Music Trade Review
Issue: 1927 Vol. 85 N. 5 - Page 22
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TECHNICAL^SUPPLY DEPARTMENT
William Braid White, Technical Editor
Why the Tuner Must Play His Part in
the National Piano Promotion Campaign
Coming Annual Convention of the National Association of Piano Tuners in New York
Should Take Definite Action Along These Lines
H O P E that the editor of The Review will
put a very snappy head on what follows,
for I want all tuners who are going to the
convention, who hope to go, or who would like
to go, to read what I have to say.
This department has to deal largely with mat-
ters of a purely scientific nature and to a large
extent must interest itself with the factory,
with production and with design so that it can-
not give always the space its conductor would
like to give to the outside service men, the
tuners especially. Nevertheless there are times
when the interests of these men, who were the
first readers of the Technical Department and
who have never deserted it, become paramount.
And the approach of the annual tuners' conven-
tion always marks the opening of one of those
periods.
That is why I shall devote our space this
week to some consideration of a topic which
could not be kept out of the forthcoming con-
vention of the National Association of Piano
Tuners, even if there were any desire to exclude
it; which there is not so far as I know. And
that topic is what may be called "the tuner's
place in the present movement for the revival
of public interest in the piano."
If all that I hear from my friends outside
the factories is to be credited . . . and I have
no doubt that it represents the truth . . . tun-
ers are complaining as much as are merchants
and manufacturers about lack of public interest
in that which they have to sell. Piano and
player-piano service, it appears, needs as much
selling to-day as it ever did. And the parallel
between the sales and the service fields appears
to be very close.
Now some of the brightest minds in the serv-
ice field have been thinking about this very
matter during the past year and the published
program of the convention indicates that there
will be a good deal of discussion of the facts
and of ways of dealing with them. Whether any-
thing shall or shall not emerge from these dis-
cussions, which visiting tuners may take home
with them and apply to their own later good,
cannot, however, be told now. If the discus.-
sions are thoughtful and outspoken, then the
results will be worth the trouble of listening to
the talk. But not otherwise.
Facts
What are the facts?
It appears that the
slackness in sales which has been a subject of
complaint among .manufacturers and merchants
has been quite as much under discussion in the
service field, with the difference that the tuners
have had cause for complaint for many years
past and are, in fact, still dealing with what is
a very old sore. For many years, indeed until
quite recently, service men have justly com-
plained that their efforts to sell their services
to the public have been not helped, but hin-
dered, by the merchants. It has for long been
the tuner's complaint that the merchants, as if
I
Punchings
Washers
Bridle Straps
581437th Ave.
despairing of selling pianos upon merit, have
boldly and constantly declared that these in-
struments (at least their particular makes) re-
quire no service and will last forever. And for
this his complaint the tuner has been able un-
til recently to see no remedy whatever.
Perhaps this is the cause of the skepticism
as to the genuineness of recent conversions to
belief in service as a legitimate part of the piano
business, which I notice to be somewhat la-
mentably prevalent among the service men. One
cannot be astonished at the skepticism, but it is
only fair to say that within the last two or
three years the attitude of the merchants to-
wards such matters as the giving away of serv-
ice without charge, and as to misstatements
about the need of service, has been almost en-
tirely turned around. Important merchants are
not usinj» this talk which is to be heard only
among these small, unimportant elements which
comprise what may be called the camp-follow-
ers of the industry. This is the truth and it
should be known.
The Cause
But what caused this volte-face? Why are
manufacturers approving the action of mer-
chants in saying that pianos need tuning? Why
are very eminent manufacturers protesting vig-
orously against* the current practice of talking
and acting as if a piano were something which
one could not, under penalty of law, trade in
for another and better one, within the space of
one generation? The answer is simple. The
old policy grew up unawares. Merchants in
the old rough-and-tumble days, when piano
selling was sometimes a literal knock-down-
and-drag-out affair, got into the habit of saying
whatever came first into their heads in praise
of their goods. By the time that this end. of
the industry had become somewhat more gentle
and less excitable the old ideas had struck so
deeply that the task of uprooting them seemed
altogether too much like hard work. And so it
was for a long time.
The object of the talk was certainly not to
hurt the interests of the tuner as such. The
merchant was simply bent on making sales, and
if he took a wrong attitude this was because
he was thinking only of immediate results and
Magic Scratch Remover
Campbell's Magic Scratch Remover in-
stantly eradicates scratches and scars
from wood finishes. Highly valuable—
in fact. Indispensable, wherever furniture
or musical instruments are handled. Used
by any employee. Quick, effective—and
very economical.
The cost of Magic Scratch Remover is
very small, indeed. Housewives gladly
pay a good price.
Your price, y 2 dos., $2.00; doz.,
$3.50. Postpaid. Sent on approval.
THE M. L. CAMPBELL COMPANY
1008 West Eighth Street
George W. Braunsdor£, Inc.
Direct Manufacturers of
TUNERS' TRADE SOLICITED
Kansas City, Mo.
William Braid White
Associate, American Society of Mechanical
Engineers; Chairman, Wood Industries
Division, A. S. M. E.; Member, American
Physical Society; Member, National Piano
Technicians' Association.
Consulting Engineer to
the Piano Industry
Tonally and Mechanically Correct Scales
Tonal and Technical Surreys of Product
Tonal Betterment Work In Factories
References
to manufacturers of unquestioned
position In industry
For particulars, address
209 South State Street, CHICAGO
Piano Tuners
Also—Felts and
Cloths, Furnished
In Any Quantity
Wood.ide, L. I., N. Y.
22
was all for allowing the future to take care of
itself. I think myself that the attitude of
mutual jealousy, enmity and ill-will that for so
long made both merchants and service men de-
test each other did an amount of harm which
will require more than a year or two of friend-
liness to overcome. The seed is now sown for
a crop of good will; but that which has been re-
sponsible for the sowing has been the volition
neither of the merchant nor of the tuner. The
cause in fact is to be found in conditions ovet
which the industry might once have exerted
control, but which it cannot control now at all.
A Man's Fight
What has changed the attitude of the mer-
chants towards the tuners has been the irre-
sistible sweep of social and business forces.
The piano trade to-day is fighting for its future.
In this fight, if it is to be won, must be en-
listed the best energies of every man who
draws his sustenance directly or indirectly
from the piano. Musicians, piano makers,
piano tuners, player experts, salesmen, mer-
chants, manufacturers, technicians, supply men,
all must fall in, close ranks and advance as
one.
This is no time for quarreling over the
dead past. This is no time for argument
about how mean somebody used to be—or is.
This is no time for mutual recrimination.
While we quarrel, the battle may well be lost
before we shall have struck a single effective
blow.
The piano industry is faced by competition
so formidable that it can retain its position
only by dint of steady and powerful, concerted
effort. What is affecting piano sales is exactly
the same thing as is affecting the service busi-
ness. To-day it is not the merchant saying
that tuning- is a luxury, nice but not necessary.
To-day most merchants are only too ready to
admit that they were wrong, and to co-operate
with the service men. Apart, then, from the
bad effects on the public of past miseducation
(these are not negligible), the one big cause
of any slackness that service men are now
suffering from is the intense preoccupation of
the public mind with other things. And that,
just that and nothing else, is the trouble with
the sale of pianos.
Everybody is buying a house, a car, an ice-
less refrigerator and a fur coat—on the in-
and Technicians
are In demand. The trade needs tuners, regu-
lators and repairmen. Practical Shop School.
Send for Catalog M
Y. M. C. A. Piano Technicians School
1421 Arch St.
Philadelphia, Pa.
TECHNICAL^SUPPLY DEPARTMENT
William Braid White, Technical Editor
Why the Tuner Must Play His Part in
the National Piano Promotion Campaign
Coming Annual Convention of the National Association of Piano Tuners in New York
Should Take Definite Action Along These Lines
H O P E that the editor of The Review will
put a very snappy head on what follows,
for I want all tuners who are going to the
convention, who hope to go, or who would like
to go, to read what I have to say.
This department has to deal largely with mat-
ters of a purely scientific nature and to a large
extent must interest itself with the factory,
with production and with design so that it can-
not give always the space its conductor would
like to give to the outside service men, the
tuners especially. Nevertheless there are times
when the interests of these men, who were the
first readers of the Technical Department and
who have never deserted it, become paramount.
And the approach of the annual tuners' conven-
tion always marks the opening of one of those
periods.
That is why I shall devote our space this
week to some consideration of a topic which
could not be kept out of the forthcoming con-
vention of the National Association of Piano
Tuners, even if there were any desire to exclude
it; which there is not so far as I know. And
that topic is what may be called "the tuner's
place in the present movement for the revival
of public interest in the piano."
If all that I hear from my friends outside
the factories is to be credited . . . and I have
no doubt that it represents the truth . . . tun-
ers are complaining as much as are merchants
and manufacturers about lack of public interest
in that which they have to sell. Piano and
player-piano service, it appears, needs as much
selling to-day as it ever did. And the parallel
between the sales and the service fields appears
to be very close.
Now some of the brightest minds in the serv-
ice field have been thinking about this very
matter during the past year and the published
program of the convention indicates that there
will be a good deal of discussion of the facts
and of ways of dealing with them. Whether any-
thing shall or shall not emerge from these dis-
cussions, which visiting tuners may take home
with them and apply to their own later good,
cannot, however, be told now. If the discus.-
sions are thoughtful and outspoken, then the
results will be worth the trouble of listening to
the talk. But not otherwise.
Facts
What are the facts?
It appears that the
slackness in sales which has been a subject of
complaint among .manufacturers and merchants
has been quite as much under discussion in the
service field, with the difference that the tuners
have had cause for complaint for many years
past and are, in fact, still dealing with what is
a very old sore. For many years, indeed until
quite recently, service men have justly com-
plained that their efforts to sell their services
to the public have been not helped, but hin-
dered, by the merchants. It has for long been
the tuner's complaint that the merchants, as if
I
Punchings
Washers
Bridle Straps
581437th Ave.
despairing of selling pianos upon merit, have
boldly and constantly declared that these in-
struments (at least their particular makes) re-
quire no service and will last forever. And for
this his complaint the tuner has been able un-
til recently to see no remedy whatever.
Perhaps this is the cause of the skepticism
as to the genuineness of recent conversions to
belief in service as a legitimate part of the piano
business, which I notice to be somewhat la-
mentably prevalent among the service men. One
cannot be astonished at the skepticism, but it is
only fair to say that within the last two or
three years the attitude of the merchants to-
wards such matters as the giving away of serv-
ice without charge, and as to misstatements
about the need of service, has been almost en-
tirely turned around. Important merchants are
not usinj» this talk which is to be heard only
among these small, unimportant elements which
comprise what may be called the camp-follow-
ers of the industry. This is the truth and it
should be known.
The Cause
But what caused this volte-face? Why are
manufacturers approving the action of mer-
chants in saying that pianos need tuning? Why
are very eminent manufacturers protesting vig-
orously against* the current practice of talking
and acting as if a piano were something which
one could not, under penalty of law, trade in
for another and better one, within the space of
one generation? The answer is simple. The
old policy grew up unawares. Merchants in
the old rough-and-tumble days, when piano
selling was sometimes a literal knock-down-
and-drag-out affair, got into the habit of saying
whatever came first into their heads in praise
of their goods. By the time that this end. of
the industry had become somewhat more gentle
and less excitable the old ideas had struck so
deeply that the task of uprooting them seemed
altogether too much like hard work. And so it
was for a long time.
The object of the talk was certainly not to
hurt the interests of the tuner as such. The
merchant was simply bent on making sales, and
if he took a wrong attitude this was because
he was thinking only of immediate results and
Magic Scratch Remover
Campbell's Magic Scratch Remover in-
stantly eradicates scratches and scars
from wood finishes. Highly valuable—
in fact. Indispensable, wherever furniture
or musical instruments are handled. Used
by any employee. Quick, effective—and
very economical.
The cost of Magic Scratch Remover is
very small, indeed. Housewives gladly
pay a good price.
Your price, y 2 dos., $2.00; doz.,
$3.50. Postpaid. Sent on approval.
THE M. L. CAMPBELL COMPANY
1008 West Eighth Street
George W. Braunsdor£, Inc.
Direct Manufacturers of
TUNERS' TRADE SOLICITED
Kansas City, Mo.
William Braid White
Associate, American Society of Mechanical
Engineers; Chairman, Wood Industries
Division, A. S. M. E.; Member, American
Physical Society; Member, National Piano
Technicians' Association.
Consulting Engineer to
the Piano Industry
Tonally and Mechanically Correct Scales
Tonal and Technical Surreys of Product
Tonal Betterment Work In Factories
References
to manufacturers of unquestioned
position In industry
For particulars, address
209 South State Street, CHICAGO
Piano Tuners
Also—Felts and
Cloths, Furnished
In Any Quantity
Wood.ide, L. I., N. Y.
22
was all for allowing the future to take care of
itself. I think myself that the attitude of
mutual jealousy, enmity and ill-will that for so
long made both merchants and service men de-
test each other did an amount of harm which
will require more than a year or two of friend-
liness to overcome. The seed is now sown for
a crop of good will; but that which has been re-
sponsible for the sowing has been the volition
neither of the merchant nor of the tuner. The
cause in fact is to be found in conditions ovet
which the industry might once have exerted
control, but which it cannot control now at all.
A Man's Fight
What has changed the attitude of the mer-
chants towards the tuners has been the irre-
sistible sweep of social and business forces.
The piano trade to-day is fighting for its future.
In this fight, if it is to be won, must be en-
listed the best energies of every man who
draws his sustenance directly or indirectly
from the piano. Musicians, piano makers,
piano tuners, player experts, salesmen, mer-
chants, manufacturers, technicians, supply men,
all must fall in, close ranks and advance as
one.
This is no time for quarreling over the
dead past. This is no time for argument
about how mean somebody used to be—or is.
This is no time for mutual recrimination.
While we quarrel, the battle may well be lost
before we shall have struck a single effective
blow.
The piano industry is faced by competition
so formidable that it can retain its position
only by dint of steady and powerful, concerted
effort. What is affecting piano sales is exactly
the same thing as is affecting the service busi-
ness. To-day it is not the merchant saying
that tuning- is a luxury, nice but not necessary.
To-day most merchants are only too ready to
admit that they were wrong, and to co-operate
with the service men. Apart, then, from the
bad effects on the public of past miseducation
(these are not negligible), the one big cause
of any slackness that service men are now
suffering from is the intense preoccupation of
the public mind with other things. And that,
just that and nothing else, is the trouble with
the sale of pianos.
Everybody is buying a house, a car, an ice-
less refrigerator and a fur coat—on the in-
and Technicians
are In demand. The trade needs tuners, regu-
lators and repairmen. Practical Shop School.
Send for Catalog M
Y. M. C. A. Piano Technicians School
1421 Arch St.
Philadelphia, Pa.
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