Music Trade Review

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NEW
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YORK, JUNE
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28, 1919
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Hen]p) tthe COlITOllITOluniitty
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The Piano Merchant Who Desires to Succeed Should Take a Definite Inter­
est in the Musical Life of the Community-This Interest Will Be Well
Repaid By Increased Musical Appreciation and M ore Desirable Business
Can a business be dissociated from the social
illstincts by which it comes into be ing and by
the continuan ce o f which it is a lo ne sus tained?
The quest:ion would seem alm os t to answer it­
self. Yet is it not pe rfe ctly tru e that in one
business, at least, of which this newspaper
is an organ, the rank a nd Jile o f the merchan­
di sers engaged in it have fr om the' first been
pro ceeding on the opposite principle?
In a word, is it possible for anybody t o co n­
duct a busin ess in musical instrumen ts without
taking a definite interest in the mu sical life of
the community? It is perhaps possible, in a
re s tricted sense of the term, to do this, but it
ce rtainly is not possible in a ny broad sense
at a ll. That is to say, the merchant wh o is m ak ­
in g any r ea l and las tin g impression u po n the
community in w,hich he li ves is the merchan t
who is thinking in terms broad er and more in­
clusive th an any which may be expres sed in
mere figur es, The statement savors, no doubt,
a ! th e cop ybo o k ' ma xim, but copy book maxims
are none the less true for be in g trite. Th e greal
trouble wi th them a ll is that they ar e n ot. put
into practice. One fails to find any othe r faul t
with these exce ll ent but neg lected aphorisms.
The One Foundation
We repea t that the life o f a music business,
and especially of a piano and player-piano bus i­
ness, if it is to strike deep into t,he life of its
community, must be founded upon the musical
n eeds of that co mm unity . The m e rch ant in
t hin gs musical w ho is not putting in a good
part o f his time work ing for the gene ra l mus i­
cal good of the city, to w n or district in, whic h
he li ves is neglecting one of the most potent
weapon s he can find to hi s hand for the up­
building of his own busine ss care er, and at
t he same time is failing in an o b vious duty t o the
com munity w.ho se support alone makes that
career possible.
Responsibility
Trite and ev e n ca nting as some folk may
deem th em , the old truths ab out one' s r es ponsi­
bility to one's brother are not obso lete. They
have no t been at all sup e rseded, nor is there
any reason to suppose tha t they ever will be,
despite all the fashionable theories of th e day.
Business men w ho ha ve sneered at them have
been sufferin g fr om ignorance and no more
than this. It is not bad-heartedness, it is ignor­
ance and lack of vision w hi ch bids men seek
only th ei r own good and forbids th em to believe
that it is more blessed to give than to r eceive.
The Master who sa id this las t was a man who
knew very th oro ughly the meaning of every
statement he ever mad e and w ho never made a
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s tatement not co mpl ete ly and absolutely true.
When he said "It is more bless ed t o give than
to rec eive ," he certainly did not mean that one
should give away to an unappr ec iative world on
the th eo ry tnat somehow good would flo w from
the act. He did not ask us ro cast pearls be­
fore swine. But he did mean quite scientifically
that if a man will en ter upon his work w ith
the thought a lways firs t in mind to see how
much good h e ca n do to his community, how
much he can put into it, as it were, the result
w ill be t ha t his reward w ill surely come and
he will fi nd 'himself repa id in full meas ur e,
pressed do w n and running over.
The Two Roads
The careers of th e most completely success­
.ful merch ants show how entirely true thi s is.
For a man to heap up a lot of m o n ey without
heaping up a lot of good-will is s impl y for that
man to tak e the best and ·quickest road to a
life of mental and physical misery. The man
w ho works for his communi ty through hi s bu si­
ness and who is every day asking hims e lf how
best qe may serve that co mmunity in the line
of his busin ess is the man w ho is becoming
wholly indispensable and w ho is hea ping up for
himself a tr easu re of good -w ill which no mis­
fortune can overcome. That man 's business
career is founded on a rock a nd the winds and
stor m s shall not preva il aga inst it.
It may sound s tran ge t o say it, but' ask your
sel f if the busin ess man who is alway s " brea k­
ing do w n" and always having "famil y t ro ubles"
is not often also the business man who is most
selfish, na rr ow and gra sp in g in his business
m e th ods?
Application
Very good, if all this be true, how may it be
applied to the player-piano business? Simple
enough. We have spoken of one's duty to one's
co mmunity, and w hat greater dut y can a ny
American ci ti zen have than to do his s hare in
imp rovi ng a nd refining the musi cal taste of the
p eople?
One of the saddest things about
.'\merican social life is its narrowness of out­
look, its stupidity and its dulness. What is
du ller than a life which has been filled with
chea p amusem e nt outside the home and which
when thes e begin to pall has abso lute ly no
o th e r re source upon which to fa ll back ? How
o f le n this describes the life o f th e moderately
prosp e rous and moderately ri ch of American
society! I t does not give the idea of an y thing
ve ry nice, does it?
N ow every effort is being made by the Mu s ic
Industries Chamber of Comme rce to bring its
many memb ers to a realization of the place
which commlinity service in the cause of music
ought to occu py in their business lives. It is
not a lo ne that the encouragement of home and
community music will lead to the sale of more
pianos and player-pian os, though that is evi­
dent enough. It is even more that the mer­
chant who hon es tly tries to help his community
does at the same t ime honestl y help himself.
H e helps himself to become, and does , in fact,
becom e, a be tter citizen a better business man
and a better man in hi s own family relations
besides.
Community Music
A t the presen t time th e whole subject of com­
munity music is being carefull y worked out.
\Nomen's clubs, commercial asso c iations, schools
and societies of all sorts are interested. The
Chamber of Commerce has its own bureau
fo(- this propaganda, with offices both in New
Yo rk and in Chicago. The public schools are
becoming more and more interested. Public
libra ries are consid er ing the stocking of music
rolls, to be loan ed out like books. All sorts of
agencies are trying to make the most of the
growing intere st .throughou t A merica in com­
munity life and the common activity, rightly
directed, of neighborhoods and groups. The
piano and player-piano retailer who does not
see big opportunities her e, whether for himself
as an individual or for himself as a citize n,
is ve ry narrow-m inded indeed.
"SeIling" the ' Community
Very much ca n be done, if only in the way
of expert advice. Take, for instance, the player­
piano. The position of this instrument in the
comm unity generally is not high . There is a
tendency to class it down pretty low, with
mouth-organs, jew's-harps and street music gen­
erally.
But this is absolutely wrong. The merchant
who knows what is go o d for his busine ss ought
to se t himself the task of building up public
estimatio n of the player-piano and its music.
He will not fail to benefit by this in ways which
nee d not be wo rked out in detail here. The
same merchant can surely see that schools,
public librari es, women's clubs and in stitutions
of all public sorts wh ich now do not buy player­
pianos will begin to buy them only when their
m e rit s are more publicly unde rs tood. He has a
grea t work to do in "selling" to his community
a belief in. the player-piano, and this he can do
best of all-in fact, only-through community
activities in community music.
We could enlarge on the them e for much
longer. Perhaps, however, enough has been
said to s timulate thought.
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