The Music Field

Facts On The Making And Use of Pianos in America

WHILE known to all that this nation leads the world in the production of fine phonographs, radios and many forms of musical instruments, our leadership in the making of pianos may not be so generally realized.

Although Europe was the birthplace of the piano, many of the greatest improvements have been made in America. It is conceded that the finest pianos in the world are now made here while our annual production of grands, uprights, and reproducing and plaver-pianos exceeds the output of all Europe.

Benjamin Crehore is credited bv many with having made the first American piano about 1790 in Milton, Massachusetts. Others claim the first was made in Philadelphia several years before. Certain it is that some sixty or seventy years ago there were few piano-makers in America. To-day the number has increased tenfold, and over one hundred millions of dollars of capital are invested in the piano and pianoplayer business, and our instruments are being exported to every country.

Such facts as these are interesting in considering the fundamental importance of this instrument which remains unapproached in the advancement of the art of music itself, to say nothing of the pleasure and benefits it brings to all who share in its use.

Thinking of the piano in this way, it becomes a question not of how many pianos are made each year but how many of us are being brought into a true appreciation and actual use of this instrument.

Much is being heard these days of Class Instruction, Group Instruction, and of Piano Playing Contests and of the interest that is being shown in these movements throughout the country to encourage both young and old, and especially the young, in the actual playing of the piano.

Well-planned efforts along those lines are being sponsored by women’s clubs, by social and even business organizations, by school and civic officials, by leading musicians everywhere, by parents and others who see the importance of a more universal knowledge and use of this instrument.

There is noticeable, too, a growing recognition of the intimate relationship between fine music and fine musical instruments that should lead to wiser selection and care of the latter. Not even piano that is made to-day measures up to the requirements of a truly fine musical instrument though there has never been a time when it was easier to secure with a little care pianos of genuine merit and lasting worth. Finer pianos were never made than are being made for us to-day.

Just how many years a good piano will remain a fine musical instrument after its purchase depends of course upon its construction and treatment. There is, however, no more reason to expect a piano to last forever than any other man-made creation however well constructed.

There comes a time when even the best piano outlives its many years of usefulness and inspiration and should be honorablyretired and succeeded by one that will stimulate renewed interest in fine music.