Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
TRADE NOTES JTCOM THE WEST.
Grand Opera Increases Talker
Sales—Cable
Co.'s Talking Machine Quarters—Rothschild
& Co. a New Enterprise in Chicago—A Modi-
fier on a New Principle—Columbia Grapho-
phone Complimented—Other Items.
(Special to The Review.)
pairs and parts to talking machine dealers.
E. C. Plume, wholesale manager for the Colum-
bia Phonograph Co., hied himself north last week
and captured a big order from the Cable Com-
pany, who will handle Columbia machines and
records, both disc and cylinder, in addition to
their other lines when they get the new depart-
ment in operation.
A new modifier which is just being introduced
works on an entirely different principle from
those heretofore manufactured. In form it is
similar to a pear, and about the size of a very
large one. It is inserted in the horn of the
talking machine with the small end, which is
open, towards the reproducer. It can be imme-
diately removed or replaced, and thus while
softening the tone of the loudest record can be
used within limits as a means of interpretation.
This is often desirable, as all the average rec-
ords have not been made by artists who have
the interpretative faculty well developed, no
matter how great their technical equipment may
be. The modifier is made of brass, nickel-plated,
and is hollow. In the "bell" of the pear-shaped
device is an inner shell suspended so that its
walls are about one-sixteenth of an inch from
the outside walls of the device. The sound,
traveling in a straight line from the reproducer,
strikes the dome of this inner shell, rebounds,
and then, passing between the walls of the inner
shell and the modifier proper, is delivered through
a lip-shaped aperture in the top of the device.
A better idea can be obtained from the illustra-
tion which appears elsewhere in this issue. Rub-
ber protectors around the mouth and the project-
ing part of the bell keep the modifier from direct
contact with the horn. As a result of the various
convolutions which the sound waves are forced
to make in the modulating device the metallic
sound, scratching, etc., is eliminated, the inventor
claims, not only softening but greatly improv-
ing the quality of the tone. Owing to the pear
shape of the modifier it can be used in any horn
on any machine. This modifier is the invention
of A. S. Thompson, manager of the talking-
machine department of Rothschild & Co., Chi-
cago, and is manufactured and marketed by The
Graphophone Modifier Co., 279 State street, Chi-
cago, in which Mr. Thompson owns a controlling
interest.
Review Office, 195 Wabash Ave.,
f
Chicago, April 10, 1906.
Trade with the talking-machine dealers is good.
No complaints are heard
The Cable Company have changed their plans
about the location of their new talking-machine
department. Instead of having it on the third
floor of the main building, it will occupy the
entire second floor of the annex. This is directly
above the beautiful Cable Hall, which will natu-
rally be used hereafter for talking machine as
well as piano and vocal recitals. Mr. Harrison,
who is to be the manager of the department, has
some very unique plans in the recital line, which
will insure the department a proper exploitation
from the start.
The floor is being splendidly fitted up for the
department. The offices and reception room will
be in the front, and in the rear will be three
handsome disc rooms and one cylinder record
room. This will do as a start, but it is quite
likely that the third floor will also be utilized
in the near future. They will handle the Victor,
Edison and Columbia lines; both the cylinder and
disc machines of the latter company will be used.
Also the American machines of the Hawthorne
& Sheble Mfg. Co., and the American records.
One of the largest and best appointed talking-
machine departments in Chicago is that of Roths-
child & Co., the big State street department store.
Mr. Thompson, the manager, is cerainly a very
ingenious man, and has introduced a number of
unique features. They handle the Victor, Edison
and Columbia machines. Combination outfits
are his specialty, and some very beautiful Victor
machines with cabinets to match are shown, sell-
ing at $150. One in the Vernis-Martin finish,
gold, hand painted, has the machine set in the
cabinet, the disc holder appearing on the top of
the cabinet proper. There are several handsome
record rooms, and every Wednesday, following
the regular piano recital on the floor above, a
Justice Timothy D. Hurley paid a big com-
"musicphone" recital is given. Last Wednesday, pliment to the Columbia Co.'s Twentieth Century
the first of the musicphone recitals, the Victor Graphophone last week. His court is right over
Red Seal records were used. Mr. Thompson also a 5-cent moving-picture show, which uses one
gives daily in one of the large record rooms of the big volume talkers to attract the atten-
downstairs recitals of various popular airs, illus- tion of bypassers on the street. The Judge likes
trating them with stereopticon views. More than music, but so do the attorneys and the prisoners
this, the stereopticons are for sale, including the and the plaintiffs and the witnesses and the
slides, which are of Mr. Thompson's own devising. hangers-on. And that has been the trouble.
A new enterprise in Chicago is the Chicago When the full, rich and intensely loud tones of
Talking Machine Repair Co. (not incorporated), "The Anvil Chorus," or "Uncle Sammy," or
128 Dearborn street. The members are R. R. "Everybody Works But Father" came surging
Browne and E. J. Ridenour. Mr. Browne is an up from below, the whole court went out of
all-round practical talking-machine man, who, business and lapsed into a dreamy, abstracted,
after a couple of years at the bench in the Talk-a- ecstatic sort of condition that did not exactly
phone Co.'s factory, came to Chicago and intro- furnish oil for the wheels of justice. The Judge
duced their lines here and in adjoining territory. dimply had to sacrifice his own musical taste
Later he represented James I. Lyons in Iowa rather than sacrifice business, and consequently
and other Western territory. E. J. Ridenour, the notified the manager of the show that he would
other partner, is a thorough mechanic, and has have him arrested and fined if he didn't call the
been connected with large Chicago concerns. graphophone off. Consequently the purveyor of
They not only do all kinds of repairing of talk- music to the million no longer graces the front
ing machines, making a specialty of dealers' of the place of amusement.
work, but also handle a full line of repairs of
Of course Lyon & Healy have taken advantage
every talking machine made, and state that they of the grand opera season to exploit Victor Red
can give especially attractive rates on both re- Seal records in Victor Hall. Among the stars
who have dropped in to hear their own voices so
far are Journet, Van Hoose and Chris Chapman,
of the Metropolitan Orchestra and the famous
Anything
maker of bell records.
tnd
Lyon & Healy had a big increase in business in
March in their talking machine department, but
Everything
that is nothing" new.
in
The National Phonograph Co. have advised
their trade that in order to give themselves a
TALKING
chance to get caught up on their orders, which
are way behind, the Edison records for May will
MACHINES
not reach the dealers until about May 15.
Wholesale
H. W. Noyes, secretary of Hawthorne, Sheble
Mfg. Co., is having excellent trade on both the
J a m e s L Lyons, l9UW
American Machines and American records.
BLUFFED THE BURGLARS.
How a Self-Confidant Young Lady Utilized
the Talking Machine to Scare Burglars in
a Most Effective Fashion.
The latest utilization of the talking machine
is certainly novel and shows its possibilities in
an entirely new light. For instance, the mistress
of a home was alone in her parlor when she was
startled into that sort of stillness through which
the sound of one's heart beats assails one's ear
with the deafening effect of drum beats. She
heard soft footfalls on the floor above, and knew
that she was a t the mercy of burglars. She
heard one of them descending the stairs and she
was almost paralyzed with terror.
Out of her feminine consciousness came an in-
spiration. She knew the record of an aria from
a grand opera was ready to burst into song. She
turned on the vocal calesthenics, and after a
piercing preliminary shriek or two the voice of a
Nordica or Fremstad or Scalchi bounded from
its lowest depths to its highest altitude and cor-
ruscated joyously around a dizzy sound height
that assailed the high ceiling of the parlor and
spouted the heel wings of Hermes from burg-
larious feet.
No husky "Who's there?" No quavering scream
for help would have operated to scare a few
burglars out of a house occupied by one woman,
the talking machine did for their nerves, how-
ever. The unexpected happened to them; they
took refuge in flight and were well down the
back alley before they realized that they had
been bluffed by the imitation of a prima donna's
vocal athletics.
It is well that the greatest stars in the musical
firmament do not disdain the phonograph It is
well that the song of a Calve or a Caruso can be
carried into the mountain hut of a dweller far
away from the noise of a railroad or the possi-
bility of grand opera in town. The talking ma-
chine brings pleasure with it, and it has been
shown that it has safety in its records.
It was much more effective, in this case, than
many a policeman has been in like instances.
WILD BIDS FOR "TALKER."
Machine Worth $10 Is Knocked Down at Auc-
tion for $125 After Owner and Auctioneer
Are Almost Mobbed by Would-be Purchasers.
A despatch from Darlington, Pa., under recent
date, says: "The unusual spectacle of a group
of music-loving farmers bidding up a second-
hand $10 phonograph to $125 just because it ren-
dered such popular songs as 'Nobody Works But
Father' and 'Always in the Way' in good shape,
was presented at an auction sale of William
Fausnaught's furniture. Fausnaught operated
the machine while the sale progressed and kept
everyone in a good humor, and when the auc-
tioneer put the music box under the hammer as
the last article to be sold the crowd surged for-
ward and the most spirited bidding occurred dur-
ing the sale.
"As 'Nobody Works But Father' was being
played one bidder exclaimed: 'I'll raise it from
$75 to $100, Mr. Auctioneer; I must take that
home to-night.' Another raised the bid $5 and
waved his greenbacks in the auctioneer's face,
when the utmost excitement prevailed. The
crowd surged backward and forward, knocking
the auctioneer's stand from beneath him, and the
operator of the phonograph was compelled to
throw it on his shoulder and dash inside the
house to keep it safe. The door was besieged
by the excited bidders, who thought someone had
stolen it, but the auctioneer finally quieted them
and knocked down the machine at $125."
The commercial department of the National
Phonograph Co. will make a very handsome dis-
play of the Edison commercial system with office
phonographs at the first annual advertising show
to be held at Madison Square Garden, New York,
From May 3 to 9.