Music Trade Review

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6
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
tory. Are we treating with equal efficiency its busi-
ness aspects?
H Published Every. Saturday at 373 Fourth Avenue. New York
SUBSCRIPTION, (including postage), United States and
Mexico, $2.00 per year; Canada, $8.50; all other coun-
tries, $4.00.
Telephones—Numbers 5982 and 5983 Madison Sq.
Connecting all Departments
NEW YORK, AUGUST 30,1913
Prices and terms will no doubt be of importance
in the fall and winter campaign, as they have al-
ways been in previous years. But it is to be hoped
that there will be no tendency towards running
away with the idea that prices.and terms are the
only things of any importance. The truth is that
the most important thing in the player business is
a right way of looking at it. The dealer who
thinks only 'of the terms he can get from the manu-
facturers an 1 the other terms on which he can
sell to the consumer is not looking at things the
right way. The public has indeed been wrongly
educated. Prices and terms are too low. That is
the trade's fault. But the time is coming, and per-
haps is very close at hand, when manufacturers and
. supply houses will cease being providers for the
retail trade. When that time comes, the matter
of prices and terms will have to be settled sensibly.
Let us hope the time will come soon.
DEMONSTRATION AND THE RETAIL TRADE.
Despite Growing Knowledge of Player-Piano Operation and Control Possessed by Dealers and
Summer is over again. Time flies quickly in-
Their Salesmen There Is Still a Big and Important Field for the Professional Demon-
deed. Give a man enough to do, a purpose in life
strator with His Expertness—Why Recitals Have Lost in Favor in Some Localities.
and some fair reward for his labor, and there will
be little chance of his complaining that time drags
We have just read a letter from the head of a living it will strangle the entire demand for the
on his hands. The fact is that all of us who are famous and distinguished player manufacturing straight piano. If the latter happens, how long
reason-ably busy are likely rather to feel that sum- house, in which the writer remarks that he has will the player-piano last?
mer runs away too quickly and too soon brings to found practically all his dealers and their salesmen
This may seem pessimistic, but in fact it is noth-
us again the winds and ice of winter. But it is, now know how to handle the player situation, or ing of the kind. The player-piano is something
after all, a good thing that we should have such at least" think they do, and that for this reason he that must be cultivated if it is to live. The great
feelings each year. Is it not a blessing that most does not find it necessary to do as much demon- truth that the trade ought to recognize is that even
strating of his player-pianos as before has seemed though the vast majority of the people do not care
of us have to occupy our minds with the sort of
requisite. In the same letter are some general re- to learn good playing, they all appreciate it and
toil that sends time flying? If this is not the best
of all possible worlds, it is only because it is not marks about player recitals, to the effect that the want an instrument that will g'ive it. Moreover,
the real world. The real world we do not see. retail trade is no longer interested in such matters the whole demand for a player-piano is condi-
The things at which we gaze are but appear- as they once were.
tioned on its being really a means for reproducing
These are statements which ought to give us piano playing. It is useless to say that the record
ances. Their inharmony is of our own making,
and if we cannot live at peace with that which pause. There is little doubt that they are in sub- rolls do all that the demonstrator used to do. In
we create around us it is high time for us to learn stance accurate. But there is absolutely nothing to point of fact, the record roll needs a demonstratior
be proud of in them. So far from being pleased to bring forth its beauties.
the secret of creating something different.
with the facts, we ought to be very sorry about
The point being made here is that the player-
Thus the fall and winter now comiug upon us them, very sorry indeed. Surely, anybody who piano needs good demonstration now—to-day—as
ought to be in every way excellent for business. takes the trouble to think can understand that if never before, simply because now as never before
There is no reason whatever for any pessimism, the retail trade is really giving up the idea that there is a genuine public curiosity and demand on
as far as any one can see, although it is quite cer- good demonstration and good recital work a^e nec- the subject. It may be objected that most people
tain that a great many people have been going essary, then the retail trade is doing a very re- like ragtime and not good music, but this does not
around with long faces and words of woe. When markable thing. Whether rightly or wrongly, the at all disguise the fact that these same people
would not like ragtime if they did not like music,
one comes to think of it, hardly anything is more trade is taking an astonishing position.
To be quite candid about the matter, it seems to and that the fact of their liking any kind of music
absurd than the idea that there have to be alter-
nations of good and bad times. If anyone were to us that the assumed position is untenable. If ever is foundation for the belief that they like music
preach as a doctrine that something in the con- the necessity for good demonstration were ?ppa- to be well played. The weakness of the player-
stitution of this world demands regular periods rent, it is apparent now. Tf ever the player-piano piano proposition is that those people who cannot
of financial stringency followed by regular periods needed careful and judicious exploitation, it needs or do not play it well are going to be very much
disgusted with it if they cannot get out of it what
of inflation and prosperity, he would be regarded it now.
they have reason to expect is in it. And this means
We
are
not
contending,
be
it
remarked,
that
as a rather visionary sort of person. But the
actual practise of the public thinking is Just as players cannot be sold without either good demon- a future slump, not a future boom.
We should hate to think that the opinions ex-
had. It is absurd to pretend that any law governs stration or good recital work. We are well aware
the coming of hard times. Why then pretend that that many thousand players are being sold without pressed by the manufacturer mentioned at the be-
hard times must come? Tf there be a law gov- any such adventitious aids. But we are also well ginning of these remarks were precisely accurate.
erning the matter, then let us resign ourselves to aware that so far only the surface of the player We should hate to believe that the player trade is
it. Tf there be no law, then why should we pre- trade has been scratched, that fifteen years of con- so very short-sighted. And we should be still more
tinual work has not yet given the player-piano any annoyed to think that the player-piano is beginning
tend that this or that consequence is inevitable?
permanency as a musical instrument, that so far it to be regarded as a mere mechanical piano by those
One of the beauties about the plaver is that there is rrrerely a fad, an "automatic piano," a toy which who sell it. If this indeed be the case, things are
the public has taken hold of to a certain small ex- in a bad way. However, we prefer to believe that
are so many angles to it. You can look at it from
tent, just as to a certain extent the public likes to things are not so bad, and that the retail trade
So many different points of view. On the one
turkev-trot. But the great public, the real people has a better sort of sense than has been passed to
hand, you can consider it as a something where-
of the country, aTe no more interested in the its credit. At least we hope so.
with to wake up a slecnv piano trade. On the
player-piano than in the tango. Both seem to
Good demonstration is not a mere method of
other hand, you can think of the player as an en-
them to be unnatural growths and therefore selling as against another possible method. Good
tirely new musical instr men! as something des-
ephemeral.
demonstration is a vital and necessary policy, a
tined to bring about an entirely new school of
very
part of the player proposition, a part that can-
Looked
at
in
the
light
of
simple
fact,
without
composition, as indeed a revolution in the makinsr
any attempt to deceive ourselves, these are truths. not be omitted without causing difficulty and
of musical means. Whatever be your point of
view, you can see that the plaver is a present and As things go, if the player-piano is being sold, and danger.
Let us never hear that the retail trade has defi-
immediate phenomenon, a verv large bulking ab- hereafter shall be sold, merely as a "mechanical
nitely
abandoned the ideal of good demonstration
piano,"
which
can
be
palmed
off
on
people
on
the
ject against the business horizon. Each year we
strength of cheap prices and cheaper terms, then for promoting interest in player-pianos.
get something new in exploitation, in construction
or in design. Each year the plaver approaches the player trade is faced with the alternative of an
Fred Hill has sold out his interest in the music
rrtore nearly to complete efficiencv. Alreadv. from early death or a success which shall be worse than
store
at Hopkinton, la., to A. C. Martin.
death.
Either
the
player-piano
will
die
or
else
in
the mechanical point of view, it is very satisfac-
The Master Player-Piano
is now equipped with an
AUTOMATIC TRACKING DEVICE
Which guarantees absolutely correct tracking of even the most imperfect music rolls
W I N T E R & CO., 220 Southern Boulevard, New York City