Music Trade Review
Issue: 1921 Vol. 72 N. 26 - Page 7
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE
JUNE 25, 1921
REVIEW
Wherein the Editor of This Player Section SetsForth Some Thoughts Which
Run the Gamut From the Theory of Relativity to the Proper Manner in Which
to Operate the Player-piano, Seemingly a Sufficiently Wide Field to Cover!
Relativity!
According to Doc Einstein motion is rela-
tive. The small boy in school who has a job
of work to do, when compared with the same
small boy when school is out and baseball has
begun, affords an excellent practical demonstra-
tion of the relativity of motion. So does the
interior of most of the retail stores wherewith
we are acquainted—stores, that is to say, which
engage themselves, or purport so to do, with
the sale of musical goods and especially of
player-pianos. The contrast between the mo-
tion of business when referred to buying and
the same relativity to selling is quite amusing;.
If anybody does not see the point we refer him
to the Doc himself, who, being an excellent
musician among other things, will be sympa-
thetic if not precisely illuminating. All of which
is but a preliminary to the statement that all
estimates are also relative and that it is rather
more than usually absurd to take anything
which anybody says about the state of business
as being either absolutely true or absolutely
false. One can only say that, whatever it is,
the chances are that it is rather less than more
true. In a word, we take the tales they tell
us with the customary granum salis and take
good care that said grain be a good, big one.
One thing may, however, be laid to heart by all:
the world situation is by no means yet adjusted
and we shall have to make up our minds to a
season of hard pushing and striving. We might
as well do it now, for we shall have to do it
anyway sooner or later. Biu business is as
good for us as for anyone else. Buying can
only be stimulated by persistent propaganda.
The fundamental conditions are not yet quite
pleasing, but they are steadily improving—the
conditions, that is to say, of credit (frozen and
thawed), of prices, of values. Liquidation is
proceeding. The world is coming out from the
ether; coming out, though not yet quite out.
Meanwhile, let everyone work. That is the
secret. And the results of work, though them-
selves relative, slant along the favorable and
not the unfavorable direction; along the x axis
and not along the y axis, as the mathematicians
would sav.
"Commercial and Domestic"
One likes the idea of a salesmanship school
such as John Martin, T. J. Mercer and Walter
Kiehn, with their various assistants, have been
holding up at the big Gulbransen works during
this month. Of course, specifically the scheme
is a plan for teaching dealers in Gulbransen
goods and their assistants how to sell those
goods in the most efficient manner. Just as
much, however, it is intended to show those
men how to sell so that the goods will stay-
sold and the owners will come back for more
music week after week and month after month,
sending in their friends to become player-pian-
ists in their turn. Now. a good description
of a player salesmanship school would be "a
school for making player-pianists, commercial
and domestic." The commercial player-pianist
is the salesman who learns how to sell the
musical desire and musical means which the
player-piano represents to the man or woman
who is to do the playing at home. The domes-
tic player-pianist is to be made into such by
the commercial one. And then the trilogy is
complete. The problem of selling player-pianos
is to impart to the buyer a knowledge of what
the player-piano is really intended to do,
namely, to give the user of it the opportunity
to perform music personally, whether well or
not so well does not matter. Most salesmen
are obsessed, so it seems, with the notion that
the player-piano is a large piece of construc-
tion weighing eighteen hundred pounds avoir-
dupois and occupying a prominent place in the
The highest class player
actions in the world
living-room, and not much else. They sell it
as this and add that the favorable terms on
which it can be bought enable anyone to become
an owner of such an instrument. Quite sol
How very inspiring! The business of the
teachers at the Gulbransen school is, among
other things, to kill that notion dead. And one
wonders when the whole trade will take the
hint.
Censoring the Census
The preliminary estimates which the Census
Department has issued relating to the music
industry in the United States during 1919 are
quite illuminating. One can draw all sorts of
deductions from a study of them, although, of
course, a good deal of the deducing is likely
to be somewhat sketchy and inaccurate. Dur-
ing that year the number of uprights with
players exceeded the number without them for
the first time in the history of the trade. As a
matter of fact the percentages were about 57
and 43 respectively and the total production
was only a little in excess of that average
(300,000) which we have frequently referred to
as annually characterizing our production fig-
ures. Now, of course, the figures for 1920 will
not show so favorable a result and those of
this year will probably be even less inviting.
But the point to be noted is that we have
passed the point where the player-piano (in
upright form) is to be regarded as a mere vari-
ant of the piano proper. The player-piano is
now settled as a true co-ordinate element of
the music industries and must be treated as
such hereafter. Again, the grands numbered
2,200. It is very consoling to know that so
many as two thousand! player grands were
sold during 1919, for that means that two thou-
sand families were really interested in person-
ally obtaining music, otherwise commonly un-
attainable, in the highest of domestic forms!
That is a very consoling thought. Then there
was the steadily growing numbers of the auto-
matic players. It is hard here to disentangle
the figures, but apparently the growth was
(Continued on page 8)
MinrtiiiMMiiiiiitiiiiiiiiniiiiiTiiitfiu MiriiiiiiTiiiiiiiii MTiMiMiriniiTinriTihTrrri ii iTii ii in MtiririTti i ri iT'ii iiiiiii ii iniii i r: iniiii!Mii ti rii i M i M i ti i MiiniiiiiiitniiiiiiiEirtiMTi nil! i [iiuiiiiiiiiiiii[[ii:iiiiMii»
"The valve unit that made the player famous"
sense o f becu6u has been
developed t o on'
fcdi
detfree.
The new "Amphxon Accessible Action" is the last word in scientific player
achievement.
ft has the complete valve action assembled in a "Demountable
Unit'' giving instant accessibility.
AMPHIOIWWTIONS
SYRACUSE
•Your Guarantee
NEW YORK
__
_
picijeK* -picno
appeals Go ell lovers of *ne
becudiful, so bbob far-cuucu
Ocpcn demends end but|s'
these superb instrumenls,
t|ou u)ill be proud of i^our
{cscirpcOincj Sijrnphonolci, end
A iDill rnoke iiour house
e home.
PRICE & TEEPLE PIANO CO,
CHICAGO, U. S. A.
THE MUSIC TRADE
JUNE 25, 1921
REVIEW
Wherein the Editor of This Player Section SetsForth Some Thoughts Which
Run the Gamut From the Theory of Relativity to the Proper Manner in Which
to Operate the Player-piano, Seemingly a Sufficiently Wide Field to Cover!
Relativity!
According to Doc Einstein motion is rela-
tive. The small boy in school who has a job
of work to do, when compared with the same
small boy when school is out and baseball has
begun, affords an excellent practical demonstra-
tion of the relativity of motion. So does the
interior of most of the retail stores wherewith
we are acquainted—stores, that is to say, which
engage themselves, or purport so to do, with
the sale of musical goods and especially of
player-pianos. The contrast between the mo-
tion of business when referred to buying and
the same relativity to selling is quite amusing;.
If anybody does not see the point we refer him
to the Doc himself, who, being an excellent
musician among other things, will be sympa-
thetic if not precisely illuminating. All of which
is but a preliminary to the statement that all
estimates are also relative and that it is rather
more than usually absurd to take anything
which anybody says about the state of business
as being either absolutely true or absolutely
false. One can only say that, whatever it is,
the chances are that it is rather less than more
true. In a word, we take the tales they tell
us with the customary granum salis and take
good care that said grain be a good, big one.
One thing may, however, be laid to heart by all:
the world situation is by no means yet adjusted
and we shall have to make up our minds to a
season of hard pushing and striving. We might
as well do it now, for we shall have to do it
anyway sooner or later. Biu business is as
good for us as for anyone else. Buying can
only be stimulated by persistent propaganda.
The fundamental conditions are not yet quite
pleasing, but they are steadily improving—the
conditions, that is to say, of credit (frozen and
thawed), of prices, of values. Liquidation is
proceeding. The world is coming out from the
ether; coming out, though not yet quite out.
Meanwhile, let everyone work. That is the
secret. And the results of work, though them-
selves relative, slant along the favorable and
not the unfavorable direction; along the x axis
and not along the y axis, as the mathematicians
would sav.
"Commercial and Domestic"
One likes the idea of a salesmanship school
such as John Martin, T. J. Mercer and Walter
Kiehn, with their various assistants, have been
holding up at the big Gulbransen works during
this month. Of course, specifically the scheme
is a plan for teaching dealers in Gulbransen
goods and their assistants how to sell those
goods in the most efficient manner. Just as
much, however, it is intended to show those
men how to sell so that the goods will stay-
sold and the owners will come back for more
music week after week and month after month,
sending in their friends to become player-pian-
ists in their turn. Now. a good description
of a player salesmanship school would be "a
school for making player-pianists, commercial
and domestic." The commercial player-pianist
is the salesman who learns how to sell the
musical desire and musical means which the
player-piano represents to the man or woman
who is to do the playing at home. The domes-
tic player-pianist is to be made into such by
the commercial one. And then the trilogy is
complete. The problem of selling player-pianos
is to impart to the buyer a knowledge of what
the player-piano is really intended to do,
namely, to give the user of it the opportunity
to perform music personally, whether well or
not so well does not matter. Most salesmen
are obsessed, so it seems, with the notion that
the player-piano is a large piece of construc-
tion weighing eighteen hundred pounds avoir-
dupois and occupying a prominent place in the
The highest class player
actions in the world
living-room, and not much else. They sell it
as this and add that the favorable terms on
which it can be bought enable anyone to become
an owner of such an instrument. Quite sol
How very inspiring! The business of the
teachers at the Gulbransen school is, among
other things, to kill that notion dead. And one
wonders when the whole trade will take the
hint.
Censoring the Census
The preliminary estimates which the Census
Department has issued relating to the music
industry in the United States during 1919 are
quite illuminating. One can draw all sorts of
deductions from a study of them, although, of
course, a good deal of the deducing is likely
to be somewhat sketchy and inaccurate. Dur-
ing that year the number of uprights with
players exceeded the number without them for
the first time in the history of the trade. As a
matter of fact the percentages were about 57
and 43 respectively and the total production
was only a little in excess of that average
(300,000) which we have frequently referred to
as annually characterizing our production fig-
ures. Now, of course, the figures for 1920 will
not show so favorable a result and those of
this year will probably be even less inviting.
But the point to be noted is that we have
passed the point where the player-piano (in
upright form) is to be regarded as a mere vari-
ant of the piano proper. The player-piano is
now settled as a true co-ordinate element of
the music industries and must be treated as
such hereafter. Again, the grands numbered
2,200. It is very consoling to know that so
many as two thousand! player grands were
sold during 1919, for that means that two thou-
sand families were really interested in person-
ally obtaining music, otherwise commonly un-
attainable, in the highest of domestic forms!
That is a very consoling thought. Then there
was the steadily growing numbers of the auto-
matic players. It is hard here to disentangle
the figures, but apparently the growth was
(Continued on page 8)
MinrtiiiMMiiiiiitiiiiiiiiniiiiiTiiitfiu MiriiiiiiTiiiiiiiii MTiMiMiriniiTinriTihTrrri ii iTii ii in MtiririTti i ri iT'ii iiiiiii ii iniii i r: iniiii!Mii ti rii i M i M i ti i MiiniiiiiiitniiiiiiiEirtiMTi nil! i [iiuiiiiiiiiiiii[[ii:iiiiMii»
"The valve unit that made the player famous"
sense o f becu6u has been
developed t o on'
fcdi
detfree.
The new "Amphxon Accessible Action" is the last word in scientific player
achievement.
ft has the complete valve action assembled in a "Demountable
Unit'' giving instant accessibility.
AMPHIOIWWTIONS
SYRACUSE
•Your Guarantee
NEW YORK
__
_
picijeK* -picno
appeals Go ell lovers of *ne
becudiful, so bbob far-cuucu
Ocpcn demends end but|s'
these superb instrumenls,
t|ou u)ill be proud of i^our
{cscirpcOincj Sijrnphonolci, end
A iDill rnoke iiour house
e home.
PRICE & TEEPLE PIANO CO,
CHICAGO, U. S. A.
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