Music Trade Review

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REVIEW
THE
VOL. LXXXIV. No. 14 Published Every Satwday. Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., 383 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y., April 2, 1927
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10 Cents
Jl 0c0 °^ eeP9 s Year
Wisconsin Contest
to Be Based on a New Principle
Piano-Playing Contest, as Announced by the Wisconsin Ass'n of
Music Merchants, Provides for Instruction as Preliminary to
Event, Thus Linking Up More Closely With the Real Sales Factor
T
HE piano-playing contest as it lias been
conducted in the trade has been highly
successful in developing publicity for that
instrument among the general public, but there
has always been a question as to its influence
in developing the further study of the piano
among those who have not as yet had any train-
ing upon the instrument. That there has been
indirect influence along these lines is indispu-
table, but just how much it has been impossible
to discover.
Obviously the greatest appeal of the contest
is to those who are already studying the piano
and who have received a fundamental ground-
ing on the instrument, sufficient at least to per-
mit them to enter the contest with at least some
chance of scoring a success among one class of
the contestants. While it does much therefore
to revive and sustain interest in the study of
the instrument among those who already have
made the initial step, and this of course is of no
little importance, its influence on those who
have never studied remains problematical.
The piano trade needs to make the "dead"
piano an integral and living part of the home,
but, more than that, it needs to put pianos in
homes where they have not as yet been placed.
The ultimate end of all promotional work for
the piano is sales, and of those sales the most
important are to absolutely new prospects.
Study of piano production statistics shows un-
questionably that too large a proportion come
under the head of replacements of old instru-
ments by new, either in replacement of pianos
by the same type, or a shift from a straight in-
strument to some type of player, or else from
an upright to a grand. This is one of the pri-
mary reasons why the piano market has not in-
creased directly in proportion to what might be
expected when the country's advance in popula-
tion and standards of living is considered.
The Wisconsin Association of Music Mer-
chants has announced a new type of piano-
playing contest which is obviously based on
a close study of these fundamental facts, and
which is designed, through a unique plan, to
appeal, not only to those who are already study-
ing the piano, but to the- parents of those chil-
dren who have not as yet begun the study of the
instrument. In other words, it combines the pub-
licity value of the piano-playing contest with the
sales appeal of class instruction which has proven
W. Otto Miessner
President of the Wisconsin Association of
Music Merchants
so successful during the past few years for retail
piano merchants who have utilized it. Its appeal
is therefore not only to those who have already
taken up the study of the piano, but to those who
may be interested in this work during the pre-
liminaries of the contest itself.
The plan as announced consists of the forma-
tion of a State-wide "Melody-Way" Club with
the purpose of establishing class instruction on
the piano by Wisconsin music merchants in
every section of the State.
The club, when
formed, will function in two divisions—a junior
division, which will include all children up to and
including twelve years of age who have never
studied the piano upon entering the club; and
a senior division which will include all others
up to and including the age of twenty-five years
who have studied music or who are studying
music.
Present plans call for the organization of the
club in the Spring of this year and for the class
instruction to continue for a period of twelve
months. During National Music Week in 1928,
under the auspices of the Wisconsin Association
of Music Merchants and the Milwaukee Journal,
a State-wide contest among members of the
"Melody-Way" Club will be held, dividing
$7,000 in prizes between the various winners
in the senior and junior divisions upon a method
that will be announced later.
The association will shortly begin an ener-
getic campaign among the dealers of the State
to enlist them as members of the organization
and to win their co-operation in the plan.
According to the details available at the pres-
ent moment, the Wisconsin plan appears to be
an ideal combination of the class instruction
plan, with its sales possibilities, and of the con-
test plan with its wide publicity and consequent
interest. It is the first time there has been an
effort to organize class instruction on a State-
wide basis among the dealers, this work having
previously been almost entirely confined to in-
dividual effort on the part of the merchant.
The Wisconsin plan, which represents a far-
reaching development of the contest idea, will
be watched with close interest by the trade,
since for the first time it presents what are prob-
ably the full possibilities of the contest plan.
The use of instruction in connection with the
contest gives a tie-up to sales, placing the
dealer directly in contact with the class of en-
tries which present the widest opportunity for
sales of instruments. Theoretically it provides
the bridge between the contest and the dealer,
and there is every possibility that this will work
out, if the Wisconsin dealers co-operate
whole-heartedly with the Association during
the next twelve months.
L. M. Kesselman, of the Kesselman-O'Driscoll
Co., of Milwaukee, is chairman of the contest
finance committee.