Music Trade Review
Issue: 1924 Vol. 78 N. 8 - Page 5
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
FEBRUARY 23, iy24
THE
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
THE POINT OF REVIEW
are being- heard from several sections of the
C OMPLAINTS
country regarding retail advertising, primarily on the score
of low down-payments and terms, beyond what reason and
prudence teaches pianos can be properly sold on. Of course,
this is a perennial complaint in the retail piano trade, one that
is always with us and one that we rarely get away from. It
take-s a world war or something equally as catastrophic to
convince a good many piano dealers that pianos need not be
sold on terms that in some cases nearly equal the life of the
instrument itself and that a customer, when he gets a piano,
should at least pay a good percentage of the purchase price
down in cash.
%
%
$
F the individual merchant who sells on this basis were the chief
sufferer not so much would have to be said about it. But,
unfortunately, the entire industry, from the supply man down to
the dealer, suffers from it in the long run. The dealer who sells
on long terms in time is compelled to buy his pianos from the
manufacturer on long terms. The latter, when he is compelled
to carry too much dealers' paper, in turn is compelled to pay for
his supplies by paper. The supply man, who cannot go out into
the open market and pay for his raw materials in that fashion,
is compelled to resort to his bank to carry him over the dearth
of cash, and pays well for the accommodation. This vicious
circle, for circle it is if you think long enough about it, tends
constantly to increase the ultimate costs of pianos. No man
has ever yet figured out that part of the cost of a piano, manu-
factured and sold in this fashion, which is represented by the
cost of discounts, renewals and interest charges, but if the
figures could be discovered on a typical transaction of this kind
the results would be astounding. It all starts in the dealer's
warerooms, and he is primarily responsible. But the manufac-
turer who, in his eagerness for outlets, encourages him in these
practices through carrving him over the rough spots has an
equal share in the responsibility, and perhaps more, for he has
within his power the means of checking it.
«?
% %
NEW kind of music was revealed in New York last week.
In the classic walls of Aeolian Hall, sacred to the shades of
the famous three Bs—Bach, Beethoven and Brahms—the popu-
lar composer had his innings, and a choir of saxophones and all
the rest of the modern dance orchestra held a capacity audience
for nearly two hours, an audience, by the way, more accustomed
to hear the symphony orchestra, the string quartet or similar
organizations. Paul Whiteman's experiment was a success. The
Mew York press sent their music critics, and these men evidently
had a revelation, to judge by the columns of discussion they
devoted to the work of the orchestra and especially to the new
trend in orchestration which orchestras of the type of White-
man's have- brought into being. But there is another side of this
concert that received little or no notice and which perhaps is
the most important of all in summing up what is being accom-
plished. That is the way in which these orchestras are bringing
the amateur instrumentalist to the fore.
%
% %
HE American was once defined as a man who would pay
large sums of money to have other people provide him with
his sport, his art, his music, and what not, but who would do
none of these things himself. In the past ten years this condi-
tion is rapidly changing. The American is doing a lot of things
he never did before and finding that he enjoys doing them. The
movement is yet in its infancy, but is making tremendous strides,
especially in music. To-day, where ten years ago one boy played
an instrument, forty or fifty play. And they do not have to be
watched to practice nor do they emancipate themselves from
the instrument when they are old enough to have a little more
freedom than has the ordinary adolescent. There are any num-
ber of amateur orchestras and bands in the country formed in
schools, etc., where the attendance and practi-ir.g" is entirely
I
A
T
voluntary. But there are more than this. There are large num-
bers of small orchestras which come into being spontaneously,
without any outside stimulus and their number is constantly
growing. It is not a rare thing to walk down a street in a city
or a town and hear several of these neighborhood organizations
at practice. True, they are generally dance orchestras, but
nevertheless they provide sales for musical instruments and they
are bringing music where music never existed before. Those
who are members of them are enthusiastic and always striving
for something better. "Jazz" may be the beginning, but they
try to do what the big dance orchestras are doing and that is far
beyond the meaning the usual use of this term brings to mind.
V£
Mf
MS
T
HE big orchestras, such as Whiteman's, are responsible for
all this. They are heard everywhere, in person, by the talk-
ing machine record, and by the radio. Where the youth of the
Nation once aspired to be lawyers, doctors, and what not, to-day-
there are any number of them who aspire to play in an orchestra
or become musicians. It is true that few of them will make this
their occupation, but think of the great number who will make
it their avocation. The new generation will be musically intelli-
gent, not perhaps for the highest forms of music, but they will
have a grasp of musical realities that no former generation in
this country has ever possessed. Music, to their minds, is linked
to enjoyment and to self-expression, not to the dimly lit parlor
where several hours a week were spent in dreary practicing
under duress.
are those who deplore the result of this condition
T in HERE
the musical taste of the country. They are wrong, Pop-
ular music, when it is understood and when it represents self-
expression and not mere participation by hearing, never kills
musical taste. We are told that the great music of Europe takes
its origin in folk songs. W r hat are folk songs but popular songs.
What is the present interest in popular music but a folk interest.
It is far different than that which existed in the past, but the
age is different. From a commercial standpoint, and that after
all is the one that The Reviewer is most intimately interested in,
the present-day need among the people for musical instruments,
and it is steadily becoming a more vital need, has no stronger
support than the popularity of the dance orchestra and the emu-
lation which it creates among the younger generation.
#s
til
t%
YX7 E hear a lot to the effect that the day when one could start
' ' in a small way in piano manufacturing has gone. Those
who hold their belief point out to the mergers which have taken
place in the industry and the constantly increasing size of the
corporate units therein. Some of us have our doubts about this
and some of us have the facts to prove that our doubts are
justified. Here is an example that shows that, despite conditions
as they exist to-day, the man who enters piano manufacturing
with ability and energy, but with a small capital, can make a
success and build up a good and enduring business. There is
a concern in New York named the Henkelman Piano Mfg. Corp.
It was founded approximately two years ago by George Henkel-
man and some associates, who had a small amount of capital,
but a lot of determination, industry, brains and experience. To-
day this firm is making pianos at the rate of approximately 2,000
yearly and the balance on the right side of its books is a good
one. Only last week it announced that it was compelled to add
8,000 square feet of floor space to its factory in order to keep
up" with its orders. The recipe for its success is a simple one—
good values, careful workmanship, a regard for the quality in
the grade of the instruments it produces and, above all, sense
enough to enlist its productive force in their work by securing-
their full co-operation. With these qualities they have definitely
proven that even to-day there exists as great an opportunity for
the man of small capital as was the case in the infancy of the
industrv.
THE REVIEWER.
FEBRUARY 23, iy24
THE
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
THE POINT OF REVIEW
are being- heard from several sections of the
C OMPLAINTS
country regarding retail advertising, primarily on the score
of low down-payments and terms, beyond what reason and
prudence teaches pianos can be properly sold on. Of course,
this is a perennial complaint in the retail piano trade, one that
is always with us and one that we rarely get away from. It
take-s a world war or something equally as catastrophic to
convince a good many piano dealers that pianos need not be
sold on terms that in some cases nearly equal the life of the
instrument itself and that a customer, when he gets a piano,
should at least pay a good percentage of the purchase price
down in cash.
%
%
$
F the individual merchant who sells on this basis were the chief
sufferer not so much would have to be said about it. But,
unfortunately, the entire industry, from the supply man down to
the dealer, suffers from it in the long run. The dealer who sells
on long terms in time is compelled to buy his pianos from the
manufacturer on long terms. The latter, when he is compelled
to carry too much dealers' paper, in turn is compelled to pay for
his supplies by paper. The supply man, who cannot go out into
the open market and pay for his raw materials in that fashion,
is compelled to resort to his bank to carry him over the dearth
of cash, and pays well for the accommodation. This vicious
circle, for circle it is if you think long enough about it, tends
constantly to increase the ultimate costs of pianos. No man
has ever yet figured out that part of the cost of a piano, manu-
factured and sold in this fashion, which is represented by the
cost of discounts, renewals and interest charges, but if the
figures could be discovered on a typical transaction of this kind
the results would be astounding. It all starts in the dealer's
warerooms, and he is primarily responsible. But the manufac-
turer who, in his eagerness for outlets, encourages him in these
practices through carrving him over the rough spots has an
equal share in the responsibility, and perhaps more, for he has
within his power the means of checking it.
«?
% %
NEW kind of music was revealed in New York last week.
In the classic walls of Aeolian Hall, sacred to the shades of
the famous three Bs—Bach, Beethoven and Brahms—the popu-
lar composer had his innings, and a choir of saxophones and all
the rest of the modern dance orchestra held a capacity audience
for nearly two hours, an audience, by the way, more accustomed
to hear the symphony orchestra, the string quartet or similar
organizations. Paul Whiteman's experiment was a success. The
Mew York press sent their music critics, and these men evidently
had a revelation, to judge by the columns of discussion they
devoted to the work of the orchestra and especially to the new
trend in orchestration which orchestras of the type of White-
man's have- brought into being. But there is another side of this
concert that received little or no notice and which perhaps is
the most important of all in summing up what is being accom-
plished. That is the way in which these orchestras are bringing
the amateur instrumentalist to the fore.
%
% %
HE American was once defined as a man who would pay
large sums of money to have other people provide him with
his sport, his art, his music, and what not, but who would do
none of these things himself. In the past ten years this condi-
tion is rapidly changing. The American is doing a lot of things
he never did before and finding that he enjoys doing them. The
movement is yet in its infancy, but is making tremendous strides,
especially in music. To-day, where ten years ago one boy played
an instrument, forty or fifty play. And they do not have to be
watched to practice nor do they emancipate themselves from
the instrument when they are old enough to have a little more
freedom than has the ordinary adolescent. There are any num-
ber of amateur orchestras and bands in the country formed in
schools, etc., where the attendance and practi-ir.g" is entirely
I
A
T
voluntary. But there are more than this. There are large num-
bers of small orchestras which come into being spontaneously,
without any outside stimulus and their number is constantly
growing. It is not a rare thing to walk down a street in a city
or a town and hear several of these neighborhood organizations
at practice. True, they are generally dance orchestras, but
nevertheless they provide sales for musical instruments and they
are bringing music where music never existed before. Those
who are members of them are enthusiastic and always striving
for something better. "Jazz" may be the beginning, but they
try to do what the big dance orchestras are doing and that is far
beyond the meaning the usual use of this term brings to mind.
V£
Mf
MS
T
HE big orchestras, such as Whiteman's, are responsible for
all this. They are heard everywhere, in person, by the talk-
ing machine record, and by the radio. Where the youth of the
Nation once aspired to be lawyers, doctors, and what not, to-day-
there are any number of them who aspire to play in an orchestra
or become musicians. It is true that few of them will make this
their occupation, but think of the great number who will make
it their avocation. The new generation will be musically intelli-
gent, not perhaps for the highest forms of music, but they will
have a grasp of musical realities that no former generation in
this country has ever possessed. Music, to their minds, is linked
to enjoyment and to self-expression, not to the dimly lit parlor
where several hours a week were spent in dreary practicing
under duress.
are those who deplore the result of this condition
T in HERE
the musical taste of the country. They are wrong, Pop-
ular music, when it is understood and when it represents self-
expression and not mere participation by hearing, never kills
musical taste. We are told that the great music of Europe takes
its origin in folk songs. W r hat are folk songs but popular songs.
What is the present interest in popular music but a folk interest.
It is far different than that which existed in the past, but the
age is different. From a commercial standpoint, and that after
all is the one that The Reviewer is most intimately interested in,
the present-day need among the people for musical instruments,
and it is steadily becoming a more vital need, has no stronger
support than the popularity of the dance orchestra and the emu-
lation which it creates among the younger generation.
#s
til
t%
YX7 E hear a lot to the effect that the day when one could start
' ' in a small way in piano manufacturing has gone. Those
who hold their belief point out to the mergers which have taken
place in the industry and the constantly increasing size of the
corporate units therein. Some of us have our doubts about this
and some of us have the facts to prove that our doubts are
justified. Here is an example that shows that, despite conditions
as they exist to-day, the man who enters piano manufacturing
with ability and energy, but with a small capital, can make a
success and build up a good and enduring business. There is
a concern in New York named the Henkelman Piano Mfg. Corp.
It was founded approximately two years ago by George Henkel-
man and some associates, who had a small amount of capital,
but a lot of determination, industry, brains and experience. To-
day this firm is making pianos at the rate of approximately 2,000
yearly and the balance on the right side of its books is a good
one. Only last week it announced that it was compelled to add
8,000 square feet of floor space to its factory in order to keep
up" with its orders. The recipe for its success is a simple one—
good values, careful workmanship, a regard for the quality in
the grade of the instruments it produces and, above all, sense
enough to enlist its productive force in their work by securing-
their full co-operation. With these qualities they have definitely
proven that even to-day there exists as great an opportunity for
the man of small capital as was the case in the infancy of the
industrv.
THE REVIEWER.
Future scanning projects are planned by the International Arcade Museum Library (IAML).