Music Trade Review

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THE
MU3IC TRADE
REVIEW
SELLING PLAYER-PIANOS IN THE SMALLER CITIES.
Arousing Interest in the Player-Piano.
Communities of Limited Population Offer Excellent Opportunities for the Dealer if He Studies
the Problem Seriously and Displays Real Energy in Going After Business—Getting Close to
Prospects Through the Medium of Recitals and by Other Means.
The manufacturer and seller of player-pianos
have from the first enjoyed the best results in the
larger cities and centers of population. It has al-
most come to be a by-word that the small town is
not a good hunting-ground for player-piano pros-
pects. The smaller dealers, apart from their nat-
ural skepticism regarding an instrument of such
price as the average player-piano, have taken on
themselves to believe that there are many other
obstacles against the profitable pushing of player-
pianos in cities and towns of the smaller type, and
the belief has appeared often to be supported by
the results of experience. Thus, the small town
field has come to be regarded as unfavorable for
the profitable selling of player-pianos.
We submit that the view is mistaken, at least
so far as it is considered to furnish grounds for
any general assumption to that effect. The small
town has selling difficulties and problems of its
own, but these are neither necessarily insuperable
nor even very great, if attacked in the right sort of
way. Player-pianos may be sold and sold profitably
in the small town—as in the large city—if only one
knows what to do.
The small town, from certain viewpoints, ought
to be actually the best possible field for player-
piano exploitation. In the first place, the small
town has a community feeling which is lacking to
the larger center of population. The small town
is a gathering of people who all more or less know
each other, whose relations with one another are
closer and more intimate than would be possible
in each other's extensive environment, and who
take a keen interest in each other's doing. The
small town is the home of the club and of the so-
cial circle.
Now it is to be observed that this social instinct,
so thoroughly dominating the small town, is pre-
cisely the sort of framework which is best adapted
for building up a good player business. For the
player-piano itself is a social means, an instrument
for the tightening and developing of social and
common ideas. The player-piano is distinctly a
social weapon and implement.
t
To put the matter in a thoroughly practical and
concrete way, the player-piano is an instrument
which tends to bind people together. It furnishes
a bond of common interest for the family. But it
also furnishes a similar bond for groups of fami-
lies. In the small town, means for stimulating
common interest in matters of the mind are not
always readily available. Especially is this so in
the matter of musical appreciation. The musical
clubs in the small towns are always hampered by
the difficulty of obtaining the right sort of talent,
either for recitals or for teaching. Here the
player-piano steps in and helps to close the gap.
The wise dealer in the small town who wants to
make a success in the player game would do well
to consider carefully this phase of the subject.
How Recitals Help.
Consider a.gain the matter of putting the matter
of player sales in a small town on this social basis.
Suppose, for example, that the dealer arranges
with manufacturers for recitals in his town. Sup-
pose that these recitals are always of two k i n d s -
one entirely for the local musical cognoscenti
(usually the woman's music club) and one for the
general crowd. Suppose that the dealer starts a
campaign to get the musical people interested in
the purchase of players for the purpose of estab-
lishing a player club. Suppose he even goes so
far as to assist in the organization of such a clu'b.
Is he doing anything out of the way? If he gets
results, what else is neded?
Of course, it is easier to talk about these things
than to put them into action. Yet, the dealer who
knows his business will be able to achieve great
results if he will go after his player business with
some sort of comprehension of the facts as they
exist in his town.
Take the matter of recitals again. In a large
city one player recital, more or less, is of little
importance. On the other hand, the small town
will welcome such an event, if only as a diversion.
Suppose a dealer gives a series of such recitals
during the course of a year. He can, if he will
go about it in the right way, awaken interest and
even enthusiasm on the part of local music lovers.
He can get the crowds into his store and can in-
terest them in the whole proposition as in no
other way. The player-piano is a simple enough
proposition after all. It is an entertainment propo-
sition.
The hard-headed farmer or business man n
the small town and country regions is ready to
pay out $000 for an automobile, with the expecta-
tion of buying a new one every three or four years.
If not an automobile, why not also a player-piano
which will not wear out in four years? It is all
up to the dealer, and his job is to show the pros-
pects in his town what the player will do for them.
When he has done this, he can sell, and sell in
proportion more than his brother of the city. As
a means for exhibiting the real use and value of
the player-piano and of bringing the facts forcibly
before the minds of all concerned, the wholesale
demonstration that we call a recital is the best
scheme yet discovered,
Demonstrate, demonstrate, demonstrate. Ar-
range recitals at people's houses. It gives them a
chance to invite their friends, to have a good time,
and to get a line on the player proposition as it
appears in home surroundings. In this way, too,
the local talent, the violinists, the singers and the
self-appointed critics get a chance at the game.
All this brings about interest and enthusiasm. In
time, such a policy means sales, and many of them.
Once get the ball rolling and its own momentum
will carry it.
When a man says that the people in his town
have no interest in the player-piano, he really
means that he has taken no trouble to study how
that interest may be aroused. It is not to be ex-
pected that a small, self-centered, mutually jealous
community will eagerly jump at new things on the
principle of each individual for himself. It is pre-
cisely in the small community that the fact of a
certain social leader having taken up with a thing
will start the others along the same trail. But
people in small towns have to be led gently. The
social leader herself is likely to be much more
skeptical about a new thing than her sister in the
large city. Hence, she must be caught first, and
the hunter must proceed warily.
All this means really that the small town prob-
lem looks a good deal more like a social than an
individual affair. It is true that the medium sized
city of from 25,000 inhabitants up will not fall so
easily into the classifications here suggested. But
what has been said here is distinctly true for the
city of 10,000 people, or for a smaller community.
Tn almost every such city, anyway, there is one
music store which is regarded more or less as the
musical headquarters of local society. Such a
store has the best chance of making a great and
general success in the player line. There is no
more reason why a dealer should not establish a
big personal following in players than there is to
prevent him having the headquarters for the bet-
ter class of sheet music or of small goods.
One point remains. Demonstration can no
longer be the sloppy sort of thing it has been in
the past. Some intelligence and study must be
applied these days by any one who expects his
claims to be taken seriously. The day has passed
when the player-piano can be profitably sold on
the basis of being merely a "self-playing piano."
People's eyes have been opened and they are now
demanding that the claims so much made in the
past be redeemed in fact. That means good
demonstration, and it also means ability to teach
others—purchasers—the rudiments of the player-
pianist's art. The dealer who overlooks this im-
portant point will probably find the suggestions
made above to be of little value.
ISSUE SUPPLEMENTARY CATALOG.
The Peerless Piano Player Co., of St. Johns-
ville, N. Y., has just issued its supplementary cata-
log of perforated music rolls for Peerless auto-
matic piano and orchestrion. It is a compilation
of its monthly bulletins of music rolls since the
general catalog was printed.
The perforated rolls listed in this volume are
arranged in groups, under the proper serial num-
ber, and in a manner to enable the reader to select
what he wants at a glance.
The Peerless perforated music rolls are manu-
factured in the company's factories at St. Johns-
ville from original master stencils, on a special
paper that insures superior wearing quality. The
music is cut and edited by experts, and constitutes
an excellent repertoire of pleasing music.
A LL fooling is not of the "April first"
•^"^ variety, as you probably know from your
miscellaneous purchases of piano hammers.
The name "Schmidt" on a hammer insures a sincerity of
every purpose—quality, shape, workmanship and dependability.
It is the sign of hammer perfection.
You can eliminate hammer troubles by con-
centrating upon the David H. Schmidt service.
DAVID
H. SCHMIDT
CO., Poughkeepsie,
Western representatives: Widney & Widney,
5 South Wabash Avenue, Chicago, 111.
N. Y.