Music Trade Review

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The Player-Piano
In the Piano Industry Today
Instrument, Which Constitutes One-Half the Output of Piano
Factories, Has as Great Sales Potentialities Today as When It Was
First Introduced to the American Public—Whys and Wherefores
T
HE piano industry, if we are to take the
word of the many self-appointed prophets
who are just now engaged in the task
of weighing it in the balance, has committed
many and grievous sins during its years upon
this earth and the time has now come for h
to repent in sackcloth and ashes. But those
who are neither professional pessimists nor
(what is equally abominable) professional op-
timists have long ago concluded that if the
piano industry really is to die, it will have to
be its own murderer. That it is capable of
committing suicide is, of course, not incon-
ceivable, but that it wants to do so one may
refuse to believe. On the other hand, that
the piano business as a whole seems to have
only a vague idea of the principles which it
should follow from this time onwards and that
in consequence a very great deal of consider-
able nonsense is being talked by worthy
members of it who ought to know much better,
may be set down as one of those things which
every wise man knows to be true.
Passing the Buck
And it might as well be admitted at the
start that this industry of ours has not been
feeling so well of late. There is a rather gen-
eral idea among manufacturers that the trouble
is to be found in merchandising, while those
who are responsible for the conduct of that
department assert that the trouble lies in cir-
cumstances over which no one has any control.
Pressed to explain the nature of these circum-
stances, our merchandisers usually say that the
automobile and the radio are to blame, not to
mention the iceless icebox, the electric vacuum
cleaner, the movie theatre and the illicit liquor
trade. In point of fact this question of "who
is responsible" is becoming rather a bore and
those who object to being bored with all these
elaborate passings of the buck are wondering
whether there may not be some other explana-
tion, at once more accurate and more plausible.
Well, the player end of the piano business is
very important. Taking the reproducer and the
foot-player together, probably at least one-half
of the output of pianos may be classified under
the pneumatic heading. In which case it is
evident that if the piano business is to be
understood from the merchandising standpoint,
at least half of our attention must be given to
the player end of it. So, leaving the straight
piano to one side, and considering the pneu-
matic instrument, let us ask ourselves what is
the matter with the piano business from that
standpoint alone, or, in other words, what is
IT.
ESTABLISHED 16C2
1
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their heads off demonstrating that the claims
made in the advertising were true. They gave
concerts featuring the player, they demon-
strated everywhere, they started player depart-
ments among merchants, training the salesmen
or putting in their own men. They showed
tlie public that their claims were not absurd;
and they put the player-piano on the com-
mercial map within a couple of years, making
one of the greatest business successes that has
ever been made, certainly by far the greatest
T~)OINTLESS
optimism
and similarly success ever made in the field of musical mer-
-£. pointless pessimism lead nowhere in chandise, properly so called.
These are facts, they are not mere surmises.
considering the problems with which the in- The record is open to all; and, anyhow, no one
dustry is confronted at the present time. disputes the statement. The impetus thus given
This is especially true when the foot-power to the infant player industry was so powerful
player-piano is considered. That instru- that not even ten years of the reactionary
ment, as strong today as it ever ivas in sales stupidity which succeeded the first five years
of wisdom and energy could notably slow up
potentialities, needs better
merchandising, its progress. Public interest was aroused and
and that merchandising is within the reach aroused enthusiastically. Not until the trade
of every retail dealer. That is the nub of had deliberately debased its own coin, de-
liberately set out to deceive the public,
the entire problem.
deliberately thrown overboard every trace of
sane merchandising, did the tide begin to turn.
And even to-day there remain potentialities of
is nothing wrong with the player end, with revivification so powerful that only a very little
that one-half of the piano business. But there application of merchandising common sense is
needed to bring things back again to the high-
ieally is something wrong with the minds of
the men who are running that business. Not est level they ever occupied in the halcyon
that these merchants and manufacturers have clays.
no cause for worry, for plainly they have such
The sin which was committed was the sin
cause. I t is rather that the merchandising end of debasement. The trade began to get worried
of the player business is out of date, out of over the player. It thought that the original
all effective contact with reality. And that is merchandising plans were too "highbrow." It
a definite statement, capable of definite elabora- clamored for cheap goods, and when it had got
tion, which it shall now have.
them it declined the further aid of trained
Old stuff is sometimes boring, but often it demonstrators and trained salesmen, r saying
is a good discipline to have to listen to it. that unless the thing could be sold as requiring
no work, no thought, nothing but physical
Here is some old stuff.
ability to tread on pedals, it could never be sold
The Old Stuff
Thirty years ago the player came on the in large enough quantities. And so the process
market as something absolutely new. It sprang of degradation began. The instrument was
full-armed from the brows of its inventors cheapened, skilled demonstration was forgotten,
and took the world wholly by surprise. At and the whole emphasis began to be placed
first nobody believed that its claims could pos- on the low prices and the long terms. Already
sibly be substantiated, and it would have the end was in sight. Then a miracle hap-
dropped almost still-born on the market if those pened.
who had the merchandising of it had not
The Miracle
*
plainly seen what to do and had the consider-
The reproducing piano came on the market/ 1
able courage to do it. And what did they do? At once it seemed to solve every difficulty.
They spent every cent they could raise in Here was at last "real" piano playing, to be
advertising, telling the world that the new won- had for the turning of a switch. Of course the
der would enable any normal person to play instrument was costly, more costly than an
the piano satisfactorily, and then they worked
(Continued on page 18)
ihe matter with half the whole piano business?
What Is "Nothing"?
And the answer is nothing. Of course
someone will object that all the preceding
words were merely intended to lead up to a
pointless optimism illuminated with a few plati-
tudes. But for once the objector is wrong. The
answer "Nothing" was made deliberately. There
UXUTEIL
NEWARK. N. J.!
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MANUFACTURERS OF PIANOS OF QUALITY
UPRIGHTS
GRANDS
THE LAUTER-HUMANA
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