Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
The New National Association of Piano Builders and What the Organi-
zation Stands For, as Set Forth by Sumner L. Bales, the President-Plans
Now to Re-create the Race of Scientific Piano Builders in This Country.
The keen minded will not have failed to observe that in the announcements made recently in The Review
concerning the National Association of Piano Builders, much was implied that was not definitely stated; in
fact that much which could not definitely be stated was obviously to be found by careful reading of the facts. It is
quite plain that the great question of bringing technical pneumatic and acoustic education to the man out on the
firing line has by no means been solved; nor need we repeat that only too well known truth that no organization
hitherto has shown any ability to deal with the matter in a national way. Whether or not the new National
Association of Piano Builders be capable of dealing with this momentous question, is something that must
be decided by the course of events; but no one can deny that there is a chance that they will be successful in their
endeavors.
At any rate, we all know that we want, as men interested in the promotion of the player business, to cultivate
a better state of knowledge concerning our products on the part of the tuners who have to care for player-pianos
in the home and among the mechanics in the factories who have to install player actions in pianos and carry out
the various processes incident to the manufacture of that somewhat modified piano associated with such actions.
We all of us very much want to see a brightening up of the general standard of technical knowledge and attain-
ment among our practical men. We all need this, and know we need it; but where were we to get it? Now
comes along this National Association of Piano Builders and tells us that it is ready to take up the burden.
Very good. But mere promises are of- little value. We really want to know what we are likely to get from 1
this new attempt. And the best way to know is to ask the man at the head of affairs. To this end the Player
Editor of The Review has asked Sumner L. Bales, President of the National Association of Piano Builders,
to set forth a statement giving us his own point of view on this matter so important to us all. And here is what
he says:
The Views of Sumner L. Bates.
I am glad to do what you ask because I realize
that any movement which demands the support of
the trade should be prepared to give an account of
itself at all times. The National Association of
Piano Builders proposes to enlist trade support and
trade sympathy. Hence there can scarcely be too
open an explanation of what it is we want to do,
or of how we propose to do it.
Briefly put, we are creating an organization com-
posed entirely of men engaged in the practical
work of creating the tonal and playing apparatus
of the piano. That is to say, we are enlisting under
our banner tuners, tone-regulators, action men,
stringers, player installation men, belly-men and
others. To these men we are saying: "Seeing that
you, like everybody else, are anxious to improve
your general condition in life, we bring you this
message, that if you want to get along you must
know the reasons for what you are doing. In
short, if you are desirous of becoming a more use-
ful member of the society, and of obtaining the
reward that society gratefully pays to all who serve
her well, you must acquire-first of all a disciplined
and a thinking mind. The best way to acquire that
mind is to learn the science of your work. When
once you know thoroughly the relation of your in-
dividual task to the whole, which you and many
others unitedly labor to produce, you do your own
work better. And having done your own work bet-
ter you soon find yourself ready for greater work.
All human society is based on the truth that unto
him who hath shall be given. Get knowledge and
the rest will quickly follow.
Roughly speaking, that is what we say to the
practical men of the piano trade; and what we say
is good sense and good business. Nevertheless we
do not flatter ourselves that any such proposition
can be brought to favorable consideration without
a good dea: of hard work. We know that the great-
er number of people hate to think, and equally hate
to be jerked out of their accustomed ruts. But we
also know that the hope of our trade in the great
times now opening up before it, is in the younger
men. the ambitious youngsters who want to get on.
curse of American industry, as every educator
knows, is the American restlessness. Everybody
wants to jump around from one job to another,
in the hope of ending up in a chair behind a mahog-
any desk, as a bank president. We hope to teach
the younger man in the trade better. We hope to
catch him voung, to get him interested in the scien-
tific side of his work, and thus to re-create perhaps
that great race of scientific piano makers that has
unhappily, for a time, almost disappeared.
And now as to means, we are beginning by form-
ing centers in cities where piano manufacturing is
Sumner L. Bates.
carried on. These centers are to be what the name
implies, common meeting places for the impartation
and exchange of information. They are also to
have a social side and in fact are to be what I might
call "professional clubs." The main business of
them is to impart a general knowledge of what I
shall venture to term applied acoustics and pneu-
matics; that is to say, the sciences of sound-produc-
tion and of air-pressure in their practical applica-
tion to piano and player-piano making. We believe
firmly that piano making as carried on to-day is
in a stagnant condition, and that it cannot be lifted
out from this condition except by a restudying
of the facts and the data now existing. This, work
we propose ultimately to accomplish.
How are we going to interest the men? By ap-
pealing to their curiosity, to their cupidity and to
their ambition? Also, by making the thing so in-
teresting to them that they will be drawn perforce
into the constant attendance, beginning with curi-
osity and culminating in enthusiasm. The best
proof that this can be done lies in the fact that in
Cincinnati alone, after only a few weeks of quiet
work, we have pledges from almost one hundred
active piano workers.
In the way of making it interesting, we are ar-
ranging for a series of practical lectures by recog-
nized experts in various lines, and propose at each
meeting of each center to have one such address.
These addresses are taken down in shorthand,
transcribed and published to all members every-
where. In this way a sort of national "reading
circle" will ultimately be formed, something like a
correspondence Chautauqua for piano makers.
You will understand that in this way we expect
to reach piano and player men all over the country,'
the isolated individual as well as the group. Thus
our movement assumes a national aspect.
One other point is of great importance. We are
now taking steps in Cincinnati to obtain permanent
headquarters of such a type that they can gradually
be transformed, not merely into offices and club
rooms, but also into the nucleus for a National
Piano Technical Museum. We shall gather speci-
mens of piano manufacture, actions, wire, scales,
specimens of lumber, player actions and so on, and
in course of time acquire a collection that will be
invaluable as a reference museum to the inquirer.
To this we shall also add a selection of technical
works on piano making, on acoustics, on pneu-
matics, on design, and so on, so that finally there
will be a complete technical museum, devoted to
our arts and equipped with collections classified and
catalogued, the whole forming a monument to the
progress of the American piano and a permanent
source of scientific and practical information.
This work will all require the co-operation of the
piano and player trade, nor shall we be backward in
asking for such co-operation in due course. Shall
we succeed^ Time alone can tell, but surely all
(Continued on page 6.)