Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
jails. Music, as a social force, is one of the
most valuable of all civic assets.
"Leisure—for what?" asks George W. Alger
in an admirable article in Atlantic Monthly for
April. You should study this article assid-
uously. You will find in it copy for a whole
year's advertising. For, if the use of your
product has any value, it lies in the wholesome
and pleasurable employment of leisure that mu-
sic affords. In a plea for a shorter working
day, an officer of the National Federation of
Labor made this remark: "The American la-
borer needs leisure to live but not to loaf." Why
not write your ads to show folks that "Music
makes happier Homes"—that music is for the
enjoyment of leisure?
A National Slogan
The music industry needs a national slogan
to sell music to the American people. The
florists have it on us. "Say it with music,"
sounds more appropriate than "Say it with flow-
ers." However, there are lots of good words
in the dictionary. The slogan should express
action with a pleasurable reaction . "Enjoy
More Music"—"Cheer your Home with Music"
—"More Music makes Happier Homes"—these
are offered merely as suggestions embodying
the thought. A good slogan, backed by con-
certed national advertising, would soon be
worth millions to the Music Industries.
Other industries seem to have left us behind
in their appeals to the buyers of commodities.
The Portland Cement Companies, numbering
some thirty, 1 believe, combine their propaganda
for the various uses of cement. They publish
dozens of booklets and pamphlets. They pool
the advertisements of their products in national
mediums. It seems like going far afield when
the American Steel and Wire Co. maintains a
staff of experts on Animal Diseases and Insect
Fests to help American farmers. Nevertheless,
it is a dividend-paying policy, because it takes
successful farmers to buy steel and wire in all
of their applied forms.
Music Advancement Bureau
The National Bureau for the Advancement of
Music is doing excellent work but it needs the
united support of the music manufacturers and
merchants if music is to flourish in America as
it deserves. A million dollars spent annually in
national advertising of Music for Enjoyment
would prove a profitable investment that should
be shared by the combined industries.
Advertising alone, and as such, however, can-
not accomplish miracles. Publicity is even more
valuable. In the use of Publicity, the National
Bureau has been notably successful. "National
Music Week," "Music Memory Contests" and
the more recent "Band and Orchestra Contests"
have served to focus public attention upon mu-
sic. Excellent as these movements are, they
are, by their very nature, sporadic attention ar-
resters which may be forgotten before the
"urge to buy" has put the pen on the dotted
line. A constant barrage and drum fire is
needed to keep music before the American pub-
lic every week and every day of the year.
Music Advertising
Music advertising seems to require more ac-
tion, more illustration, if it is to reach the peo-
ple. A picture is the shortest distance between
minds. A good illustration is worth pages of
copy. It is probably true that the number of
readers varies inversely to the number of words
in an ad. People to-day will not read long ad-
vertisements unless they contain vital messages.
In view of these generally accredited advertising
truths, it is disconcerting to note the character
of many music ads still followed. Styles and
prices, bait and hook lures, bargain sales are
still all too prevalent. A far more effective use
of space would result from telling people how
music will benefit them. The best automobile
ads, Ivory Soap, Palmolive, Eastman Kodaks
and Simmons Beds are a few among the ads
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that illustrate the point and stick with the read-
ers.
When men at their clubs begin to discuss
music as they now discuss automobiles, radio
and golf we can truly claim that music is a vital
factor. Would not stories of "Successful Men
and Music" help to accomplish such a purpose?
Otto Kahn, George Eastman, Charles Schwab
and dozens of other Big Men in Business are
known to feel the need of music in their daily
lives. Since men live by example, might not
such "human interest" stories carry weight with
thousands of other business and professional
men who now boast that they "can't tell one
tune from another"?
Education
While advertising, in the commonly accepted
meaning of the term, is a valuable asset to any
industry, it cannot possibly do the job alone.
Education is even a more potent force. Adver-
tising informs while education instructs.
Demonstrations in merchandising are really
forms of education. It is the demonstration
drive that usually sells the car. It was the thir-
ty-day trial installation that has just sold me an
electric refrigerator. The same methods sold
us on electric laundry equipment. Booklets on
the uses, labor savings, economics, comforts and
conveniences of these machines awakened our
interest, while mere illustrations of styles and
sizes with price quotations or bargain offers
would have failed utterly. Advertising, then,
should be educational as well as informative.
Education, however, as a means of stimulat-
ing interest in music, must be more fundamental
than it is possible for educational advertising
to be. If publicity could do the job unaided by
education, we should all be sailing the air to-day
instead of crowding the highways. The spec-
tacular aspects of aviation have held us all spell-
bound for years. We know, in a general way,
a lot about dirigibles, bi-planes and mono-
planes. We see them in the air and are told
that the act of flying is a delightful experience.
Yet we do not buy them for individual use in
great numbers. Doubt of safety is not the only
deterrent—if it were, the death toll of the auto-
mobile would stop its sale. Neither is the price,
because many men can even now afford to own
a monoplane or two. Yet, they do not buy.
Fundamental training in the operation of air-
craft will have to be given before flying becomes
a universal sport. It was the same with radio
receivers, which did not sell in quantities until
broadcasting furnished the inducement and sim-
plicity of operation supplied the temptation to
buy.
The Real Crux
And now we come to the real crux of the sit-
uation in the music industry. It is the resist-
ance of the buyer to the purchase of an instru-
ment which postpones his pleasure to the day
when he can successfully manipulate it. Parents
hesitate to buy pianos at the risk of having
them stand idle if the children should take no
interest in music. Please distinguish between
the very great difference inherent in passive en-
joyment and in active employment of any arti-
cle. The passive listener or observer soon
grows tired and blase. The real "fan" is the
fellow who likes to do the thing himself or who
can imagine himself doing it. Possibly this ex-
plains the temporary passing of the phonograph.
How often do you hear one to-day compared
with five years ago? Will it be the same with
the piano player or with radio when the novelty
wears off? The answer will depend upon the
amount of individual, active participation the
listeners can contribute. It will depend also
upon the constant and varied appeal that is
made to their imaginations. Furthermore, it
will depend upon their educational and cultural
background.
Do you sell records and rolls? Then, have
you asked yourselves why the owner of a four
JUNE 20,
1925
hundred dollar phonograph or of a four thou-
sand dollar reproducing piano is satisfied with a
library of forty records or forty rolls? At the
same time, the private library may contain fouf
hundred or four thousand volumes! Is not the
answer here again to be found in the proper
education of the consumer by increasing his ca-
pacity for music enjoyment? With these pit-
ifully small and inadequate home music libra-
ries, it is not surprising that these instruments
stand silent for weeks and months. The mere
mailing of monthly releases will not solve this
problem because these announcements and pam-
phlets are merely informational.
Something
deeper and more fundamental is needed and
that is the training of the intellect and the de-
velopment of the imagination. For this training
we must look to our educational institutions.
Radio
The radio will hold its own, the phonograph
and the player-piano will come back, just to the
extent that people learn to find constant enjoy-
ment in them comparable to the sense of satis-
faction they secure from the use of the many other
contrivances offered for sale. Your real com-
petitors are not your rival dealers—they are the
automobile, luxurious food and dress and the
thousand other appeals that are made to your
prospective purchasers.
Educationally speaking, these mechanical musi-
cal instruments occupy an important place in
the musical development of the individual. We
learn, fundamentally, through impressions of
the senses. We acquire skill only through the
expression of ideas through the body. Before
we can become interested in music we must be-
come exposed to it, that is to say, we must
hear music. Mechanical musical instruments
perform this function. If we hear nothing but
jazz, we shall develop a taste for jazz. If we
are exposed to good music, we shall just as
surely develop a taste for good music. "Taste,"
a noted psychologist explains, "is acquired by
tasting." The main difference between bad and
good music is that the former passes while the
latter endures. The surest means for the con-
stant enjoyment of music, therefore, is to be
found in the cultivation of taste for that kind
of music which is lasting. The music merchant
who encourages the cultivation of good music
among his patrons is building his house upon a
rock.
Every music merchant knows that the educa-
tional departments of several large phonograph
companies rank among their most valuable as-
sets. Phonographs in the schools with circu-
lating libraries have brought a wide musical
acquaintance to millions of children. Music
Memory Contests have helped to motivate this
interest. Sales of machines and records have
followed almost invariably, not only as school
equipment but by increased home use. Man-
ufacturers of reproducing pianos have recently
begun the same kind of educational work in
the public schools and colleges. The results
should be equally far reaching, because educa-
tion in music creates the desire for music. "The
child is father to the man" is an old adage that
here has a practical application. You do not
wait for the child to grow into a man in order
to sell him. You sell the parents of the child.
Musical Expression
Now, if this awakened interest in music is to
endure with the children they must be given
early opportunities for musical expression.
Through listening lessons they have learned to
know music, much as a baby recognizes the
names of objects before he can speak them.
Without the development of his expressive
speech, the child's vocabulary would remain
very small, his interest in literature very lim-
ited. To assure continued interest in music,
every child in school should be given the chance
to learn to play upon some musical instrument
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