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SEITLMUER 10, 1922
THE
MUSIC
TRADE
REVIEW
PITTSBURGH TRADE IMPROVING
F. G. SMITH CREDITORS TO MEET
Local Dealers Unanimous in Declaring That
Business Is Distinctly on the Mend—Prepar-
ing for Good Concert Season—Other News
Will Hold Special Meeting to Consider First
Report of Trustee and Discuss Other Matters
Concerning the Affairs of the Company
PITTSBURGH, PA., September 12.—Trade condi-
tions in the music industry here are showing signs
of marked improvement. The various managers of
piano houses here all report a better volume of
business for the first ten days of September than
for the corresponding period a year ago.
At the Pittsburgh branch of Chas. M. Stieff,
Inc., Ben L. Sykes, the well-known manager, said:
"Our business has been showing signs of a healthy
increase the past week and, while it is not up to
normal, the manner in which persons are coming
into our warerooms and conferring relative to
making purchases of Stieff pianos indicates to me
that there will be much better business ahead as
ihe Fall season advances." Mr. Sykes was a visi-
tor to Uniontown, Pa., during the week. He stated
that in that section the coal strike did not appear
to have terminated.
"We are doing what I would call a neat busi-
ness," said Mrs. C. C. Mullen, secretary of the
Henricks Piano Co., "and I would say that there is
every indication that the piano business will im-
prove. Most of the people who call in our place
of business are of the buying kind and are pre-
pared to either pay cash or make a down payment
of such substantial proportions that we have no
hesitancy in making the delivery of the piano forth-
with. T feel that, as the industrial situation is
more clarified, there will be bound to be seen in
the piano business a decided improvement and we
are preparing for it."
The S. Hamilton Co. utilized a goodly amount
of space in the Sunday newspapers, calling atten-
tion to the Opera Model baby grand piano. "Not
the smallest, nor the cheapest, but the best in the
world for the price." Burt Hengeveld, manager
of the piano sales department, is elated over the
manner in which the Fall business has started and
is of the opinion that a brisk season is ahead.
The Schroeder Piano Co. Is making a special
drive this month on the Kurtzmann grand piano as
well as the Waldorf player-piano. The latter in-
strument is priced at $425.
Adrian E. Frent, who has for the past fifteen
years, since the founding of the New York Insti-
tute of Musical Arts, been a teacher of voice at
that school, has been added to the faculty of the
Pittsburgh Musical Institute, which opened its Fall
and Winter season to-day. Frederick F. Goerncr
will be the new instructor of 'cello at the institute,
which has a faculty of forty-two persons.
E. Paul Hamilton, the well-known music man
of Baltimore and former president of the Na-
tional Association of Music Merchants, stopped
over in Pittsburgh on Saturday and called on some
of the music men. He paid a pleasant visit to
W. C. Dierks, of the C. C. Mellor Co., who also
is treasurer of the Piano Merchants' Association
of Pittsburgh. Mr. Hamilton was en route from
Chicago to New York.
A hearing in the application for the dissolution
of the Keystone Music Co., a corporation, will be
held in the Allegheny County common pleas court
on Saturday, September 30. Unless objection is
made the court will undoubtedly award a decree
of dissolution.
The first of the Bortz popular concerts will be
given in Carnegie Music Hall, Friday, October 13,
by Ruth St. Denis, with her husband, Ted Shawn,
and six of the Dennisshawn dancers. It is also
announced that the Letz String Quartet of solo-
ists will give a concert in January. Gutia Casini,
the 'cellist, will also be heard again this season
in Pittsburgh. With him will be Kathryne Meisle,
contralto, of New York. Suzanne Keener, the
Pittsburgh girl, who has been selected for the Met-
ropolitan Grand Opera, will be another of the ar-
tists, she being scheduled to appear with Albert
Spalding, violinist, on March 9. Walter Mills,
baritone, and Willem Milleke, 'cellist, will also be
on the program during the season. Mr. Bortz had
a very successful series of concerts last year and
this year he expects to eclipse the work of last
season.
Horace W. Davis, trustee of the affairs of F.
G. Smith, Inc., bankrupt, has filed his first re-
port in that capacity and a special meeting of
the creditors of the company will be held at the
offices of Peter B. Olney, Jr., Referee in Bank-
ruptcy, 68 William street, on September 18 at
11:45 a. m., for the purpose of approving the
trustee's report, passing upon the claims of the
receivers for additional compensation and con-
sidering other claims.
At the meeting instructions will be given re-
specting the disposition of piano leases belong-
ing to the company, as well as of accounts and
notes receivable. The question of paying an ini-
tial dividend will also be taken up.
SCHILLER OPENS IN CHICAGO
Schiller Piano Co., of Oregon, 111., Establishes
Pretentious Offices in Republic Building, With
Frank L. Jordan in Charge
CHICAGO, I I I . , September 12.—It is announced
that the Schiller Piano Co., with factories at Ore-
gon, 111., has opened offices at 920-930 Republic
Building, with Frank L. Jordan in charge. Mr.
Jordan is known from coast to coast in the whole-
sale piano trade, having formerly been associated
for years with the Smith, Barnes & Strohber Co.
as general traveler.
In an interview with a representative of The
Music Trade Review Air. Jordan says, "I am very
much pleased to be associated with such genial
gentlemen as the Messrs. George and Edgar Jones,
president and secretary and treasurer, respectively,
of the Schiller Piano Co., whose high ideals have
made it possible for this concern to attain the
honored position they hold in the trade to-day,
with their large factories equipped wih every mod-
ern device and their unquestioned financial stand-
ing. Last, but not least, I am glad to have the
hearty co-operation of Frank M. Hood, who has
been associated with the Schiller Piano Co. for
twenty-one years as general traveler and, no doubt,
is as well and favorably known as any man in the
trade.
"A department of special sales will be inaugu-
rated at once, headed by a corps of the most suc-
cessful special salesmen in the country, with up-to-
date methods in every way. We shall be equipped
in this department so that, if necessary, we can
inaugurate sales simultaneously from Maine to
California. Yes, I am extremely optimistic re-
garding the future prosperity of the piano trade.
I firmly believe that we are on the eve of great
prosperity as soon as the existing industrial trou-
bles are ironed out, which will be soon."
OFFERS TO PAY FOR FIRST LESSON
H. V. Beasley Music Co., Texarkana, Ark., Has
"School Time" Sale of Pianos
The H. V. Beasley Music Co., Texarkana,
Ark., has been conducting a very successful
"School Time" sale of pianos, offering as a spe-
cial inducement to pay for the first month's in-
struction in piano playing for any child for
whom a piano is bought at the sale. The offer
was announced in a full-page advertisement and
which included the names of over two-score lo-
cal music teachers from whom a selection could
be made.
According to George H. Beasley, of the com-
pany, the offer served to stimulate sales to a
very satisfactory degree. The fact that the pur-
chasers could select their own teacher and that
there was no set price stipulated for the month's
instruction appeared to have the effect of con-
vincing the public of the legitimacy of the offer.
The Beasley Music Co. has had printed and
distributed a number of cards emphasizing the
necessity of having pianos tuned at least twice
annually, in order to preserve the tone quality.
USE SAND SOAP
=f> IT3C0URSDEEP f ^
9—BUMP OFF TIMIDITY
BY MARSHALL BREEDEN
LDSANCELES
This bit of Sand Soap is more for the
beginner than the veteran. The beginner
on the floor may think he has all the cour-
age in the world when he has only brass.
It is well to be timid—frightened to utter
untruthful exaggerations. It is well to be
sensitive—too bashful to make a flamboy-
ant statement. It is, however, not wefl
to be either timid or sensitive.
A direct contradiction in one paragraph.
Poor writing stuff that. In the generally
accepted meaning of the terms timidity
means to be frankly afraid. That is fool-
ishness. Sensitiveness means to wilt like
a frozen lily when anyone balls you out.
That is confounded nonsense. But lots of
us have to overcome these two conditions,
especially the beginner, the man who is
just entering into the retailing of pianos.
Why Be Afraid?
Most of us are afraid of fancies. We
fear the dentist, yet when we go and have
our teeth attended to it is not as bad as
we thought it was going to be. The fal-
lacy of fear makes many of us decline to
accept opportunities that are thrust at us.
Fear prevents a piano solicitor from ring-
ing every doorbell on the block. If he
starts out (although it is not a very good
method) he should ring every doorbell.
This house-to-house work is one sure way
of proving whether or not a man can over-
come the sense of fear. It is good medi-
cine for a beginner, but a bitter pill to an
old hand.
In the old school days a champion half-
miler once told this writer a great truth.
We were discussing the coming event, a
half-mile Olympic tryout, in which some
dozen of us were entered. The champion,
who eventually won the race, said: "When
you get tired and all in just remember that
the other fellow is also tired and all in,
and then you 'out-game' him." So it is
with a salesman. The chances are the cus-
tomer is just as timid, just as much afraid
as you are. So out-game him.
Last March, in Chicago, this writer was
hanging around an athletic club watching
one Charlie White train for a match.
White invited the writer to box. The
writer is bigger and is also rather more
or less accustomed to boxing. He boxed,
and that son-of-a-gun knocked out five of
the writer's teeth.
White outgamed me!
E. J. WALT ENLARGING STORE
Handsome Nebraska Music House Forced to
Expand Because of Growing Business
LINCOLN, NEB., September 11.—One of the most
beautiful piano and music stores located in this
part of the country is that of Edw. J. Walt,
1215 O street. Situated, as it is, right in the
heart of Lincoln's shopping center and business
life, the music-loving public has made of this
house a sort of a rendezvous and meeting place.
A constantly increasing business has made
necessary an enlargement of the floor space and
three beautiful rooms are now being furnished
to provide additional showrooms for pianos and
phonographs.
The lines bandied include the Mason & Hani-
lin, Julius Bauer & Co., Vose & Sons, Ludwig
and others.