Presto

PRESTO
February 9, 1924.
CHRISTMAN
The First Touch Tells
NEW METHODS
FOR AJNEW DAY
Veteran Traveler, Commenting on Changed
Habits of the People, Points Out How a
Dealer with Vision Is Still Master
of His Destiny.
WISE ARE QUICK TO SEE
A Significant Thing Noticeable to All Is the Growing
Interest in Musical Matters and
Partiality for the Best.
There is Style, Finish and Character
in the
CHRISTMAN
Electrically Operated
Reproducing
Grands and Uprights
that challenges Interest on sight, and
the Tone and Operation completes the
assurance that they are Instruments
above and beyond the average pianos
—they are Artistic in every particular
and they are Sold by leading dealers
on that basis.
CHRISTMAN
Studio Grand
Only 5 Feet Long
is recognized as the first to demon-
strate that a small grand piano could
possess the power and quality of a
concert grand. It is a favorite with
critical pianists and it is a magnet
in the line of any piano store.
Every day you are
without the CHRISTMAN
agency you overlook
a good source of profit.
<(
The First Touch Tells"
Regr. U S. Pat
Off.
Christman Piano Co.
597 East 137th St.
New York
Few piano dealers or dealers in other lines of music
goods are fully aware of the advantages that circum-
stances, some of which they are not responsible for,
help them in making business bigger and profits
larger. I have an interest in seeing every branch of
the music business prosper but my keenest interest
is in the line which includes the piano, playerpiano
and the reproducing piano. And that particular
phase of interest makes me take notice of those
helpful circumstances as they affect the piano line
and also of the indifference of some piano men to
their influence on s.ales.
In a great many ways the principle underlying the
merchandising of music goods are the same as in
other merchandising fields but in certain essentials
this branch of retail selling has characteristics all its
own. A change of habits in a great number of the
people, revolution in the style of living of possible
music goods buyers and what is called the restless-
ness of the age are factors which have influenced the
retail music business within the last decade.
Not Always Hurtful.
But influencing the business does not necessarily
mean hurting it. The character of the music busi-
ness in all its phases has changed but while certain
changes in thought and habit of the people have
tended to decrease sales of one commodity they have
enlarged the opportunities for one or more of the
others.
The purchase of automobiles has often spoiled the
sale of a piano, is the complaint of many piano deal-
ers who invoke the gloomy thought as a corrective
to a natural exuberance. The automobile has pro-
vided the people with a quick and effective means to
get out-of-doors, but the buzzwagon has not stopped
the march of culture which is always accompanied
by the demands for pianos. The dealer in pianos,
ambitious for success, keeps in mental touch with a
changing world. The man who confidently looks for-
ward to a continual increase in his business as the
years go by must observe all the circumstances ac-
companying change and must govern his procedure
accordingly.
The Significant Thing.
One significant thing that the big, successful deal-
ers see and take advantage of is the growing interest
in musical matters and the partiality for the better
class of music in people who are the possible buyers
of good musical instruments.
I am writing this article in a town of about forty
thousand population in the middle west which is rep-
resentative of hundreds of other places where the
changed and changing conditions are apparent. It is
an old manufacturing point and was originally a
"farmers' town," many of the characteristics of which
it retains to this day. It has a group of very rich
people, a large proportion of well-to-do business and
professional folk; a lot of thrifty citizens of native
stock or foreign origin who get good wages in the
prosperous industries and comparatively a very small
percentage of what might be termed "poor."
Cars Everywhere.
In this town the automobile is as common as the
cook stove and just as much used. Everybody rides
to work and friend wife does her shopping and social
calling with the aid of a handsome town car or a
democratic flivver, according to her circumstances.
Now what is the significance of this to the group of
progressive music dealers there? Two who had built
up a big piano business before the general utilization
of the automobile and the so-called distraction from
things cultural, noted circumstances as they oc-
curred but predicted effects never fazed them. They
continue to work and to find new ways to sales
where old ones became less feasible or impossible.
They are still classed as prosperous merchants with
a big annual music goods turnover. Like good ma-
riners in the sea of business, they trimmed their sails
as new sales occasions required.
Opportunity Couldn't Hide.
These merchants say that the world-, while chang-
ing, was also progressing. They noticed that while
people bought cars they were equally anxious to buy
new modern bungalows and houses. The purchase
of an automobile makes no opportunity for a piano
sale but the building of a bungalow or new house
anywhere is almost an assurance of a piano sale.
Parked around the high schools and business col-
lege every day are flocks of automobiles. Does it
dishearten the dealers who estimate conditions accu-
rately? Not a bit of it. Every school has its musical
groups; orchestras, bands, glee clubs; every event
in the schools is remarkable for its musical char-
acter. In the grammar grades the entrances and
exits of the happy pupils are made to the music of
little school pianos. From the first day in kinder-
garten to the day of high school graduation the day's
events are largely made up of incidents of which
music in one form or another is a prominent part.
Expansion Followed.
The dealers with the prosperous piano departments
also have prosperous and continuously growing mu-
sical merchandise departments. And the dealers
freely acknowledge the prosperity and growth are
related to the extension of musical interest and ac-
tivity in the schools and elsewhere. The Chamber
of Commerce has a band of fifty pieces. There is
a Civic Orchestra as well as a large number of pro-
fessional and amateur orchestras. There is a Boy
Scouts' band and very creditable bands in three of the
big manufacturing plants. There is an effort on foot
to form an Elks' band and a Knights of Columbus
band and the band and orchestra movement is
growing.
There is no regular music dealers' association in
that town but the dealers who are all friendly meet
in an informal way to discuss trade topics. They are
all head and front in every affair where music is a
part and from someone or from the group has come
every idea which has blossomed into a music goods
selling opportunity for one or the other.
Blamed It on Golf.
The assertion of one dealer that golf had played
havoc with his piano sales was not more silly than
that of other dealers that the automobile "has ruined
the business of the music dealer." There never has
been more golf played than is played now and the
number of automobiles in use is greater than ever.
But dealers with vision who understand every phase
of human activity and its relation to music goods
sales, are doing business at the old stands. They
are not discouraged because Smith is not eager for
this but turn their attention to Jones, who is inter-
ested in that, or to Robinson, whom they are making
interested in the other thing. The live ones are not
gassed by unusual circumstances. The ability to see
business in new forms is the mark of the successful
music dealer of today.—M. D. S.
WHOLESALE ACTIVITIES OF
LYON & HEALY, CHICAGO
Prompt Service for Customers Assured by Sys-
tematic Methods In New Wholesale Building.
The new wholesale building of Lyon & Healy.
Chicago, Avhich is located on Wabash avenue, just a
mile South of the main Lyon & Healy Building, is
now operating on a 24-hour schedule. A railroad
track passes through this building and by modern
methods of handling orders, much time is saved.
Small goods of all kinds, talking machines and piano
benches are now shipped on the same day that the
orders are received.
Last week employees of the new wholesale build-
ing of Lyon & Healy's to the number of 125 enjoyed
a luncheon and musical program in connection with
a business conference. Speeches were made by Pres-
ident M. A. Healy, Superintendent Fickey, Secretary
Carl Anderson and others. The aim of the depart-
ment for the current year was set forth and by
unanimous vote the slogan "Can we do it" was
changed to, "We Can Do It."
M. L. CLAYPOOL BADLY HURT.
M. L. Claypool, president of the Claypool-Lacey
Music Company, Crawfordsville, Indiana, was seri-
ously injured last week when the machine he was
driving turned over on a hill near Waynetown,
Indiana. Mr. Claypool was taken to the Culver Hos-
pital, where X-ray pictures showed such a serious
fracture of the hip that it was decided to remove Mr.
Claypool to the Mayo Hospital at Rochester, Minn.
SEEKS TO STILL RADIOS.
An ordinance which seeks to make it illegal to oper-
ate radio apparatus and phonographs in stores if they
annoyed passersby was introduced at a meeting of
the Board of Aldermen of New York City. Violation
would carry a penalty of a fine not exceeding $10.
The proposal was referred to the Committee on Gen-
eral Welfare.
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