Music Trade Review

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"It is at this critical age of 12 years that
parents are meeting their greatest economic
burden. Growing children are expensive, their
advancd schooling must be planned and pro-
vided for. At this age, music training may
well be sacrificed if the cost of a musical
instrument, to which is added an excise tux
of ten per cent threatens a strain on the
family budget.
"Prior to World War TI the cost of a begin-
ner's trumpet to a parent was approximately
$39.00, and no excise tax applied.
'Today, this same grade of beginner's trum-
pet costs the parent approximately $99.00 in-
cluding the excise tax.
"These increased costs of musical instru-
ments reflect the higher costs of raw materi-
als and higher wages paid to skilled work-
men employed in factories producing pianos,
clarinets, cornets and other band instruments,
and in fact, all kinds of brass, woodwind,
fretted string, and percussion instruments. The
labor cost varies with different instruments,
and ranges from 50% to 80% of the manufac-
turer's cost of production.
Seven Million Children
"The American Music Conference which is
the promotion and education agency of the
music industry, reported two weeks ago, at
the industry's annual Convention and Trade
Show in Chicago, that the number of children
receiving instrumental music instruction in
public and parochial schools alone is esti-
mated at 7,000,000 compared with less than
2.500,000 in 1947. An additional million or
more are receiving private instruction.
'The estimates are based on a recent survey
made in New York State that showed the
number of students getting school music
training had increased between two and three
times in the past six years.
"The rapid increases are due to awareness
APPENDIX I.
A.
Category of Purchasers, and percentage of lotal sales of mus ical
instruments, bought for educational and vocational purp< ses.
EDUCAT1ONAL
PURPOSES
Other
Rand and Orchestra
Instruments
Instruments
Category of Purchaser
Piano
15%
Schools
5%
107r
1
5
Religious Organizations 5
70
20
Students
5
1
10
Private teachers
5
5
25
Home Instruction
60
1
Agencies
2
1
Total
82%
Average percentage of all sales—82%
1>. (Category of Purchaser
Teachers
Musicians
Piano
5%
3
Hand and Orchestra
Instruments
1%
2
Total
8%
Average Percentage of all sales-—10.3%'
and you have 1,520,000 students active in
school bands. There are some 8,000 school
orchestras, having an average of 55 students
per orchestra. This adds approximately
440,000 orchestra students to 1,520,000, or
near twp million students, the majority of
whom purchase their own instruments in order
to participate in their school music activities.
"The 45,000 music educators employed by
our schools and colleges, in cooperation with
fellow teachers and parents in every town and
city have utilized music in every way to stim-
ulate and enhance the spirit of American
unity, to strengthen morale and to help build
national solidarity which is essential to our
well-being. All of these people are quite con-
scious of the fact that the 10% manufae-
APPENDIX 2.
* Effective 1 October 1911. Revenue Act of 1941.
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW, AUGUST, 1953
71%
VOCATIONAL PURPOSES
Annual Reports of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue of the United States
Treasury Department shows the following Excise Tax collections on musical in-
struents, for the fiscal years of 1942 through 1952 inclusive: 1942 $2,325,320.00*.
1943 1,280,124.00, 1944—633,040.00, 1945—927,223.00, 1946—2.339,145.00, 1947
10,151,338.00. 1948 10,572,682.91, 1949—9,292,668.30, 1950—8,864,897.36, 1951—
10,756,238.64, 1952—9,412,292.39.
of educators that music contributes to the de-
velopment of the entire personality and af-
fords a lifetime source of relaxation and self-
expression, and to the acceptance of new
methods of teaching whole classes at one
time.
"'Class piano or "keyboard experience" is
now offered in thousands of elementary
schools, and more recently class string in-
struction has been growing in popularity. An
example is the Houston, Texas, public
schools, where string classes are offered in 24
of the 113 schools on a voluntary basis and
650 students are enrolled.
"This startling advance is traceable direct-
ly to the music industry, which through its
American Music Conference has worked to
build the acceptance of music as a funda-
mental part of the school curriculum.
"The number of high schools bands now
exceeds 38,000. The average number of stu-
dents per band is 40. Multiply 38.000 by 40
93%
turer's excise tax has outlived the purposes
which were the basis of its enactment.
'It should be noted that there is no excise
tax on books of geography, arithmetic, physi-
ology, religion, or upon maps or pencils, and
comparable requirements for either school or
home study, but there is this tax upon musical
instruments which are in the same general
category.
Not A Luxury
"A musical instrument cannot be fairly
classes as a luxury. A luxury is defined as a
free indulgence in costly gratifications of the
appetites or tastes, as in food, dress, etc.; also
a mode of life characterized by this. A luxury
is anything which pleases the senses and is
also costly, or difficult to obtain.
'Music nor musical instruments cannot
classify under these definitions. No one will
buy a trombone, drum, an organ or piano
unless he can play it, or plans to learn, or
have his children taught its use. The basis
3%
Other
Instruments
10%
10
20%
of selling musical instruments is to provide
the means of "learning to play'. Hence the
reason the music industry organized its Amer-
ean Music Conference in 1947. Hence the en-
couragement, of the National Association of
Music Merchants, to have its members estab-
lish teaching studios in combination with
their retail stores.
"It is inconsistent to impose a luxury tax
on the implements of music education. Music
is imbedded in our democracy and our very
life.
The Working Tools of Teachers
"My final point regards the 10.3% of all
musical instrument sales which represent the
working tools and essential means of liveli-
hood of music, teachers and musicians.
"Certainly we would not knowingly lax the
working tools of a mechanic, or any other class
of workman—yet the piano or violin is just
as essential to the music teacher and musician
as are the hammer and saw to the carpenter.
If the tools of the one are obviously meant
to be productive, whereas the productivity
of the tools of the other may require deeper
discernment, the difference in obviousness
should not distort our appreciation of their
similarity.
"Men and women in this country are free to
choose their occupations, in which their suc-
cess or failure is determined by their own
skill, and the relative demand of their patrons.
Be they music teachers or mechanics, car-
penters or musicians, neither, in our opinion,
should be handicapped by a tax on their essen-
tial means of livelihood.
"It is our most sincere belief that if this
manufacturer's excise tax on musical instru-
ments were not on the statute books, you
would not recommend its enactment or im-
position. Therefore, our plea is to respectfully
urge your recommendation for its repeal in
the light of the foregoing evidence.
"The music retail industry respectfully re-
quests further, that coincident with a recom-
mendation for repeal of the 10% Manufac-
turer's Excise Tax, provision be made for a
credit or refund of all excise taxes paid on
the unsold new merchandise in the inventories
of retailers, and wholesalers, as of the date
of enactment of such an Act removing the
products of this industry from the appli-
cation of the Excise Tax.
27