Books › Musical Courier 1927-08-15: Vol 95 Iss 4, 1927 › scan 36
Scan 36
Musical Courier 1927-08-15: Vol 95 Iss 4, 1927
94 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 37. See the scan on archive.org.
1Selling Musical Instruments on the While-You-Wait Instruction Plan
3One of the new publications of the day printed in Chicago under the name, Sales Management, recently contained an article that was in effect a severe castigation of certain practices in musical instrument advertisement. The article was aimed at the advertisements that stated that a musical instrument of one description or another could be mastered in a few lessons, without the medium of a teacher, or by going to a certain type of school, and all this within a few days or weeks. The writer of this article termed this selling on the "while-you-wait instruction plan."
5There is an interesting history connected with this which perhaps that writer was not familiar with. A long time ago dealers in musical instruments discovered that many people did not undertake the study of a musical instrument because they feared that it would be years before any appreciable advance could be made. A campaign was instituted to relieve the public's mind of this bug-a-boo.
7Now it is unquestionably true that the acquisition of technic and musical understanding requires years of practice. It is told that a certain musician, now famous on the concert stage, was once asked how long it took to learn to play. He answered grimly, "Ten hours a day, every day, for twenty years." Very probably he was sincere in his answer, for becoming a real master of any instrument is a matter of years of training and unremitting effort.
9However, it is likewise true that one who wishes to become an amateur musician can acquire sufficient skill to amuse himself and his friends in a comparatively brief period of time. It was this fact that the early progenitors of the practise of giving free music lessons with the purchase of a musical instrument, wished to put over. It was natural that they should try to minimize the difficulties of study and practise.
11On the other hand, this easily led to exaggeration, and to all sorts of impossible claims as to the length of time necessary to become a skilled player of the classics. It was this type of musical instrument advertising, which, rightly enough, the writer sought to expose. This article is rather breezy in its treatment, and is reprinted here to show the effect of such exaggerated claims upon those whom it is intended to impress. It was written by Allan R. Barkley under the heading, "You Pays Your Money and You Takes Your Choice," with a sub-caption, "Piano, Saxophone, Banjo, Violin, or Zither Sold—and Advertised—on the While-You-Wait Instruction Plan," and read as follows:
13Learn While You Wait
15One of the standard stories in circulation the past few years relates the miraculous experience of a truck driver who was injured colliding with the concrete base of a street light. Nearly everyone has heard this story at one time or another, but for the sake of record I'll repeat it here:
17In the accident the truck driver's left arm was fractured and two fingers on his right hand were sprained. As the injuries were being treated he wanted to know how soon he'd regain the use of his hands. The doctor attending the case assured him that inside of six weeks he'd be as active as ever.
19"But, doctor," queried the patient, "will I be able to play the piano?"
21"Why, of course," was the encouraging reply. "Two months from now you'll be playing the most difficult selections."
23"Well, that's certainly dandy," said the truck driver, gratitude shining in his eyes, "because I couldn't play a note before."
25That is one way of becoming musically accomplished. Possibly some of those people with stifled musical yearnings and the nine-year-old mentalities advertising copy writers hold in such reverence, were even encouraged to try it. It sounded almost too easy.
27Surprising as it may seem, though, there is a still easier way, and one that isn't nearly so painful, either. It is the sort of a plan, furthermore, that would appeal to the same people who might otherwise be tempted to subject their hands to mutilation in the expectation of awakening hidden talent.
29If they read the advertisements these persons will be struck with the silliness of going around for two months with their hands all done up in bandages when they can become just as accomplished—and with just about as much logic—simply by clipping a coupon. Where it took the truck driver two months to acquire his musical education, here they can do it in thirty minutes, ten days or three weeks, depending upon the instrument they wish to play and the course of instruction that is advertised.
31Suppose the truck driver had wanted to become proficient on a saxophone, for instance. He could have saved himself a lot of time and inconvenience merely by responding to a recent advertisement which told about a boy who "did not know one note from another, yet within three weeks he learned to play the popular airs on his Buescher True Tone saxophone." And he would have been pretty sure to respond, too, because in the same advertisement there was a picture of the saxophonist's girl holding up her hands in joyful amazement and saying, "It's just three weeks since he got it." That offered the truck driver a chance to make an impression on his own girl that would have been difficult for him to resist.
33Reading on he asked, "Would you clip the coupon below if you thought there was a chance that you could learn to play?" And the question is answered at once, "You can. Just a few hours' practice, a few quiet evenings at home, and you will be playing happy tunes. It's so easy, even for people who think themselves musically dumb."
35Only one test stands in his way. It is this: "Can you whistle or hum a tune? Can you keep step with the band? Could you walk up to the piano and thumb out a tune with one finger?" If he can—and surely any man who can drive a truck can do those simple things—then he can learn to play a saxophone.
37Strangely, however, the Buescher seems to be the only instrument so qualified, for the advertisement says "only with Bueschers is rapid progress assured." In a few weeks the musical journals will carry a story of his life under the heading, "Two Months Ago He Was Dodging Traffic—Now He's Dodging Bottles."
39But this is all elementary stuff compared to the girl who sat down at a piano among a group of friends and astounded them by playing Anita's Dance with such "soul fire that everyone seemed to see gypsies swaying and chanting around the camp-fire." As one of her chums tells the story, "We always thought of her as an onlooker—a sort of social wallflower. Certainly she had never been the center of any gathering. That night of the party when she said, 'Well, folks, I'll entertain you with some selections from Grieg,' we all thought she was joking. But she actually did get up and seat herself at the piano. Everybody laughed. I was sorry for her. But suddenly the room was hushed . . . When the last glorious chord vanished like an echo we were astonished. . . An onlooker no longer—she was popular."
41Advertising Leads the Way
43How foolish that girl would have been to put her fingers through the clothes wringer when it was so much easier, and quicker, to take the U. S. School of Music course in piano! Of course, a truck driver might have to get his fingers smashed to learn to play, but not she. Every time the Chinese used to eat roast pork they always had to burn down a house, because that was the way they first became acquainted with the delicacy, but modern intelligence finds shorter cuts. So it is with musical genius. Advertising points the way out.
45The friend who was so enthralled over her friend's sudden burst into prominence immediately decided to take while-you-wait violin lessons. Now, she confesses modestly, she plays not only the violin but the banjo. Other available courses, completed in varying short lengths of time, include organ, ukulele, cornet, trombone, piccolo, guitar, clarinet, sight singing and more, all under the admonition to "forget the old-fashioned idea that you need 'talent.'"
47She didn't say how long it took her to become an expert banjoist, but if she spent more than half an hour at it she was cheated, for the New York Academy of Music advertises that thirty minutes is the limit. This organization gives banjos away free to anyone enrolling in its course. The course itself isn't free, naturally, but the banjo is. Clipping a coupon soon puts one in "our happy army of enthusiastic finished tenor banjo musicians."
49The people who take these courses will be the first to praise them. If you ask them whether you can really play the saxophone in three weeks they'll answer: "Certainly, doesn't it say so in the advertisement?" That, to them, is proof enough. Listening to their melodies, however, is something else.
51New Spirit in Music Teaching
53The MUSICAL COURIER EXTRA would not care to go on record as defending advertisement of this sort. Nevertheless, it occurs, that all advertisement of this sort cannot be dismissed as casually as the writer of this learned article in Sales Management would appear to do. In the first place, Mr. Barkley exposes a lamentable ignorance of modern methods of musical instruction, and the new trends towards immediate results.
55In the piano field for example there is the new method which is now being fostered and maintained by the Aeolian Company, the Visuola, which is the visual method of piano teaching. To one not acquainted with the practical operation of the system and the actual results which are a matter of record there would be ample cause for astonishment. It is not claimed that this method leads to immediate mastery of the piano, but is equally true that remarkable progress in the actual learning of a particular instruction selection is made in the course of a few hours.
57As has been described in previous issues of the MUSICAL COURIER EXTRA the pupil studying under the Visuola system follows the actual playing of a selection by means of lights flashed over each note as the teacher plays it. By a process of conscious imitation and memory the selection is reproduced by the pupil, and gradually digital mastery is built up without the necessity of mastering the dry technical details of notes and scales. Then by later following the printed score the pupil comes to an understanding of the musical symbols and their corresponding positions on the piano.
59Parents of Visuola pupils are delighted with the immediate signs of progress made by their children, while the endorsement of prominent piano teachers all over the country carries with it a significance that cannot be overlooked. Naturally the pupil must study for a considerable length of time before it can be asserted that he or she is a master of the instrument, but at present it seems to be a consensus of opinion among music educators that this system considerably shortens the instruction period, by maintaining the interest of the child and so encouraging him to further effort during a period when most pupils either give up or have to be forced by those in authority to continue their studies.
61Teaching for Immediate Results
63The system worked out by the Buescher people, which is also indicated in the article, also possesses the advantage of simplicity, and works along the principle of teaching musical selections rather than scales.
65Banjo, zither, and saxophone instruction charts also work along the same general lines, with frets, holds, and other instructions carefully written under each note in the selection to be taught.
67In other words there seems offhand to be a strong justification even for such advertising as that condemned by Mr. Barkley. The teachers of the older school naturally scoff at this modern trend which is aimed at immediate results. Nevertheless, things are so arranged today that there is no question but that even rather difficult selections can be learned in an astonishingly short period of time, through the careful prepared diagram furnished usually to the purchaser of the instrument. Of course, a man who can play one number on a saxophone, or even a dozen, is not a saxophone player in the strict sense of the word and from that angle the article in Sales Management is justified.
69It is not given to everyone to become a real musician for that honored profession calls for talents that cannot be acquired by practise alone. It is largely at this type of non-professional musicians that advertisements of this sort are aimed. There is good reason for the enthusiasm of those who have taken the course. If they are satisfied with the progress they have made within the specified instruction time, what better test could be required? It may be argued that in learning so casually there may be acquired faults in technic that would later stand in the way of genuine progress, to which the answer is that it really doesn't matter.
71It All Helps
73Also, as is seen in the case of the Visuola, this is actually a misstatement of fact, for the pupil acquires the correct technic naturally and easily. While it might be asserted that the Visuola revolutionizes the practise of piano teaching, it merely follows the principles already marked out. Teach actual selections, maintain the interest of the student, and let him acquire a certain degree of skill before undertaking the drudgery of learning dry details of scales and musical notations.
75And lastly, any man who argues that the ability to play a musical instrument, even in a limited way, just a few selections, does not lead to popularity and success in a social way simply is ignoring the truth. Every one loves music and secretly envies the person who is able to "show off" at a party. Also it must be remembered that even advertisement of this sort is bringing into close contact with music a host of people who otherwise would be too doubtful of their own ability to attempt the study of any musical instrument. Let the good work go on.
77Park Music Co. Branches Joined
79The Parks Music Company has announced that it will combine both of its stores into a central distribution point, to be located at Hannibal, Missouri. A display room will be maintained at Louisiana, Mo. J. M. Hedges has been placed in charge of the entire force.
81DAVENPORT TREACY
82Estab. 1870
83Uprights—Players—Grands
84Reproducing Pianos
86Schools of music and professional musicians decide for themselves where they choose their piano. The scores of schools and supervisors of music who have chosen the Davenport-Treacy is indicative of its genuine merit.
88DAVENPORT TREACY PIANO CO.
89Makers of Pianos or Their Essential Parts
90Since 1870
91Chicago Office: 1222 Kimball Building
92San Francisco Office: 460 Paclan Building
93632 West 51st St., New York
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