Music Trade Review

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DECEMBER 25,
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
192C
Being the Year-end Revels of the Editor of This Player Section, Who Rattles
a Mean Typewriter Over the Gravities and Gayeties of the Moment, Hoping
That All His Gentle Readers Will Find a Modicum of Edification Therein
ferent way. Everywhere one hears the whisper Chicago representative of the Babson statistical
going round that in these days we have got to organization talked about the present and future
tlo real selling, and that real selling of the condition of business. He had a great many
"(rod rest you, merry gentlemen,
player-piano means the selling of musical re- interesting things to say, but nothing that he
May nothing you dismay."
sults,
not of levers and buttons and prices and said approached in interest the plain statement
Ninetccn-tweiity draws to its close and we
terms.
The day when player-piano salesman- that times of boom and expansion are also times
music industry men look over the field won-
ship
was
supposed to be at its height if a sales- of inefficiency. Business always becomes ineffi-
dering how it is to be with us for the twelve
man
could
make a sale hinge upon an ignorant cient when it grows fat. When trade flows in
months ahead of us. Of a surety we have noth-
prospect's
believing
a tale about some obscure without much effort the inevitable effect is a
ing to fear save ourselves. If we are cowards,
technical
point
has
entirely
passed away. Those slackening of the mental fibres, a loosening of
if we are greedy, if we lack vision, if we are
things
were
all
very
well
before
the war. At vigilance, a folding of the hands to sleep. Con-
narrow and selfish, we shall probably find that
the easiest way is often the longest and the least that time the salesmen did not seem to know trariwise, the best teacher of and inciter to
desirable after all. If we are wise, generous, whether they were selling a musical instrument efficiency in business is found in a condition of
courageous and faithful, we shall find that the or a motor-car. They used to talk about matters comparative stringency, when activity of the
recovery of the country from the absurdly of construction, about tubes, tracker-bars and highest order is needed to keep things going.
illogical state of mind into which it has thrown such matters of which the prospect knew noth- All this applies with wonderful force to our
itself will be rapid and complete. The fact is ing, until the musical aspect of the instrument industry just at this time. Precisely the whole
that the tumble of this Winter has been so was entirely lost and only the lumbering struc- trouble with us is that we have been taking
extraordinarily rapid that no ordinary calcula- ture remained. No wonder that the output of things too easily. So easy, in fact, has every-
tions can hold for a moment. Judging by past player-pianos has never been what it ought to thing been for us that we have been simply un-
experiences we should by now be just at the have been! Curious, wasn't it, that in those able to rouse ourselves quickly enough now
beginning of a very long, slow descent into the days a salesman used to become positively in- that there has been a little change. Good
pit of sub-normal conditions, to be followed by dignant if anyone asked him to demonstrate. times or bad times are good or bad by com-
an equally long upward climb towards good "Why," he used to say, "the player-piano can parison. What we to-day think is terrible ten
times. What, in fact, has happened is that the be played by anybody; you don't need to demon- years ago would have passed virtually unnoticed.
decline from the peak of this Summer has been strate it. Besides," he would add, "I am not Between the years 1903 and 1912 the country
extraordinarily rapid, so rapid, in fact, that we a good 'operator.' The folks don't want to hear went through two long periods of depression,
have pretty nearly reached bottom already. This good operators, for they will only become dis- alternated by slow ascensions into prosperity,
is very encouraging, but what is still better is satisfied if they do." Sweet doctrine, wasn't it? during no part of which time were conditions
the simple fact that in reality fundamental con- Happily the new order of things is making lots more favorable or business more easy than they
ditions are perfectly sound. The banks are pros- of folks sit up and take notice. Our merchants are at this moment. We in the music industries
perous, the people have money, and there is and our salesmen are doing some tall thinking, have been spoiled during the last three years.
not the least reason for a slump; no reason at all and are seeing that they have not been putting We have grown fat and lazy. We need to re-
save the wildly inflated state of various in- the player-piano across. They see, too, that cover our efficiency. And the time has come
dustries and the mad craze for buying at any the only way of putting it across now, in these when the cure is to be obtained without diffi-
old price which afflicted the whole nation until altered conditions, is by waking the people's culty.
recently. "The morning after" may not have enthusiasm in music—in fact, by making the
The Merry Yuletide
so much alcoholic significance in these dry days, prospect realize clearly what he or she can get
socially speaking; but economically it has much out of the player-piano without troubling about
"The time has come," the walrus said,
"To talk of many things,
significance. We are sobering up; and a jolly technical points which do not concern the con-
Of sausages and sealing wax,
Of cabbages and kings,
good thing, too!
sumer, and a half-baked knowledge of which
And why the sea is boiling hot,
only has the effect of confusing and worrying
And whether pigs have wings."
him. And by so thinking the wise men of the
Music, Heavenly Maid
At any rate, the time has come to talk of
trade are doing what is necessary to make the something besides business. This issue of The
The celestial virgin may not be so young as coming year one of steady business and fine Review is dated Christmas Day. The intelligent
she was, but to many an innocent piano man profits.
reader knows that these words are written sev-
she is as young, or at least as new, as if she
eral days ahead of that momentous date. They
had been born but yesterday. In fact, for our
Jerusha Waxed Fat—and Kicked
are so written because they have to be, or the
trade generally Music might as well have been
Paper would come out a good deal later—which
The other day, before the Piano Club of some may think would not be so much of a
born yesterday, she is such a stranger. But a
change comes o'er the spirit of our dreams and Chicago (one finds it harder all the time to calamity. But what we meant to say was that
we find ourselves' seeing things in a very dif- keep away from that hustling institution), the
(Continued on page 8)
In Retrospect
THE
TRADE
MARK
Music Roll Perforator does not interfere with
the sale of music rolls, but supplies the missing
link to the player-piano and the great library of
music untouched by roll manufacturers. The
Leabarjan Perforator is the dealer's friend
and opens a new field for the player-piano.
The Leabarjan Mfg. Co.
Model No. 5
Hamilton, Ohio
EASTERN OFFICE
256 BROADWAY
NEW YORK, N. Y.