Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE
RMEW
PUBLISHED BY EDWARD LYMAN BILL, Inc.
President and Treasurer, C. L. Bill, 375 Fourth Ave., New York; Vice-President,
T. B. Spillane, 373 Fourth Ave., New York; Second Vice-President, Raymond Bill, 373
Fourth Ave., New York; Secretary, Edward Lyman Bill, 373 Fourth Ave., New York;
Assistant Treasurer, Wm. A. Low.
J. B. SPILLANE, Editor
RAY BILL, B. B. WILSON, BRAID WHITE, Associate Editors
WILSON D. BUSH, Managing Editor
CARLETON CHACE, Business Manager
L. E. BOWERS, Circulation Manager
Executive and Reportorial Staff
EDWARD VAN HARLINGEN, V. D. WALSH, E. B. MUNCH, LEE ROBINSON,
EDWARD LYMAN BILL, SCOTT KINGWILL, THOS. W. BRKSNAHAN, A. J.
C. R. TIGHE,
NICKLIN
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• NEWS SERVICE IS SUPPLIED WEEKLY BY OUR CORRESPONDENTS
LOCATED IN T H E LEADING CITIES THROUGHOUT AMERICA.
Published Every Saturday at 373 Fourth Avenue, New York
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under the Act of March 3, 1879.
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P|nvj>l* Pi an A dllU
anil
ri«ljt!r~rI I W h n f o a l nPnartmPnfe
n
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
I C L l l l l l l / J l l IJcJIal UllCUla
are dealt with, will be found in another section of
this paper. We also publish a number of reliable technical works, information concerning
which will be cheerfully given upon request.
Exposition Honors Won by The Review
Grand Prix
Diploma
Paris Exposition, 1900
Silver Medal... .Charleston Exposition, 1902
Pan-American Exposition, 1901
Gold Medal
St. Louis Exposition, 1904
Gold Medal—Lewis-Clark Exposition, 1905
LONG DISTANCE TELEPHONES—NUMBERS 6982—6983 MADISON SQ.
Connecting all Departments
Cable Address: "Elbill, New York"
Vol. LXXV
NEW YORK, AUGIST S, 1922
No. 6
REASONS FOR OPTIMISM
CCORDING to a number of manufacturers who have been look-
ing and planning ahead in anticipation of improved business
conditions in the Fall and who have demonstrated their confidence in
the future by action rather than by conversation, there are already
unmistakable signs that their confidence has been justified.
There has been a general waking up among the retailers in vari-
ous sections of the country, who are evidently finding both current
business and prospects more to their liking and consequently are
showing an inclination to order ahead in anticipation of later re-
quirements. The carload order which some manufacturers have
during the past couple of years considered extinct and in the class of
the dodo has again come into evidence, and this in itself is an en-
couraging sign.
It may be that the piano business during the coming Fall and
Winter will not break records, but at least it shows promise of com-
ing closer to normal than has been possible for many months. The
confidence of trade members in the stability of the industry and in
their ability to get business by going after it will have much to do
with the ultimate results.
A
REVIEW
AUGUST 5, 1922
est and most even level of sales was found where the practice of ad-
vertising steadily throughout the year was followed. The annual
results proved that steady advertising is far more effective even than
the concentration of similar advertising appropriations in seasonal ad-
vertising, with the between-season period more or less neglected.
It is found that the business concerns which have built up great
sales volume and nation-wide reputations are practically without ex-
ception consistent year-round advertisers, and have stuck to tfiat
policy regardless of changing business conditions.
Proof of the effectiveness of such a policy is found in the piano
trade among the leading manufacturers, who plan and carry out an-
nual advertising programs that provide for publicity every month in
the year and which serve the purpose of keeping factories operating
steadily and at periods when those who have not such firm faith in
the work of publicity have occasion to bemoan depression. The
value of steady, consistent, year-round advertising is not simply a
selling argument of the advertising solicitor, but a sound business
fact long firmly established.
THE NEED FOR INTELLIGENT WORKMEN
H P HE increasing disposition of American youths to avoid taking
A up trades as their life work formed the subject of a very timely
article by Secretary of Labor Davis in Forbes Magazine recently,
in which he emphasized the necessity of every child being taught a
trade, saying, "Education has for its purpose the making of the
growing man or woman more useful to himself and to the world.
It should make the individual better able to care for himself, and to
provide for his own happiness, and should benefit society generally
by increasing the value of the individual as a social asset.
"Our whole educational system is directed toward turning out
boys and girls equipped to enter the professions, to undertake what
is known as brain work, or, more aptly, to occupy 'white-collar' jobs.
"More than 90 per cent of our population is made up of the indus-
trial ivorkcr and the farmer. Educating 100 per cent of our school
children along lines that fit them for the professions is plainly unjus-
tified when we know that less than 8 per cent of them will be able
to make a living in professional life. To-day, while our 'white-collar'
occupations are crowded to overflowing, we are actually lacking in
the skilled workmen and artisans necessary to keep up our production
in shop and factory and to do our structural work."
There is no question as to the timeliness of the topic set forth
by Secretary Davis. In the piano trade, as indeed in other industries,
it is almost impossible to get competent workers. Our age has become
so superficial that the glittering, surface things of life appeal most
to the youth leaving school, and the easiest way to them is the best
way. There really should be some effective, earnest movement to
interest our young men in trades rather than allow them to drift into
positions for which many of them are unfitted and which ultimately
pt event them_ from earning a decent wage. We need intel 1 i-
gent workmen, and to-day intelligent workmen are so well paid,
indeed far better than office workers, that the only reason why so
many of them avoid taking up a trade is due to some social phase.
If we look back twenty years or more in the piano trade it was
a common thing to find the owners of the business working at the
bench with their aprons on, either making or superintending the
construction of pianos. While this is not now so prevalent in the
trade, yet it may be said to the credit of our industry that the sons
and grandsons of these men are to-day in direct charge of the
practical end of their business, many of them being practical men
and competent to w T ork at the bench if called upon.
THE VALUE OF CONSISTENT PUBLICITY
T
HAT all-year-around advertising carried on persistently and con-
sistently is far more effective in keeping sales at a high level than
spasmodic advertising of the seasonal type has long been the con-
tention of advertising men and business men who have had actual
experience in this connection.
It has been pointed-out time and again that the cumulative value
of advertising is one of its outstanding characteristics, and that pub-
licity carried on in bad seasons as well as during good periods is
almost sure to be productive of results fully commensurate with the
investment entailed, and proof of this fact is found in statistics re-
cently compiled by the Economic Research Department of the Curtis
Publishing Co.
These findings are set forth graphically in a chart appearing
elsewhere in The Review this week, the chart indicating that the high-
A LARGER VIEW OF OPERA
I
N HOUSTON, TEX., they have found a way to interest business
men in general in the opera and concert season by overcoming
the impression that opera is only of direct benefit to those who are
musically inclined or engaged in the selling of musical instruments.
Houston merchants have been impressed with the fact that
the opera season means many a new addition to the wardrobe, more
money for the florist, more business for the taxicab operators, and
increased expenditures in many directions other than simply that of
buying tickets. That the impression is firmly fixed is indicated by
the co-operative advertising campaign that is carried on by the mer-
chants of Houston just prior to the opera season, when evening
clothes, gowns, shoes, hosiery, flowers, restaurants and taxicabs for
the use and convenience of operagoers are featured.