Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
PLAYER SECTION
NEW YORK, MARCH 27, 1915.
HOW THE PLAYER PIANO AIDS MUSICAL APPRECIATION.
No Other Factor in the Musical Field of Greater Value in Augmenting Musical Appreciation
Than the Player-Piano When Intelligently Used—It Not Only Educates Its Owner but
Every One Within the Sphere of Hearing—Why the Trade Generally Should Be Interested.
Undoubtedly it would be a great deal better for
all of us if we would only learn the meaning of
the words we commonly use. For instance, what an
immense amount of time we waste in thinking about
what we call appreciation ? We say that people
do not "appreciate" us; but we really mean that
they do not appreciate us at our own self imposed
valuation. Appreciation is simply appraisal; the
process of setting a value upon something. It does
not necessarily or even properly mean anything like
mere laudation; although that is the meaning we
usually apply to it. It does mean, however, the
exercise of the faculty of judgment and the draw-
ing thereby of correct conclusions.
Musical appreciation rightly considered, then, is
obviously the drawing of correct conclusions about
music. It is the exercise of correct judgment.
Now, correct judgment cannot be exercised unless
we are in the beginning informed on the subject
which we are to judge. Information, then, must
precede appreciation. And this is as true in the
case of music as in any other case.
The first requisite for exercising musical ap-
preciation is therefore musical knowledge. But
this is a statement that may be taken in several
different ways, as we shall see.
people are not inherently musical. They dance to
crazy music and bawl silly songs; but that is not
being musical. That is merely making a noise; as
babies make noises to indicate their pleasure. Music
is a form of expression, and when people take to
music naturally as such a form and naturally ex-
press their sentiments therein, then you have mu-
sical people; not before.
The best way to make people musical is to get
them interested in listening to music. How are we
going to do this? We cannot dot the map all over
in a day with locations for symphony orchestras
and opera houses and get the machinery of them
started to-morrow. And, even if we could, the peo-
ple are not yet ready for any such sudden reforma-
tion. They are ready, however, for hearing music
if it be placed before them rightly and in a manner
they can at present understand.
control is essential to the production of a race of
music-lovers. People must not only be allowed to
listen but must also be allowed to interpret as soon
as they can. Once get the idea in people's minds
that they can only be passive listeners and you have
killed their enthusiasm right on the spot.
Musical Judgment Is Musical Listening.
In music as in no other art the faculty of judg-
ment is to be cultivated by the constant presenta-
tion of the art to the mind. One must be hearing
music and 'becoming familiar with examples of it
in order to appreciate it rightly. And here the
player-piano offers means unsurpassed in complete-
ness and availability. It is not that the playe;
piano takes the place in the home of a trained
pianist. • Nobody claims or wants to claim that.
The musicians who sneer at the player-piano all
fall into the egregious error of supposing that the
makers and sellers of these instruments are trying
to supplant the regular practitioners of the art.
In point of fact, the trade has neither the imagina-
tion nor the desire for any such stupendous feat.
The poor player-piano, so far from .being an ob-
ject of rightful fear, should be the object of amuse-
The Mission of the Player.
The player-piano is the instrument that will do ment on the part of the musicians. Indeed, the
this above all other instruments. Of course, some only inroads that the player-piano has made on the
one is going to say that nobody buys players ex- incomes of music teachers have occured in direc-
cept those who want animal dances and rag songs; tions where no real desire to understand music
and that no other music is being sold except that ever existed. The player-piano is by no means an
sort of music. One expects comments like that. enemy and it is most surely a friend, although so
But suppose we take the position assumed by the far an unacknowledged friend.
Of course, the player-piano will not and cannot
I'.ditor-in-Chief of this paper in some of his recent
Appreciation Not Technical.
Rightly speaking, the exercise of judgment re- editorials and point to the very simple fact that m take the place rightfully occupied by a trained
musician; but it does do something that the trained
nobody is trying to make the public brieve that
garding the true value of musical art depends upon
the operation of an acquired faculty of discrimi- good music can be had in music rolls anyway, or musician cannot do. It does enable all the mem-
nating between the true and the false, between the even that it can be played—not to say appreciated bers of a family to gain directly some understand-
good and the bad, between the meritorious and the rightly—by the aid of the player-piano. It costs as ing of musical form and some appreciation of
meretricious. It does not r^st necessarily upon any much to get out a dollar roll of a fox-trot as a musical values. The musician at home, with all his
dollar roll of good music—or very nearly as much. playing to other people, cannot give this. He can
special technical acquirements. In fact, one need
But, while the latter lasts forever and can be re- only teach the same way as he has himself been
not be a technically trained player of the piano or
of other instruments in order to possess and use produced over and over again till the master sheet taught. And this means a process through which
the power of appreciating music. On the con- wears out, the selling value of the first may d's- (lie others, or most of them, neither can nor should
go. The player-piano only does what cannot so
trary, the very technical acquirements of which appear next week; perhaps leaving an unsalable
well be done any other way.
musicians are so inordinately vain—and the world
stock on hand into the bargain.
That is why we say that the player-piano is the
so careless—often stand in the way of their pos-
Of course, you cannot expect to sell player-
sessors' acquiring right judgment about the art of pianos as you should sell them, a quarter of a principal and most important existing single factor
music as presented from the listener's side. The million of them annually—if you don't push their in the general machinery for musical appreciation.
Importance of Musical Appreciation.
requisites for true judging of music are love for
sale sanely. And you cannot expect to be pushing
Why should we worry whether people appreciate
the art and general familiarity with its forms,
their sale sanely when you are not taking advan-
tempered by a keen desire to worship, only the tage of the most important element in their appeal music or not? Well, we should worry simply be-
beautiful and the true. The man whose vision is to the public; the production of intelligent listeners. cause we, as a trade, are not selling enough player-
pianos. The more the mass of the plain people
clouded by the mists of technical finger grind is a
Players and Appreciation.
like
music, the more they really appreciate it, the
man often of warped and imperfect judgment.
The most potent force to drive people in the di-
Outsiders see most of the game.
rection of becoming interested in good music is more they ought to be likely to buy player-pianos.
found in means for making them familiar with a And, conversely, the more they buy player-pianos
We need in this land of ours more and more
good listeners. Already we have enough bad per- large quantity of music. Here the player-piano the more they ought to appreciate good music.
formers upon the piano, the violin and the organ. supplies an instrument that nothing else can ap- The trade would be well advised if it began now
proach. And when we say player-piano we mean to take note of the efforts being made here and
The rag-time pianist and the two hundred dollar
organist playing upon the twenty-thousand dollar player-piano. The talking machine, although it is there by educators and librarians to put the player-
organ are a nuisance eternally with us. Our hip unsurpassed in furnishing records of the actual piano to good use. These efforts are of the ut-
need in the nation at large is for more listeners. song or play of artists and although it occupies most importance as bearing upon the future of
The piano and player men may not know it, but it therefore an intensely valuable position in the gen- the player business. Let us not deceive ourselves
is true to say that there would be no necessity to eral scheme of things, is not to be compared, in by supposing that we can forever go on selling
push the sale of pianos and players by more or our opinion, with the player-piano as a definite player-pianos successfully without creating simul-
less disreputable methods, if there were already a driving force in the direction of love for good taneously an intelligent demand for them. Musical
legitimate, healthy, growing and natural demand music. The reason is simple. Even the automatic appreciation is not only one of the greatest assets
for them. Such a demand can be created only by
form of player-piano does permit personal control, in the intellectual life of a family, but it is part a.nd
the creation of a race of listeners. The American if desired, and in some form or other, personal parcel of the player-piano proposition,