Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
JUNE 26,
THE MUSIC TRADE
1920
REVIEW
9
Which Gives to a Palpitating World the Private Views, Publicly Expressed, of
the Gent Who Edits This Player Section, Said Views Being on Matters Tech-
nical and Otherwise, Sometimes Conventional, but Mostly Unconventional
"Biz"
As the feller said, "The guy what invented
interest wasn't no slouch." Nor was the guy
what discovered politics. We have been having
the biggest dose of it out in the mid-West that
we have ever had. And the net result seems to
hi that no one knows whether he is well pleased
or not, and no one is quite sure what will hap-
pen next November. Of course, there are heaps
of folks who will tell you that they know all
about it. Do not waste your time believing
them. They are only talking to hear themselves
talk. The question which you and I and all
the rest of us in the player business want to
know is this: Politics or no politics, what is
to be the course of affairs with us? Are we
to be "in good," or are we, contrariwise, to be
"in bad?" The questions are not wholly selfish.
There is a justifiable desire to know what is
likely to happen, a desire which the games of
the politicians during some past weeks seem
scarcely to have fulfilled.
Indeed, there are
some of us who wonder whether the politicians,
after all, do possess the magic key to unlock the
answers to our puzzles. One begins to believe
that the future of industry is entirely in the
hands of the men who do the thinking and the
planning, who make the sales and work out
the production, who meet the worker in personal
contact and who know by actual experience what
the worker thinks of and what he wants. One
loses faith in measures and gains faith in men.
So thinking, there is room for faith and need
for care. Most men mean well, but few men
translate their meanings, their intentions, into
fact, Selfishness and narrowness lead to de-
struction. Broadness, sympathy and willingness
to realize that the under-dog has a right to con-
sideration will lead industry to greater and more
solid prosperity.
Canis Inferior
Speaking of under-dogs, the worried business
rran who is striving to find his way safely
through the tangled undergrowth of economic
and industrial relations may be forgiven for los-
ing his temper sometimes when he finds himself
referred to as the grasping employer who grinds
the face of the long-suffering and noble work-
ingman. Any manufacturer in the music indus-
tries—and none more readily than he who deals
with the manufacture of pneumatic player ac-
tions—knows well that at the present moment
the quondam under-dog is very much on top,
and has apparently no desire to climb down. The
oppressed workingman has become, for the
time, at least, very much'of a joke. But the
practical side of the matter is, of course, very
far from being a joke. Those who have sup-
posed that the recent slight decline in retail de-
mand has been due to any fear of coming in-
dustrial depression are mistaken. It has been
caused principally by the inability of retail mer-
chants to give good service owing to the short-
age of goods, coupled with the further fact that
the necessary advances in prices have taken the
public somewhat by surprise. The people have
been educated to getting whatever they ask
for in the music industries without regard to the
reasonableness or otherwise of their requests
and it is hard for them to believe that pianos
;md other musical accessories really have values
comparable with those of the automobile and
other better-appreciated products. Now the
remedy for this state of affairs is, of course,
more production. Manufacturers tell us that the
principal causes of slow and unsatisfactory pro-
duction are to be found in two directions. One
is the real shortage of labor, of unskilled labor
even more than of any other kind. The other
is the disinclination of the workman to work.
More men to a job, higher wages and shorter
hours are together apparently producing less
work per man per day. It is a state of affairs
which gives food for serious thought.
Place Aux Dames
While we are about this subject do not let
us forget the ladies. Some of us have had an
idea that the fair ones are more distinguished as
knockers than as boosters of the player-piano,
but no one can deny that we should be very
badly off if we did not have them to depend on
for making our player actions. If all the girls
in the world were suddenly .to decide simulta-
neously that the pneumatic game was not for
them we should all be in a deuce of a fix. Now
whilst we are about it, why do not some of our
brainy ones do some figuring on the question
of feminine labor in other branches of the in-
dustry? For the life of him the present deponent
cannot see why girls 1 should not become better
action regulators, player assemblers, inspectors
and tuners than men have ever been. He can-
not see why girls should not learn to tune and
tone regulate, to string and to action finish.
Go through the piano factories in the smaller
cities and towns of this land and you will find
even now, here and there, a clever girl making
her way into some branch of the industry which
has always hitherto been closed against her.
Recently the present writer has noted girls
stringing, chipping and action finishing, all with
success and technical efficiency. If our work-
ers will not work we must try to get some who
will. Women in general are more faithful, more
tractable and less inclined to lay off than are
men. They have not the same initiative in most
cases as have good men, but the average man
and the average woman are not far apart in this
respect. The old belief that women have not
mechanical ingenuity is simple nonsense. The
English girls showed that during the war.
Women have simply lacked the mechanical ele-
ment in their education. There is not the slight-
est reason why they should not pick up mechan-
ical ideas as quickly as would previously un-
trained men. Of course, they must be handled
carefully. One cannot shout at a girl or use
bad language to her. But this is nothing to
grieve over, surely. It would do no harm if the
atmosphere of every factory in the land were
forcibly cleansed in that way.
Common Sense
One thing is quite sure: The American peo-
ple have not yet by any means come to the point
where the player-piano shall cease to appeal.
Throughout the entire trade, all those who have
been doing business carefully and honestly, giv-
ing the best value for the money they ask, and
cleaning up their accounts in the most business-
like way, have enjoyed, and are continuing to
enjoy, a large measure of success and prosperity.
We have not yet by any means reached the
end of the normal demand for music expressed
through the player-piano. In point of fact, we
have hardly dug into the depths of this demand
at all. The future need hold no cause for un-
easiness if those who are occupying themselves
with the production and marketing of the player-
piano in any of its forms will simply realize
that what the people want is not machinery,
but music; not furniture, but music; not prices
and terms, but music. The music industries are
simply the providers of means to music for the
people. The sellers and makers of player-pianos
are this even more decidedly; for the player-
piano is every man's musical instrument. Every
man does, indeed, wa-nt music. And if it still
be true that only a few of the people, compara-
tively speaking, as yet own player-pianos the
fault is not with the people or with the instru-
ments. The fault is with us. We have forgotten
that we are sellers of music and we have tried
to be sellers of instalment contracts. If we
shall now turn over a new leaf and remember
that hereafter it is our business to think, talk,
advertise and sell only music there will be no
reason to worry about the future. There will
probably be a general shortage of pianos and
player-pianos next Fall and Winter, quite as
serious as that which we suffered last year.
But the conditions which now exist and now
produce a seller's market are already passing.
If the year 1921 is to be as prosperous as were
1919 and 1920 we shall have to learn to sell
music, first, last and all the time.
22fttAVTOPIANO COMPANYf
PAVLB.KIXTCH Pr**ident
ON THE HVDSON at
Slst.STREET -HEW YORK=s