Presto

PRESTO
The American IMusic Trade Weekly
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY AT 407 SOUTH DEAR-
BORN STREET, OLD COLONY BUILDING, CHICAGO, ILL.
C. A. DANIELL and FRANK D. ABBOTT
Editors
Telephones, Local and Long Distance, Harrison 234. Private Phones to all Do-
partments. Cable Address (Commercial Cable Co.'s Code), "PRESTO," Chicago.
Entered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, at the Post Office, Chicago, Illinois,
under Act of March 3. 1879.
Subscription, $2 a year; 6 months, $1; Foreign, $4. Payable In advance. No extra
charge in United States possessions, Cuba and Mexico.
Address all communications for the editorial or business departments to PRESTO
PUBLISHING CO., 407 So. Dearborn Street, Chicago, III.
Advertising Rates:—Five dollars per inch (13 ems pica) for single insertions.
Complete schedule of rates for standing cards and special displays will be furnished
on request. The Presto does not sell Its editorial space. Payment Is not accepted for
articles of descriptive character or other matter appearing In the news columns. Busi-
ness notices will be Indicated by the word "advertisement" In accordance with the
Act of August 24, 1912.
Photographs of general trade interest are always welcome, and when used, If of
special concern, a charge will be made to cover cost of the engravings.
Rates for advertising in Presto Year Book Issue and Export Supplements of
Presto will be made known upon application. Presto Year Book and Export issues
have the most extensive circulation of any periodicals devoted to the musical in-
strument trades and industries in all parts of the world, and reach completely and
effectually all the houses handling musical instruments of both the Eastern ana west-
ern hemispheres.
Presto Buyers' Quide is the only reliable index to the American Pianos and
Player-Pianos, It analyzes all instruments, classifies them, gives accurate estimates
•f their value and contains a directory of their manufacturers.
Items of news and other matter of general interest to the music trades are in-
vited and when accepted will be paid for. All communications should be addressed to
Presto Publishing Co.. 407 So. Dearborn Street. Chicago, III.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1922.
PRESTO CORRESPONDENCE
IT IS NOT CUSTOMARY WITH THIS PAPER TO PUBLISH REGU-
LAR CORRESPONDENCE FROM ANY POINTS. WE, HOWEVER,
HAVE RESIDENT REPRESENTATIVES IN NEW YORK, BOSTON,
SAN FRANCISCO, PORTLAND, CINCINNATI, INDIANAPOLIS, MIL-
WAUKEE AND OTHER LEADING MUSIC TRADE CENTERS, WHO
KEEP THIS PAPER INFORMED OF TRADE EVENTS AS THEY HAP-
PEN. AND PRESTO IS ALWAYS GLAD TO RECEIVE REAL NEWS
OF THE TRADE FROM WHATEVER SOURCES ANYWHERE AND
MATTER FROM SPECIAL CORRESPONDENTS, IF USED, WILL BE
PAID FOR AT SPACE RATES. USUALLY PIANO MERCHANTS OR
SALESMEN IN THE SMALLER CITIES, ARE THE BEST OCCA-
SIONAL CORRESPONDENTS. AND THEIR ASSISTANCE IS INVITED.
ADVERTISING INFORMATION
Forms close promptly at noon every Thursday. News matter for
publication should be in not later than eleven o'clock on the same
day. Advertising copy should be in hand before Tuesday, five p. m.,
to insure preferred position. Full page display copy should be in
hand by Monday noon preceding publication day. Want advs. for cur-
rent week, to insure classification, must be at office of publication not
later than Wednesday noon.
FEARS COMPETITION
A piano manufacturer—one of the younger generation, whose
father established the business and then retired—said to a Presto
representative last week that he could not sell his instruments to the
trade because of competition. In other words the manufacturer felt
that he could not interest the dealers because he didn't have anything
sufficiently distinctive to induce buyers. It was his idea that to win
trade a piano must depend upon a single line of attraction based upon
price. He thinks that unless he can offer a lower price than other
manufacturers he can not win the dealers. Consequently not pos-
sessing the facilities for producing at lower cost than all the rest, he
shrinks from the kind of effort which is supposed to be "the life of
trade."
The attitude is one that doesn't fit into the ambitions and busi-
ness life of the times. It is behind the period and, like the man who
starts an enterprise with the conviction that he "can't do it," there is
failure ahead. No man can hope to progress by turning his face to
the rear. No piano industry can win in this day and generation, if the
management fears to enter the arena of competition. Less than all
can a manufacturer expect to grow and succeed if he can find no other
mark of favor than price, while still striving to create an instrument
of quality. The elements are in conflict. The essential factors are
lacking.
If any piano manufacturer who possesses any such ideas as keep
back ambition by fears of competition will look over the field, he
November 4, 1922.
will find that several of the most successful and progressive pianos
are being promoted and sold along lines diametrically opposed to any
such pessimistic vision as obsesses him. They are proclaiming their
instruments as "the most costly piano in the world," and the "most
valuable piano in the world," or some other slogan by which is clearly
implied the transcendency of merit over mere price. They do not
recognize what is commonly called "competition" at all. They find
ready sale because the dealers know them and know that the piano
buying public will buy them, because of the confidence of their makers,
and the evidence of merit in the instruments themselves, plus the fame
they have attained.
That is real piano value. There is all the proof required that it is
not cheapness that the piano lovers want. It is a fact, everywhere to
be seen, that even the people who have moderate buying capacity will
pay $600 or $800, or even $1,200, for a good instrument properly pre-
sented to their intelligence, rather than invest $300 or $500 for a
mediocre one. And the dealers are themselves piano buyers who pre-
fer the instruments whose names carry the confidence of their makers
and their pride of attainment.
A piano, to be worth while, must sell to the trade because it is
wanted; because the dealers recognize in it something they can handle
with profit, in both money and permanent satisfaction. We are not
now considering the so-called "stencil," or nameless, piano, but the
piano with a fixed and substantial home, and in which the established
trade sees selling power. Competition can not keep the right piano
that is forcefully promoted, from winning a demand. It is not com-
petition that kills. More often, that is a stimulant to trade and a
stepping stone to success.
The pianos that you see in the stores, that you see advertised by
the dealers in their local newspapers, are the pianos you find pro-
moted in your trade paper. They have been thoroughly introduced to
the dealers. They possess names, and the names are sustained by
their merits as musical instruments and as the products of live,
courageous and confident manufacturers who do not know the mean-
ing of doubt and will not recognize such a condition as defeat.
Any well-made piano can win a place in the legitimate trade
where a demand will be created, no less by merit than by self-interest.
No piano dealer can do business without pianos. What kind of a piano
manufacturer can it be who admits defeat because he fears competi-
tion while proclaiming his capacity to produce, and his faith in things
of his creation?
ANYTHING NEW?
A short time ago an article appeared in this paper in which Mr.
E. H. Story was quoted as having expressed surprise that there had
been no special improvement made in the piano in "two or three
decades." Upon second thought it must seem that Mr. Story was
very moderate in his measurement of time since any great advance
in piano construction has been developed. Of course in any
such consideration the player action must be eliminated, though even
that has come within the "three decades" period.
But what has been the marked advance in pianos within the time
referred to by Mr. Story? How does modern piano manufacture
compare, in this respect with the earlier, or ancient, days?
From the Pythagorean monochord to the clavichord, there had
lapsed nearly fifteen hundred years. But there had been other
stringed instruments in between. The*clavichord made great strides
until the 17th century, when it presented a highly artistic aspect and
possessed a "klangearbe," or tone-color, of remarkable beauty. It
had progressed steadily, and Bach employed it, as did also Mozart
and Beethoven, in their composing.
The spinet meantime had come and gone, and the virginal—
built much like the modern "inverted," or harp grands. And the
stately harpsichord, built like a dainty parlor grand of today, but
without the sonority of tone, and some of them possessing two key-
boards. And then, in 1711, came Christofori's piano, with the hammer
action, and fifty years later the square piano of Zumpe, with the upper
dampers and other modern features.
From that day forward the progress of the piano was in the line
of improvement rather than invention or revolution in type. When
Jonas Chickering produced his full iron plate, in 1837—fourteen years,
after the Boston piano first appeared—the instrument, as we have it
today, found its birth. And the effort, ever since, has been to en-
hance the volume of tone and to refine the external appearance of
the piano.
It was nearly forty years after Chickering's vital improvement
that the square piano gave away to the upright. And it took ten years
for the manufacturers to accept the change. They had worked so
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