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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
JULY 30, 1921
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Cerebrations, Both Pointed and Viewish, of the Editor of This Player Section,
Which Demonstrate that the Editorial Pegasus, Being Affected by the Heat,
Has Taken the Bit Between His Teeth and Is Flying All Over the Place
a meeting of the Tuners' Association and talked
to the boys a spell. And it was good talk, too.
Among other things, he qualified for member-
Those who think it an easy job to get out ship in the N. A. P. T. by disclosing the fact
the Player Section twelve times a year and be that he once tuned pianos for a living. This
profound, witty, interesting, informative and ac- led to the observation that during the previous
curate to the tune of all these pages, without the Summer he had spent some weeks up in a
slightest expectation of mercy if any inquiring camp, (you know the sort of thing: one shack
reader with nothing else to do scents out some rather dilapidated, one million square miles of
microscopic error; those, we say, who think tall timothy and beetle-browed trees, one billion
thusly have another think coming. This is no mosquitoes and a river which had lots of fish
cinch job. Selling player-pianos to a profes- last year). Well, anyhow, up in this camp there
sional pianist is nothing to it for variety, interest was a piano, which the campers used. It was
and strenuousness. But it has to be done, and out of tune. Camp pianos always are. So are
the weather cannot be allowed to interfere. In- most other pianos. P. B. K. stood it as long
deed, one must work with an intensity inverse as he could. Then he wrote to N'Yawk and
to the thermometric and barometric conditions got him a tuning hammer and a fork and some
of the world. In Winter time everybody is on wedges, and, by jinks, he tuned that dam piano.
the jump because it is necessary to hustle to He modestly thinks it was probably a bum job;
keep warm. But in Summer everybody is hot but that is neither here nor there. What we
and tired and inclined to snarl and growl at thought of when we first heard the truthful tale
anything which disturbs. Wherefore, the per- of the president of the Autopiano Co. was "Why
spiring writer must work twice as hard to be does not someone put on the market a camp
witty and informative and accurate and inter- player-piano?" Of course, the cynic will retort
esting. He must not be profound, though even that a player-piano out of tune in a camp will
if he is it does not much matter, because nobody be even worse than the other kind. But that
reads profound stuff in Tiot weather. But it is is mere obstruction. Here is an idea for mer-
really much harder to make even the feeblest chants who live in towns whence the merry
joke when the mercury column is trying to throng of Summer campers and fishers and
climb out of its tube, top end. Which remarks hunters annually rush to get close to nature and
are not designed as an apology or even an ex- rest from the appalling strain of business life
cuse. An Apologia in the classical sense they by rowing twenty miles a day, fishing, hunting,
are, of course, but what that sense is the non- shooting, tramping and generally working forty
classical reader must find out for himself. We times as hard as they ever did in town. Why
are too hot to do it. Anyway, if anyone does not canvass the owners of camps in the wilder-
not like our outpourings will he please not ness and sell them some of those nice baby
even write and tell us so? For we are far too pianos which are now coming on the market.''
hot to pay attention. There is only one con- The Jackson Co., Milwaukee, makes a player in
solation: The lucky ones who are on vacation its little Miessner and, no doubt, the Strohber
are probably just as hot; and then the mos- Diminutive soon will have one. Then there is
quitoes! Oh, my!
the little Jacob Bros., of New York. And so
on. Why not? How about keeping them in
A "Diminutive" Kon-klugh-sion
tune? Oh! don't bother us. Ask Paul Brown
Prexy Paul Brown Klugh, one day during the Klugh. He's responsible for this item, so it's up
convention of month before last, dropped in to to him to answer questions.
Lo! The Poor Editor
child in his community with the musical facili-
ties he possesses and he will prosper, for he
(Continued from page 3)
will be obeying the law of business progress.
Man is not afraid and they will begin to lose Music is a necessity and the people can easily be
their own fear.
taught that it is. The way to sell player-pianos
In other words, now is emphatically not the is to think, talk and demonstrate player-pianos.
time to advertise "hard times" sales, "radical re- The way not to sell anything is to think, talk
ductions on player-pianos," easiest of terms, and and demonstrate your belief that the times justify
all that sort of thing. To do that is simply unprofitable
and unbusinesslike
methods,
to show that the merchants are worried and schemes which your own good sense tell you
that they anticipate a calamity. To publish one's are unsound, but which you adopt because you
fear abroad, and incidentally pay big money for are afraid to follow your good sense.
the privilege, strikes us as considerable lunacy.
A lot of nonsense is being talked about the
There are millions of men and women in this state of business. The state of business is the
country who have the ability to buy, to make reflection of the thoughts and feelings of men,
their payments and to carry out their contracts. women and children, wtiose wants are satisfied
They ought to have player-pianos, because every by business. Those wants, left to themselves,
normal family is music loving and because music would never be satisfied, and there would be no
in the home benefits everybody. They ought to business. To discover those wants, to tell the
have music rolls, sheet music and all sorts of truth about them and to have the goods where-
things of the kind. The way to reach them is with to satisfy them is good business. And
to banish fear and to bring them the thing they when that ideal is realized in each business man's
want. That thing is not terms, but music.
thinking he can fulfil the law of progress and
Let the merchant turn his store into a Temple show practically that good business is simply
of Music and devote his energies to finding new satisfactory exchange, in which both parties
ways for acquainting every man, woman and make a profit.
The Musical Musca
This paragraph is composed for the precise
purpose of furnishing entertainment, not to say
delight, to our many thousands of intelligent
readers. Last month, in this very department,
we inserted a paragraph entitled "Play Softly."
We were at the end of the page and turning
over to a fresh one, and doing a little soft play-
ing ourselves. In the course of our profound
remarks we emitted this piece of wisdom:
"It is said that more flies can be caught with
honey than with vinegar and the person who
made that profound remark can be credited with
a completely practical knowledge, so far as it
goes, of the habits of musca domestica."
Now, the last two words were merely a con-
cession to our own vanity, since they comprise
merely the scientific name for the insect which
so much likes honey and which we swat with
our swatters, with our muscaria, in fact. Musca
domestica is the common house-fly. But the
intelligent compositor was not satisfied with this
simple and irreproachable statement. Musca
meant nothing to him (perhaps he does not swat
'cm), so he bethought himself what we might
mean. Instantly it flashed on him that this is
a music trade paper and so he corrected us
without further ado. And the last clause duly
showed up, passed by proofreaders as . . . "the
habits of musica domestica." Well, we have
known a good deal of domestic music which
has been both gall and vinegar to us, and we
have known some, just a little, that has been
honey and sweetness. But we never tried to
catch the domestic breed of Musica with either
honey or vinegar. Musica, the reader will ob-
serve, is a lady who was better known in her
young days as Euterpe and was not at all do-
mestic in her tastes. Far from it. Now that
everybody is working hard (to judge from the
news columns of this paper) to bring the gospel
of music into the home, it occurs that perhaps
the proofreader probably thought we had in-
(Continued on page 8)
BUSINESS CONDITIONS ANALYZED
jfO!> TONE, BEAU TV
''AND LASTING
ACCOMPLISHMENT
Qfy Prod
THE WON DERFU
LEERNOTE
r Piano
r Bar Cleaner
INflf REf EVERY NOTE PLAYING
HELP/ 1 TO BRING OUT THE FULL
TONE BEAUTY OF PLAYER
EQUIPPED WITH SPECIAL ,
VALVE 57CREEN FEATUREJ*
THAT COLLECT THE DIRT
^PREVENT DEVICE FROM
GETTING OUT OF ODDER
JT.LOUIf.UTA.
Export Department:
130 W. 42nd St.. New York City, U. 8. A.
Canadian Distributor:
Jno. A. Morris, Toronto, Canada.