Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW, NOVEMBER, 1U0
brain, where they are appreciated as
sound. What a book could be put out in
just 32 pages, 5 x 7 . Altho tuning pro-
motion could be built around this book,
what do you think the effect would be
on a customer perplexed between a
$300 and a $400 piano choice who is a
"tone expert"? It also gets away from
the well-worn better music angle—few
can mentalize "better music"—but all
know what their ears are, I hope.
F
ORMER 3 editorials show what
a cinch I have in writing them.
Overhear something about ad-
vice on 2 tunings a year; then
we delve into the market of sales situa-
tion for analysis; then another para-
graph on an idea for a sensible (sic)
handling of the business development
on tunings by dealers. As simple as the
girl, talking to another, saying: "I
asked him what Hedy Lemarr had that
I didn't have—and he told me."
E
NGLISH has its odd way of
assembling letters to make
words of all-inclusive descrip-
tion. "Inherent" is nothing
more than "in here," and it applies to
the greatest feat of piano merchan-
dising . . . an unparalleled example of
the art of public prestige development,
without letting the name fall into the
public concept group or to have the
product bought with a nickname. (For
example, Frigidaire is used as a public
concept for refrigerator; Coca-Cola has
been nicknamed as coke, or dope.)
The name is seldom mispronounced,
and while the public has been thor-
oughly "sold"—it stopped at the point
where only the product of the company
is so utilized for that name.
to the product itself, the policy
of production has bent back-
ward to maintain the stand-
ard. Exact specifications in
every detail were at one time given to
A
two friendly manufacturers (Steinert,
at Leominster, Mass., and Kurtzmann
at Buffalo) and the "exact duplicates"
produced did not possess the qualities
of the original instrument. There was
that "inherent something' ' not dis-
closed in the architectural analysis.
Were the company policy changed,
much money could be saved in the cost
of each instrument, but no production
step-up formula is permitted. For ex-
ample, it costs from $8 to $10 for in-
sistence that the pin block and plate be
sort of "welded together" instead of
being "bolted" in the accepted manner
of good piano manufacturing. To do this
takes several hours extra time of three
men, with a resultant claim of even-
ness of scale not obtainable in any
other way.
N
EITHER structural design nor
the old fashioned process of
production underlying qual-
ity pianos has undergone the
modern conception of "speed-up" tac-
tics, in spite of the plea of skilled pro-
duction men that huge savings could be
obtained without the impairment of
piano stamina or tone. There is no de-
sire for a clean-up in profits at the
sacrifice of the quality associated with
this piano for so many years. Men in
many other industries, well versed in
the art of skilful merchandising, regard
both the company, the product; and the
method used for stimulating this public
prestige many years ago, as just as
modern then as those used now by the
biggest and best companies in the top
bracket of skilled market builders.