Music Trade Review

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Can the Music Merchants Be Allies
Instead of Competitors?
An Address Before the Western Music Trades Association in Seattle, by Shirley Walker, of Sherman, Clay
& Co., San Francisco, and President of the Music Merchants Association of Northern Cali-
fornia—They Must Be Both Allies and Competitors, Is Mr. Walker's Answer
M
Y answer to this question is: "Music
Dealers can be both allies and competi-
tors"—they can't help from being com-
petitors—they must be allies.
Certainly we will not cease to be competitors,
unless some of us go out of business or are ab-
sorbed by others. Competition is necessary to
business. Remember the old saying, "Competi-
tion is the life of trade." For the public, com-
petition insures price levels and maintains
standards of service. For the dealers, compe-
tition increases the incentive to do our utmost.
With competition, we are keenly alive to our
opportunities and we are ever thinking how to
legitimately "beat the other fellow to it." Com-
petition, however, is not good for dealers and
public alike when unfair and unsound selling
and advertising methods are resorted to—for
retaliation and reprisal are the order of the day.
Then each dealer goes the other dealer one bet-
ter in letting down all ethical and economic
bars. This competition is ruinous, first because
profits are cut to the vanishing point—in fact
business is actually done at a loss. A battle
royal is on for the survival of the fittest, till
one bright day there is a great awakening, the
discovery is made that all are losing money fast,
the law of self-preservation brings the competi-
tors to their senses, and they get together some-
how and return to normalcy. A great philoso-
pher once said that he could not see the sense
in ever having a war because he noticed that
after every war they always had peace. So if
peace follows a war, why have any war at all?
The same philosophy applies to business as well.
Now while great damage to every dealer has
been done in the loss of profits and even of
capital, a greater damage has been done to the
music business itself. The public have been
treated to a Bacchanalian orgy of price-cutting,
term-loosening, trade-in bargaining and of gen-
eral commercial mud-slinging. All this leaves
the public with a very poor opinion of the music
business and a lack of confidence in every music
dealer. It will take years to eradicate this poor
opinion and to secure a resumption of confi-
dence upon the part of the buying public.
Now everything that I have said so far is
merely parenthetical and introductory to what
I want to talk about. Fortunately, in the last
decade we have seen little of this suicidal com-
petition. On the other hand, guided by good
business sense and governed by high ideals, the
music dealers have raised the standard of the
music business to a high plane, so that to-day it
commands the respect of other businesses and
of the general public. What I am leading up to
is the fact that there is even a greater job
ahead of us to do, and that is not just to sell
musical instruments to those that want them,
but to make every man, woman and child in this
great country of ours to want music, to in-
stinctively feel and believe that music is a part
of every home. To do this a new relationship
must be assumed among dealers and, while still
competitors, we must become allies in a great
common cause.
Who is most interested in making music an
essential part of every home? The motor car
dealer? No! The furniture dealer? No! The
home builder? No! The travel agency? No!
The only ones really interested in making music
a real part of every home are ourselves, the
music dealers, and of course, in back of the
music dealers the musical instrument manufac-
turers. There is an old saying, "God helps
them who helps themselves." We in the music
business are not helping ourselves—we are not
taking advantage of our opportunities. It is
also true that the public will follow those that
lead and we music dealers are not leading as we
should. We should be foremost in the public
eye at all times. We are far behind in the pro-
cession. Those business elements which I men-
tioned above—the motor car dealer, the home
builder, the furniture dealer, the travel agency
and scores of other lines of businesses—are all
working against us, by working hard for them-
selves every minute of every twenty-four hours.
They are out after all of the customer's dollar.
Part of the dollar legitimately belongs to us—
but we have the fight of our lives on our hands
to get our legitimate portion. They have
actually come into our own camp and captured
some of our artillery, namely, instalment selling.
They are carving up the instalment dollar to
such an extent that now we not only get less of
it when the customer pays, but there are fewer
contracts upon which to pay. Why the change
from the good years of easy selling? Is it be-
cause we don't know how to merchandise? No!
Simply because other lines are making their
merchandise more attractive to the prospective
customer, creating a desire that must be satis-
fied, and making it so easy to buy that we music
dealers are forgotten in the new order of
things.
How are the other lines of merchandise ac-
complishing this? Are the other lines more at-
tractive than ours? Are they more necessary
than ours? Are they more beneficial to the
American home than ours? Have they a
greater appeal to the cultural side than ours?
Have they a greater appeal to the social side
than ours? Emphatically, no! The point is
that the other lines are more attractively pre-
sented as a type of merchandise. In every one
of the lines clever propaganda and keen pub-
licity campaigns have been pursued by which
these lines stand out before the buying public in
a stronger light, and in a more pleasing light
than our own. They are on the stage—the lime-
light is on them—the show is in full swing—the
audience is responding to the entertainment—
while we music dealers are still sitting in the
wings. Other lines of merchandise, compet-
ing with our own, while suffering just as keenly
from its own dealer competition, have been
thoroughly organized, each line is in close al-
liance to fight its battle for existence.
And that brings me to the point that we
music dealers can not only be, but we must be
allies. By sheer force we must so impress the
buying public of the desirability, of the neces-
sity and the accessibility of musical merchan-
dise that it is without question accepted as a
necessary part of the American home. Ten
years ago a piano in the home was a social re-
quirement. It was not necessary for anybody
in the family to be able to play it. It was only
necessary to have it. Anybody without a piano
in the parlor was not up on the social ladder.
We paid little heed at that time to the im-
portance of this pride of ownership. We have
let the public change the measure of social posi-
tion in this respect. What is the badge of social
position to-day? The kind of automobile that
stands out in front of the home, or the fact
that Mr. and Mrs. are leaving next week for a
six months' tour of Europe.
Our problem, not as competitors but as allies,
is to get the public thinking that music is an es-
sential part of the home, that no home is com-
plete without music, not just a piano but other
musical instruments—there is a place for nearly
all of them in every home. No one of us can
do it singly. We have got to become allies and
do the job together. It can be done and must
be done or the desire and need for musical in-
struments will wane and not very much of the
buying public's dollar will be left for us.
How can we music dealers be allies? There
are several ways:
First, by continuing the constructive work in
the advancement of music which we have been
doing in the past years in promoting good music
in our communities. That promotion can be
done by encouraging international artists to
give concerts in our own cities, by patronizing
grand opera, by supporting symphony orches-
tras and by backing up local choral societies,
bands, orchestras and other musical groups.
Second, by still further promoting music in
the schools. The children of America are the
first point of contact in making future sales of
any line of merchandise and particularly music.
The music dealers have done much to get more
music instruction and more music playing in
the schools. They can do more, and can finally
arrive at the point when music will be consid-
ered a part of the regular curriculum of every
public school. Teaching music as a part of the
curriculum will result in more musical instru-
ments being purchased for use in the home.
Along this line the Music Trades Association of
Northern California is preparing to supply the
schools of a large city of California with one
hundred five-octave key-boards. A canvass
showed that there are several thousand children
in the schools of that community who desire to
learn to play the piano, that would study the
piano if the piano was part of their school work.
But the schools of that community cannot sup-
ply enough pianos, hence our plan of supplying
the key-boards. Key-board instruction, while
not as good as individual piano instruction, is
better than no instruction at all. Instruction of
this kind will eventually result in instruction
and practice on a real piano in the school and
undoubtedly result in instruction and practice
in the homes of these pupils. Introduction of
the Miessner method, the Bevitt method, or of
any good method of class instruction, makes it
easy for children to acquire the rudiments of
piano playing. Just getting them started is of
great value to us; the desire to go further on a
real piano eventually results in the purchase of
an instrument for the home.
Third, by publicity campaigns by which the
public are sold the idea that music is an essen-
tial part of every home and that really no home
is complete without a piano. Let us go back to
first principles and restore that measure of so-
cial standing according to whether or not there
was a piano in the parlor. And it is not hard
to do, because in the heart of every woman
there is a desire for a grand piano to grace the
living room. We know and she knows and the
interior decorator knows that a grand piano
"makes" the modern living room. We have a
wonderful opportunity right here. Much has
been done along this line, but the work accom-
plished is being overshadowed by the bigger
publicity and stronger appeal of other lines of
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