Classic Mode

Music Trade Review

Issue: 1925 Vol. 81 N. 2

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
39
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
JULY 11, 1925
IN THE WORLD OF MUSIC PUBLISHING
Conducted By. V. D. Walsh
The Modern Viewpoints of an Old-Time
Music Man on Octavo Merchandising
Clifford C. Chapman, of the Oliver Ditson Co. Asks How Can the Dealer Be Pessimistic With
the Last Few Years' Advancement in the Appreciation of Music Generally
LJ OW can the dealer be pessimistic to-day in
sheet music and instrument business with
the advancement in the appreciation of music
in the last few years.
It has been my privilege for the last twelve
years to attend the music supervisors' national
conferences held once a year in different cities
of the Middle West and I have noticed .the
untiring work that this body of busy teachers
has given for the benefit of music in their
schools. Since their inception they have formed
glee clubs for all voices, organized bands, vio-
lin as well as other instrument classes, besides
producing cantatas, oratorios, and operas. A
few years back this was almost unheard of. It
goes to show how we are progressing.
Then we must not forget that the phono-
graph has done no end of good for the ad-
vancement of music and will do far more in
time to come, with no apologies to the radio.
In my over forty years' connection with the
octavo business the growth has been something
marvelous.
There has been a noticeable growth in the or
ganization of choral societies in all voices and
there is no question but the tendency is for
better music. There is not the call for the
class of music that was used fifteen or twenty
years ago with the exception of the standard
numbers.
It has been my experience in former years to
notice the indifference of the dealer in hand-
ling octavo publications and I am pleased to
see that he has at last come to realize the fact
that there is something in it.
Ten or more years ago I took a trip through
New York, Pennsylvania and the Middle West-
ern States calling on colleges, supervisors, and
dealers in the interest of the Oliver Ditson
Company. Wherever I met a choir-leader, chor-
al conductor, and supervisor, they all had the
same story, "our dealers do not carry a line
of octavo music." I then interested myself
more with the dealer and suggested he get in
touch with his customers in this line. When-
ever I meet a certain dealer in one of our
Middle West cities he always thanks me for
getting him aroused in this particular line. If
the dealer had looked after his customers in
this field as he should have done there could
Inspirational Songs to
Be Publisher's Feature
Psychological Publishing Co. Brings Out "If
We Knew," a New Type of Inspirational
Number
Publication of the song, "If We Knew," with
words by J. Edward Dean Smith and music by
Arthur Curran, put out by the Psychological
Publishing Co., 504 Carnegie Hall, New York
City, marks a rather new and specialized ven-
ture in the song world. It is the announced
intention of this company, should the song
prove popular with certain classes, organizations
and groups of people throughout the country, to
bring out additional songs of a distinctly inspi-
rational nature to answer a definite need and
purpose.
In the early part of June Mr. Brandon, presi-
dent of the International Society of Applied
Psychology, took 800 copies of "If We Knew"
to a psychological convention in Detroit, where
the song was introduced, and a good sale of this
introductory number enjoyed.
Mr. Curran, composer of the music, and now
in New York, where he has been engaged in
the cast of several large musical shows, has
sung his song before the New York Psycho-
logical Society and will probably appear before
similar organizations in Buffalo and other large
cities soon. Everywhere the song has been well
received by these specialized classes or what
might be termed "inspirational bodies." The
"Seventeen" Song Selling
"When You and I Were Seventeen" still con-
tinues as one of the most popular numbers in
the Irving Berlin, Inc., catalog. Despite the
advent of the Summer season, its sales have
been steadily mounting and it is one of the
outstanding sellers in the Berlin catalog. Among
the other active Berlin issues are "Yearning,"
which has been exceptionally popular with or-
chestras, and "Oh How I Miss You To-night,"
also a particularly appealing fox-trot.
Johnnie Carroll Dead
Johnnie Carroll, well-known song writer and
singer of twenty years ago, died on Thursday
of last week at his home, 274 Dean street,
Brooklyn, N. Y. He was sixty-three years old.
Among the songs he wrote were "I Loved You
Better Than You Knew," "When We Were
Happy" and "You and I." He won a place
for himself at Koster & Bial's music hall in
1886 and later played with such well-known
stars as George M. Cohan, Weber and Fields,
Maggie Cline and Mclntyre and Heath.
"At Dawning" for the Harp
The universal popularity of Charles Wake-
field Cadman's "At Dawning" has caused its
arrangement as a harp solo by Julie Kellar, the
well-known harpist, and for E flat alto saxo-
phone or C melody saxophone by Jascha Gure-
wich.
., Jl Fox Trot
(Melody With Jl
Great Dance Rhythm
BLUE
A Mighty Blue
Fox Trot Son&L
RAYMOND EGAN
not exist to-day a house that is doing a thriv-
ing business with a comparatively small stock
but no end of material for his customers in
the way of samples, the larger per cent of his
orders being sent direct to the customers from
the publishers.
This business the dealer can get to-day if he
goes after it and all he has to do is to have a
good line of samples such as any salesman in
other lines of business carries with him on the
road to-day.
The dealer wants to remember that the octa-
vo line will keep on increasing as the years
go by and I predict it will double in the next
ten years.
movement behind this song is national in char-
acter and is now being organized to establish
chapters in Canada in the Fall of the year.
It was about a year and a half ago that Mr.
Curran chanced to read the words which in-
spired the music, then printed on a card. He
wrote to Mr. Smith, asking permission to use
the words in a song, which permission was
granted.
On completion of the song, Mr. Curran, who
was also studying voice and harmony in New
York, sang his composition on various occa-
sions where it attracted comment, finally com-
ing to the attention of Mr. Brandon, who was
struck with the possibilities in developing songs
for the use of inspirational groups especially.
Mr. Curran is now at work on other song num-
bers which he hopes to bring out in the near-
future, each one of them created with the idea
of striking a responsive chord in the hearts of
all music lovers who are inclined to the inspi-
rational in thought or study.
*
Marguerite
OWEN MURPHY
AL SHERMAN
mi BEN BEANIE
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
40
THE MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
JULY 11,
1925
LINGER
LONGER IN
YOURARMS
A fascinating Rxfrot
Joy Cliff Friend
and Abel Baer
You
Can't
Go
Wrong
With
Any
X
FEIST' Song
Some New Ditson
Features Just Issued
lege Ditties," "Hank's Songs of the Sunny
South" and "Hank's Comic Camp Ditties"—all
Robbins-Engel publications.
"Flapper Wife" Wins
British Prince's Encore
The Ditson Chorus Book for High School and
Chorus Societies and "Silver Bells and Cockle
Shells" Included
Maggie Jones Records
Five Triangle Numbers
In Far-off Hong Kong, Prince George Dances
to Its Strains and, Like Oliver Twist, He
Wanted More
The Oliver Ditson Co., Boston, Mass., has
just issued "The Ditson Chorus Book," for high
school and choral societies. The book is a spe-
cially selected list of copyrighted books com-
bining thoroughly singable choruses, varied in
character and mood, and grouped for the prac-
tical need of the classroom and choral groups.
The progress of music in the schools throughout
the country, community music activities and
the development of choral groups make this
latest addition to the Ditson catalog an impor-
tant one.
Those who have edited and compiled these
selections from the different catalogs are all
active workers in school music activities which
especially fitted them in the preparation of this
publication. They are George J. Abbott, direc-
tor of school music, Schenectady, N. Y.; Wil-
liam Breach, director of school music, Winston-
Salem, N. C, and James D. Price, associate
director of school music, Hartford, Conn.
The Oliver Ditson Co. has also issued an
operetta for girls' voices called "Silver Bells and
Cockle Shells," described as a Mother Goose
fantasy, the text of which is by Robert Y. Kerr
and the music by Elias Blum. The work should
have a particular appeal for girls as it is pat-
terned along the lines that appeal to youthful
minds. The settings and characters lend them-
selves readily to picturesque costuming and the
light, entertaining songs should also prove in-
viting.
Well-known Columbia Race Artist Makes Big
Success in Firm's Catalog With Triangle
Songs
"The Flapper Wife," the song issued in con-
junction with the serial story of the same name
running in several hundred newspapers in this
country as well as in many foreign cities, has
come in for popularity in Cuba, Australia and
other world centers. The latest report on the
foreign use of the story and song is in the
Hong Kong Telegraph, Hong Kong, China,
written by F. P. Franklin, manager of that pa-
per. Among other things, he says:
" 'The Flapper Wife' fox-trot has won the
seal of royal approval, for on May 28, at a pop-
ular seaside hotel nestling amid Oriental moun-
tains and overlooking a pretty little bay on the
Island of Hong Kong, His Royal Highnes9
Prince George, fourth son of King George and
Queen Mary, and brother of the Prince of
Wales, fell a victim to its haunting melody when
he danced to its strains and loudly joined in
the clamor for a double encore.
"Let us explain how it all happened. The N.
E. A. family has members in all parts of the
world—one out in far-away Hong Kong, Brit-
ain's easternmost colony, the Hong Kong Tel-
egraph, a bright fourteen-page evening newspa-
per. In common with all other N. E. A. sub-
scribers, the Telegraph was supplied with the
orchestral score of 'The Flapper Wife,' and,
anxious to set the whole colony humming its
refrain, it handed the music over to the Hong
Kong & Shanghai Hotels Co., which owns a
chain of hotels up and down the China Coast
and which has its own dance orchestras. 'The
Flapper Wife' was accordingly boomed by the
company as America's new big fox-trot hit. On
the second night of its presentation, it figured
prominently on the dance program at the Re-
pulse Bay Hotel, Hong Kong, and as luck
would have it, Prince George, who has been ap-
pointed to the British flagship on the China
Naval Station, happened to be in the colony on
that night, on his way from England to join his
ship in North China.
"Hearing of the dinner dance, the Prince ex-
pressed a wish to be present, and with a big
party of leading Hong Kong residents he mo-
tored out to the seaside hotel. Here he put in
the whole night tripping the light fantastic, re-
maining until the early hours of the morning.
His most enjoyable dance was that to the tune
of 'The Flapper Wife,' with which he expressed
his delight by loudly applauding for two repeti-
tions of the peppy fox-trot.
"Naturally, the Prince's approval of 'The
Flapper Wife' has boomed the melody out in
far-off Hong Kong, where everybody now hums
it and where it holds pride of place in dance
programs."
Selling Ukulele Books
in Far-off Hawaii
Robbins-Engel, Inc., Receives Large Orders for
Publications of This Type From Instrument's
Natal Country
That it is well to do in Rome as Romans do is an
old bromide. It was never better illustrated
than by the results Robbins-Engel, Inc., has
received from Hawaii on its ukulele books. For,
in the year that that firm has been developing
and exploiting its famous ukulele catalog, it has
sold more than 50,000 "uke" folios in no less a
place than Hawaii—home and natal place of the
ukulele, or "jumping flea," as they call it on the
much publicized beach of Waikiki. An order
for five thousand books, received recently from
the Hawaii Sales Co., Ltd., 1009 Nuuanu street,
Honolulu, included "Ukulele Ike's Comic
Songs for the Ukulele," Nos. 1 and 2, "W. C.
Handy's Famous Comic Blues," and the follow-
ing famous books by Hank Linet—"Hank's One
Hour Course in Ukulele Playing," "Hank's Col-
Maggie Jones, who was recently signed up by
the Columbia to make "race records" for them
exclusively, has developed into a "first seller."
Her records, "Undertaker's Blues" and "North
Bound Blues," which were just released, will
undoubtedly sell bigger than anything she has
ever made. Both numbers are published by
Triangle Music Pub. Co. and three other num-
bers she recently made belong to Triangle also.
They are, "Thunderstorm Blues," "You May Go,
But You'll Come Back Some Day," and "If I
Lose, Let Me Lose, Mama Don't Mind."
A Sheet Music Greed
The Adams Sheet Music Shop, 140 North
Main street, Lima, O., has a business creed
which, under the caption "Our Idea of Service,"
should be of interest to other retailers. The
outstanding features of its proposals are given
below:
"To furnish colleges, schools and private
teachers of piano, voice, violin, orchestral and
band instruments, with the best sheet music
and music books.
"To secure any piece of sheet music or music
book obtainable, not carried in stock, in the
shortest possible time by special order.
"To co-operate in all movements to advance
the cause of community music, especially in
bringing good music to the home, school and
church." The Adams Sheet Music Shop is one
of the best-known establishments in the State
of Ohio.
Sissle and Blake Featuring
Sissle and Blake, the well-known colored com-
posers and entertainers, are for the first time
in their career featuring a number which they
did not write themselves. It is "Broken, Busted
Blues," published by Tune-House, Inc.
Berlin Ukulele Songs
Irving Berlin, Inc., has found a wide demand
for its new songs for the ukulele entitled "Strum
It With Crumit." These popular ditties, ar-
ranged in simplified form for ukulele players, are
proving fast sellers wherever displayed. "Tid-
dle De Ukes," another ukulele publication car-
rying comic songs, published by the Berlin
Co., is also proving an active Summer offering.

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