Encouraged Ensemble

The Music Merchants' Convention has been held every year for 36 years, but last week's, which drew 3,000 delegates to the Hotel New Yorker in Manhattan, was the biggest. It was also the noisiest, for convening were not only retail groups which included the National Association of Music Merchants and the National Retail Musical Instrument Dealers' Association, but also the National Association of Musical Merchandise Wholesalers and a sizable collection of manufacturers, who brought along the biggest agglomeration of musical wares ever assembled. For four days, deals, discussions, and congratulations were drowned by the cacophonous obbligato of their competing demonstrations. The 2,500 instruments on display were worth $350,000.

No spectacle, however, impressed the delegates so much as the fact that almost unanimously music merchants announced their best business in seven years. President Fred A. Holtz of the National Association of Band Instrument Manufacturers calculated that more than 2,000,000 children now play in school bands. Accordion makers reported a record turnover of 120,000 instruments in the last twelvemonth. But pianomen, reporting that the sales of 49,595 pianos through June were 33% higher than for the corresponding period last year, were most optimistic. They expected to sell 80,000 more by the end of the year, a gain of 500% over rock bottom 1932. Some pianomen thought this increase was traceable to more attractive "streamlined" cabinets, others to the general revival of installment selling. But all were sure that they would run out of materials before the year is up if the present buying wave continues.

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