety of rea- manufacturers in hard money to organize a com- of doing what lias been claimed for it, then that
sons, it is to hope that this is not so. The retail mon campaign of exploitation and education, un- would be a horse of another color. But, in fact,
development of the player-piano during the last der competent direction, for the purpose of creat- it is not incapable of so doing. On the contrary,
fifteen years,'upon'which has been spent millions ing that genuine pubic demand which is now so it can and will do everything that its makers claim
of dollars in one or another form of publicity, has sadly lacking. Hut we all know the futility of
for it. But somebody must know how to make it
indeed resulted in creating a very definite public urging anything like this.
do these things, and then must be able to show
feeling toward the instrument.
If this feeling
What the Dealer Can and Ought to Do.
the public what he knows and make them wise, too.
were what it ought to be, no. one could object. But
The question, then, that we.have to discuss and That is the biggest part of the problem.
the fact is that all this money, all this labor, all the answer relates to the conduct, present and future,
. And it is also the first of the matters that must
time of these fifteen years have been expended in of the retail trade. The dealer, for better or for be taken up if we are to put the retail player trade
producing a public state of mind in the highest de- worse, has taken, the player-piano to spouse, and
where it belongs. Sane and skilful exploitation is
gree unfavorable to the player-piano, whether con- it is up to him to do something about it: What
the first great requisite. And it should be noted
sidered as a means for the reproduction of artistic can he do, what ought he to do, and what may he
that this can far better be brought to a flower of
music, or as a mere vehicle of entertainment.
accomplishment by direct demonstration than by
hope for?
, . •
.
.
any mere printed advertising. . People want to hear.
-Yes'; the truth, however painful, is just this: W r e
The most obviously accurate criticism is that the
If you can show them that a player-piano actua'ly
have succeeded, after ail our efforts, in making dealer has utterly failed to adapt himself to-the
many people believe that the player-piano is actually new conditions which the player-piano has brought does sound right, and if thereafter you can show
worthless as a musical instrument. We have done with it. In the matter of prices and terms, for in- them how they may at least approximate to a sim-
just that, and we have done little more.
stance, there might have been, and should have ilar mastery themselves, then you have them. Anrl
not otherwise.
Plainly, we have here anything but a firm basis been, something done toward a general agreement
That, then, is the first task for the retail trade
wherefrom to launch ourselves into the great sec- as to the manner in.which this proposition should
ond stage of player development; the period which be handled. The player-piano is the sort of propo- in its work of regeneration. Good demonstration.
That means good salesmen, carefully written ad-
is to be devoted to popularizing the instrument and
sition that should absolutely not be forced on a
vertising copy and a centralized player department.
giving it its rightful place. And it behooves us to public unable to buy it outright. To sell player-
But it also means something else. The average
consider with some care just what is the present pianos to poor people at the terms that they must
dealer is afraid that if he admits that the player
situation with regard to the popularizing of play- necessarily require, is the height of stupidity.
can only be played by those who learn how no one
ers, and what we are going to do about it.
Every player sold .on instalments practically, im-
will buy. Hence he does not mlinit it; and yet just
An accurate description of the present retail sit- plies a player which is going to impose a fixed
as few buy. The wis.e dealer will recognize the
uation is found in the single word "chaos." Go to maintenance charge on. the- seller until the last
dollar, has been paid o n . i t . And, with prices.as truth and will deliberately make-his strongest, point
Jim sele:ted dealers and find out what they think
of the player, business, how they handle it, how they necessarily, are, this means a.period o 1 " from of what appears to be .the-weakest.. He will- dwell
on the fun, the pleasure, the delight, of learning
many salesmen they have who can demonstrate, three to. five years. . Where is the profit-in that
{Continued on page 4.)
kind of business?
what they do about music-rolls, on what prices and
STATUS OF RETAIL TRADE IN PLAYER-PIANOS