Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
KEVIDV
PUBLISHED BY EDWARD LYMAN BILL, Inc
President and Treasurer, C. L. Bill, 373 Fourth Ave., New York; Vice-President, J. B.
Spillane, 373 Fourth Ave., New York; Second Vice-President, J. Raymond Bill, 373
Fourth Ave., New York; Assistant Treasurer, Wm. A. Low.
J. B. SPILLANE, Editor
J. RAYMOND BILL, Associate Editor
Executive and Reportorlal Stafi:
B. BRITTAIN WILSON, CARLETON CHACE, L. MJ. ROBINSON, WILSON D. BUSH, V. D. WALSH,
WM. BRAID WHITE (Technical Editor), E. B. MUNCH, A. J. NICKLIN, L. E. BOWERS
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under the Act of March 3, 1879.
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Lyman Bill, Inc.
Departments conducted by an expert wherein all ques-
tions of a technical nature relating to the tuning,
regulating and repairing of pianos and player-pianos
are dealt with, will be found in another section of
this paper. We also publish a number of reliable technical works, information concern-
ing which will be cheerfully given upon request.
Player-Piano and
Technical Departments
Exposition Honors Won by The Review
Grand Prix
Paris Exposition, 1900 Silver Medal. .Charleston Exposition, 1902
Diploma.. .Pan-American Exposition, 1901 Gold Medal.. ..St. Louis Exposition, 1904
Gold Medal. .Lewis-Clark Exposition, 1905
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Cable address: "Elbill, New York."
NEW YORK, OCTOBER 12, 1918
EDITORIAL^
A LTHOUGH the work of the Allied Music Committee of the
* * Fourth Liberty Loan started with a rush and the four mil-
lion mark was passed at the rally and within three days of the
opening of the campaign, there is still much work to be done in
the short time remaining if the goal of six million dollars in sub-
scriptions is to be reached. Meantime the members of the com-
mittee and of the sub-committees are bending every energy in
behalf of the cause and getting results, as the news columns of
this issue of The Review will show.
The good news at present coming from the battlefronts of
Europe should encourage every man to plunge in Liberty Bonds
as never before, in order to support the good work over there
and show his appreciation of what our soldiers are doing, and
incidentally bring victory that much nearer. Oversubscription
of the loan means that the war can be carried on on an un-
precedented scale, thus bringing the final subjugation of our
enemies, and subsequently permanent peace, that much nearer.
Let us put some more service stars on our pocketbooks. A dollar
. subscribed right now may prove to be worth ten dollars sub-
scribed later.
HE music trade in Milwaukee has on various occasions
shown itself possessed of a pioneer spirit in eliminating un-
businesslike practices in the trade, and in originating ideas and
plans of a distinctly progressive nature. The Milwaukee music
dealers were the first to plan and execute a co-operative adver-
tising campaign, a plan which has proven so successful that
they are now starting the third campaign, while dealers in other
cities are following their example and are planning to carry on
campaigns of a like nature with equal success.
The latest indication of Milwaukee's progressiveness is
found in the announcement made last week that a uniform charge
of 6 per cent, interest will be made on every deferred payment
contract signed by any music dealer in that city. This rule,
which was adopted at the meeting of the Milwaukee Music Deal-
T
OCTOBER 12, 1918
ers' Association held last week, is one that has long been rec-
ognized as being equitable and necessary, but individual dealers
in any city hesitate to charge interest on instalment sales when
they know that competing dealers do not make a charge of this
kind. By getting every dealer of any standing in the city to
sign a hard and fast agreement to charge interest on all time
sales the only possible objection to the plan is eliminated, and
each individual dealer benefits financially by reason of the uni-
form practice thus inaugurated.
This move on the part of the Milwaukee dealers not only
demonstrates their progressiveness, but also points a moral con-
cerning the value of co-operation. The same plan can be put
into effect in any city in this country, if the dealers will but get
together long enough to realize that cut-throat competition is a
thing of the past, and that no one is being hurt, and everyone
is being helped, by agreeing, and sticking to, a practice that even the
most parsimonious customer will recognize as being just and
equitable. Milwaukee has blazed the way. Who will follow
her lead?
LONG with the news that piano retailers in all sections of
A
the country are shortening their terms and tightening their
credits comes the statement that four of the large piano houses
in New York City have decided to cut commissions to music
teachers down to 5 per cent, for actual services rendered in clos-
ing piano sales. The subject of commissions to music teachers
has formerly been so lacking in regulation or standardization that
it became classed as one of the "evils" in the trade, and the time
has not long since passed when a music teacher could walk into
a number pf piano stores throughout the country and claim, and,
what is more to the point, get a fairly substantial commission on
practically any sale made to a student, actual, quasi or prospec-
tive.
This condition has evidently disappeared, and the example
set by the New York retailers will doubtless be followed by pro-
gressive music dealers throughout the country. A teacher who
actually closes a sale, or throws the balancing weight in favor
of one particular piano, has done a certain amount of work and
is doubtless entitled to recompense therefor. But pianos are
too easy to sell at the present time, and the prospective cus-
tomers are too great in proportion to the number of instruments
available, to make it good business to pay exorbitant commis-
sions to a music teacher who has probably only expressed an
opinion that such-and-such a piano is a fairly good instrument.
The piano dealer who knows how to sell instruments, rather
than merely take orders for the same, will be able to find cus-
tomers for all of the instruments he can manage to obtain dur-
ing the coming fall and winter, and in view of this circumstance
the reduction of commissions to teachers, or, in fact, other out-
side influences is a wise move, and the trade generally will do
well to adopt the maximum of 5 per cent, when paying com-'
missions to teachers, and then pay such commissions only when
the teacher was actually instrumental in consummating the sale.
I
N spite of the marked changes in business going on about us,
and the tremendous pressure being brought to bear upon all to
adjust themselves to the end that their requirements may not
interfere with the gigantic war program, business failures as re-
ported elsewhere in The Review are at low level. In August,
for instance, there were 720 failures with total liabilities of
$7,984,760 returned, the smallest total of liabilities for any month
since September, 1906, and the smallest number of failures for
any month since July, 1901. This cannot indicate anything but
sound business foundation. It speaks well for the control that
has been exercised over credits, the elimination of speculation
either in goods or securities, and particularly the development of
the pay-as-you-go principle in personal transactions, a develop-
ment which has come partly through force of circumstances and
partly through the impression that has been made upon the
American people by carefully guided publicity. As the secretary
of the National Association of Credit Men points out, it seems
as if habits of thrift and carefulness are being formed among the
American people which will help immensely in developing
America's powers to do a large part in the reconstruction work
after the war.