Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
Dignified Advertising.
The Review has on different occasions
shown examples of a style of piano adver-
tising adopted by the Philadelphia depart-
ment stores. We reproduce a Wanamaker
advertisement which appeared last week as
a sample of what we consider high-toned
advertising. Wanamaker has won national
fame as a correct and original advertiser.
The piano advertisements thus far have
been characterized by originality, and at
the same time conveying piano intelligence
in dignified terms.
(Sample Wanamaker advertisement.)
We are not advertising much about
Pianos
simply because we are not treating the new business as if it were or-
dinary merchandising.
A piano seems almost like a living thing. Each fine instrument
has a personality—a special character in action and speech. We are
getting acquainted with the lovely things of Chickering and the others
that are here, that we may know each instrument and fit it in the
home that can best appreciate it.
You shall not be coaxed or captured by discounts or cajolery in
selecting a piano here. It is the right kind of a piano that you want,
and you will trust us that you do not pay as much for it as you would
have paid before we went into the business.
We could have bought any of the job lots said to be selling off
at such marvelously low prices—but who wants a job-lot instrument,
when the piano is to be a companion perhaps of all the years?
Too flany Piano Players.
MILLIONS OF MONEY WASTED ANNUALLY, DE-
CLARED A PESSIMIST.
m», :
When a note is struck on an upright
piano there are brought into play some-
thing like fifty separate parts of the action,
and this mechanism must be so delicately
adjusted that it will respond as quickly as
the brain, nerves and muscles of the hu-
man body; otherwise a perfect rendering
of any music would be impossible.
Competent judges say that these points
have received the most careful considera-
tion in the Kimball piano, and the action
is so constructed as to produce a pliant,
easy and responsive touch, combined with
great precision and power of repetition.—
Chicago Tribune.
A Hallet & Davis Hit.
Before us lies the latest catalogue issued
by the Hallet & Davis Co., of Boston. It
possesses many new and original features.
It is clearly printed upon finely coated
paper. The illustrations are clear and defi-
nite as to details. The descriptive matter
is condensed and to the point. Some excel-
lent explanatory notes regarding the piano
also appear within the volume. An origi-
nal feature is side illustrations of trusses
and pilasters. Panels as well come in for
a portion of this illustrative style. The
descriptive matter relating to each illustra-
"learn the piano," and whether she has
tion is expressed in snach a way that a far-
either fingers or taste for the task, she is
away reader can have before him a mental
condemned to spend so many hours a day
photograph of the instrument in all its
in what is, in the majority of cases, an enslav-
parts, hidden to the nude eye. A consider-
ing drudgery. The other day for instance,
able portion of the work is given up to a
the principal of a large middle-class girls'
reproduction of letters and opinions from
school in London proudly declared that she
those prominent in art circles the world
had eight pianos constantly going from
over. Taken as a whole, the work reflects
7 a. m. to 5 p. m., and that of the 60 pupils in
much credit upon the Hallet & Davis con-
the school not one was not under pianoforte
cern.
instruction. On the other hand, this mere
machine music-making has become a con-
Grand Rapids Veneer Co.
stant torture, not only to persons of fine
The Grand Rapids Veneer Co., of Grand
musical sensibilities, but to the large num- Rapids, Mich., carry a line of specialties
ber of people who are cursed with sensitive which appeal at once to the piano trade.
nerves, and who find it almost impossible This concern at Grand Rapids probably
to get away from the too irritating tumtum has the largest veneer establishment on
which comes from every street, and every earth. With the growth of the years it
third house. Sooner or later we shall have has steadily expanded until to-day it is one
to interfere with the liberty of the indi- of the sights of Grand Rapids to view this
vidual to be a nuisance not only to his superb accessory to manufacturing. The
neighbors, but to the general public in this business of the Grand Rapids Veneer
particular. There is no reason why we works has been built by the wise and ener-
should not begin at once by imitating the getic management of Mr. W. C l a r k
practice in some continental cities where Thwing, who is well known to the leading
piano practice is forbidden after 11 o'clock piano manufacturers.
at night, or even go the length of Weimar,
where no one must play the piano with the
World's Largest Music Box.
windows open.
We occasionally note ridiculous articles
in the daily papers anent pianos.
A writer in a Welsh paper is greatly
concerned at the waste of money on the
ubiquitous piano. There are, he assumes,
45,000,000 people in Great Britain, housed
in some 7,000,000 homes, of which latter
one at least in seven contains a piano.
Taking the average cost of $100, this
means $100,000,000, and allowing 10 years'
life—rather a low estimate, surely, for
even a $100 instrument—we get a yearly
expenditure of $10,000,000.
Of the six or seven persons in each
house probably two will '' learn to play the
piano," and an allowance of two hours a
day for teaching and practicing means an
expenditure of 4,000,000 hours a year, or
500,000 working days of eight hours. " To
what purpose is this waste ?" asks the
writer, who evidently shares Theophile
Gautier's opinion that " Music is the ex-
pansion of all noises." ''Probably," he
goes on, "one in every 10,000 proves a
good player, and with the exception of this
small fraction of 200 out of 2,000,000, the
net result is the turning loose of 1,999,800 How Fast Does Thought Travel?
bad musicians to torture their family, their INTERESTING EXPERIMENTS MADE BY PRO-
FESSORS OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY—A
friends, and their neighbors, and generally
MECHANICAL PARALLEL.
to make life hideous."
In commenting upon this the Pittsburg
Some interesting experiments have been
News says:
made recently by professors of Columbia
This is, of course, a humorous exagger- University to determine the time required
ation, but there is no doubt that in the for thought to travel from the brain to the
present day the abuse of the instrument is tip of the finger in piano playing. In this
greater than its use, and that so far from connection it is of equal interest to know
being as Dr. Holmes said the great human- that the time required for the transmission
izer of our time, the piano has become a of the force of the blow upon the key of
means of slavery or torture to a vast number the instrument to the point of contact of
of persons. On the one hand it is an inexor- hammer and string is about the same as
able conviction that every young girl must that of thought from brain to finger tip.
IT PLAYS EVERY KIND OF CONCERT MUSIC IN
A FINISHED MANNER.
The largest music box ever constructed
will be exhibited at the Paris Exposition of
1900. Antonio Ziborti, an Italian, who de-
voted fifteen years of his life to its con-
struction, has arranged with the director-
general for space in the Mechanical Building.
The inventor has bestowed upon his
masterpiece the imposing name of auto-
electropolyphon.
This monster music box plays every kind
of concert music in the most finished man-
ner. In it are concealed 80,000 pieces of
musical apparatus, which alone required
an outlay of $12,000.