Classic Mode

Music Trade Review

Issue: 1926 Vol. 83 N. 5

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
The Music Trade Review
Salt Lake City Dealers Find Demand
Holding Up Well During the Summer
Talking Machines and Records Selling Exceptionally Well—Daynes-Beebe Draws
Attention With a True Fish Story—Music Men Vacationing
C A L T LAKE CITY, UTAH, July 15.—The
^ music business in this city is in good shape this
Summer; better than normal, it seems. The
great improvement in the talking machine busi-
ness has helped not a little. Records are selling
exceptionally well. One or two firms report
collections as very good. There is much in-
terest in the tour of the big Tabernacle Choir,
which leaves for the Pacific Coast next week
and will be away for eleven days. The Choir
will give concerts in San Francisco, Oakland,
Los Angeles, San Diego and elsewhere. More
than 200 singers will make the trip.
The industrial outlook continues good. Crops
not matured have been given a new lease on
life by the torrential rains of last week, which
were followed by hot suns. The metal mining
and smelting industries are in a strong position
and the tourist business is bigger than ever be-
fore.
Alvin A. Beesley, manager of the Beesley
Music Co., and Mrs. Beesley are back from a
New York trip. While in New York they called
upon Frederick Dixon, the pianist, who gave a
series of concerts here in the Spring.
J. C. McClain, of the Utah Music Co., who has
been seriously ill, is well again.
Ed. McCallum and Miss Frances Osborne, of
the Glen Bros.-Roberts Piano Co., are on their
vacations, Mr. McCallum being at Yellowstone
National Park and Miss Osborne now arranging
a trip.
The Glen Bros.-Roberts Co. is working the
country strong this Summer with fine results,
according to Manager Thomas J. Holland.
The Daynes-Beebe Music Co. has a window
furnished as a living-room featuring the Estey
grand piano.
Not a little excitement was caused at the big
Daynes-Beebe Music Co.'s establishment the
other day when Colonel Joseph J. Daynes, presi-
dent and general manager of the company,
caused the big catch of fine trout made by him-
self and his four sons and Vern Calder, one of
the firm's salesmen, to be placed on exhibition
just inside the public entrance on the main floor
of the store. The fishing trip, which proved so
successful that it called for an exhibition of the
catch, occupied three days in all and the fishing
grounds were beautiful Fish Lake in southern
Utah, a considerable distance from Salt Lake
City. Mr. Daynes' four sons who made the
trip with himself and Mr. Calder were Donald,
Sharp, Byron and Wilford. Donald is treasurer
of the Daynes-Beebe Co. and Sharp, a recent
graduate of the State University, was recently
appointed a salesman of the firm. Twenty-one
fish were caught by the anglers during the day
spent at the lake. The smallest weighed two
and one-half pounds and the largest, caught by
Mr. Calder, weighed nine and one-half pounds.
They were frozen in 600 pounds of ice and
mounted on a handsome green stand. A card
bbre this inscription: "A True Fish Story.
These fish were caught in Fish Lake on July 5
by Joseph J. Daynes and sons, Donald, Sharp,
Byron and Wilford. Weight from two and one-
half to nine and one-half pounds, the ten-
pounder by Vern Calder." The exhibition proved
a mighty interesting attraction from the stand-
point of store publicity. Many hundreds of
people made a special point of seeing it after
they had been told about it by friends. It also
got into the newspapers. It was unique, for
one thing. Colonel Daynes has always been a
keen and successful angler and his sons are fol-
lowing in his footsteps.
Oscar Olson, salesman in the phonograph de-
partment of Daynes-Beebe Music Co. for many
years and a recent benedict, was a member of
the entertainment committee in connection with
Public's
the visit here last week of the Crown Prince
and Crown Princess of Sweden.
George Studham, of Daynes-Beebe Music Co.,
and family are enjoying a motor tour during
which they will take in parts of Canada. They
will be away a month or more.
The local store of the Glen Bros.-Roberts
Piano Co. is offering without charge a complete
eight weeks' course in music to a member of
any family purchasing a piano.
Mrs. Ethel Olin, manager of the Utah Music
Co., has returned from a month's business and
pleasure trip in the Eastern States.
JULY 31, 1926
The Daynes-Beebe Music Co. is featuring a
baby grand piano in one of its windows on a
revolving floor and a pattern showing the exact
floor space which the piano requires is being
distributed gratis. It is felt that many people
hesitate to buy a grand piano of any kind in
these days of smaller rooms for fear it will not
fit in the space they would have for it, and this
pattern will help them to study the problem in-
telligently and swiftly.
Fred Beesley, member of the old-established
house of Beesley Music Co., South Main street,
will leave for the Pacific Coast next week with
the Mormon Tabernacle Choir of this city,
which will conduct a ten-day concert tour. Mr.
Beesley, a veteran musician and music mer-
chant, and widely known in both fields, sings
bass.
"Salt Lake City" is the name of a new local
song hit. The music is by B. Cecil Gates, as-
sistant director of the Tabernacle Choir.
A. G. Gulbransen Sees Old Pianos as
a Drag on the Sales of New Instruments
President of the Gulbransen Co., Chicago, States It Would Be More Profitable for the Trade
to Burn up the Old Instruments—False Ideas on Trade-in Values
¥ T seems strange that a people as progressive
* as the Americans, ever on the alert for
things that are new, should tolerate old, out-
of-date, valueless pianos to the extent that
they do. We see these old pianos on every
hand, worn out, decrepit, totally out of keep-
ing with their modern surroundings, and yet
because they were once "pianos" they are still
so considered.
Many people change their furniture every
few years; they tire of the old and demand
new things. Yet they will keep a piano that
has no place in any home—let alone a well-fur-
nished one. We see homes on all sides, some
of them of the latest types of architecture,
furnished with oriental rugs, modern furni-
ture, a radio in a period model cabinet, luxur-
ious hangings, and yet in that same home fre-
quently will be seen a piano that should have
been discarded ten or twelve years ago.
Why people are so loath to part with an old
piano is rather difficult to analyze. It is not
because of finances, for many of the oldest
pianos are in homes of means and in clubs, in-
stitutions and other places that have ample
financial resources. Probably it is a matter of
mental attitude and education. People have
come to believe that pianos should last for
generations.
Another thing that their minds seem to be
set on is that every piano has a trade-in
value. It is peculiar that this i'dea should have
become so firmly entrenched.
Old furniture
has no trade-in value. You cannot turn your
old rug in on a new one. The dealer would
laugh at the suggestion. And yet, no matter
how far from being a piano worthy of the
name it may be, the owner expects an allow-
ance and a very liberal one, when he buys a
new one.
Old pianos ought to be burnt up. The very
worst thing that can be done with them is to
present them to needy institutions, such as
churches, settlement houses and other places
of similar character. No matter into what sort
of a private home they may be put, they still
do the piano business harm. They are a dis-
tinct detriment to music as long as they are in
existence and I feel that the best interests of
the trade and the music loving public would be
served by a policy of destroying the old instru-
ments.
The modern trend of piano designing, the
popularity of the grands and small size up-
rights, the more general recognition of the
foot-power instrument as the standard instru-
ment of the home, all help this idea along. The
time is ripe, it seems to me, to spread the
thought that old pianos should be discarded
and destroyed the same as any other old fur-
nishings. This would be one of the biggest
steps forward in preserving the musical ear and
the artistic eye of the nation. The spread-
ing of this thought would have another im-
portant effect, that of minimizing the trade-in
value of pianos that do have some monetary
worth, so that reasonable allowances can be
made by merchants instead of the exorbitant
amounts often demanded and given.
Sterling Roll & Record
New Sonora Distributor
Will Handle Instrument in Parts of Kentucky,
Indiana, Ohio and West Virginia
The Sonora Phonograph Co. has appointed
the Sterling Roll and Record Co., of 137 West
Fourth street, Cincinnati, O., as its exclusive
distributors for both the Sonora radio and
Sonora phonograph for the following territory:
That part of Kentucky east of and including
the following counties: Davies, McLean, Muhl-
enberg, Todd; Indiana, less the following coun-
ties: Marshall, Newton, Elkhart, Lake, La
Porte, St. Joseph, Porter, Benton, Kosciusko,
Warren, Starke, Jasper, Pulaski, Fulton; south-
ern half of Ohio bounded on the north and in-
cluding the following counties: Drake, Shelby,
Champaign, Madison, Pickaway, Hocking,
Athens, Morgan, Washington, Monroe; West
Virginia, all the following counties: Mason,
Jackson, Roane, Calhoun, Gilmer, Braxton,
Webster, Pocahontas, Greenbrier, Monroe,
Summers, Mercer, McDowell, Wyoming, Minge,
Raleigh, Fayette, Nicholas, Clay, Logan,
Boone, Kanawha, Putnam, Cabell, Lincoln,
Wayne.
The sales and distribution of Sonora prod-
ucts in this territory will be directed by Ben L.
Brown, general manager.
The other officers of the company are: Oscar
F. Barrett, president; Myers Y. Cooper, vice-
president and treasurer; Frank E. Wood, secre-
tary; E. J. Burke, assistant treasurer.
To Handle the Gulbransen
PORTLAND, ORE., July 22.—E. B. Hyatt, of the
Hyatt Music Co., has announced the taking over
of the exclusive agency of the Gulbransen
piano, the negotiations for the transfer from
the Thompson Piano Co. to Mr. Hyatt being
made by G. E. Corson of The Dalles, Ore., the
Pacific Northwest representative of the Gul-
bransen Co.
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
How the Trade Is Reaping the Fruit
of 25 Years of False Talk
Only the Innate Selling Vitality of the Player-piano Has Made It Able to Withstand the Injury Done It by
the Constant Claim That "Anyone Can Play the Player"—An Honest Effort to Teach People
to Play It Properly Will Set Its Merchandising on New and Better Basis
N a recent article some attention was paid
to the important question of the position to
be occupied by the reproducing piano and
the player-piano in the new alignment of the
industry caused by the adoption of the scheme
for national piano promotion. It is evident that
if any good is really to result from all this plan-
ning, each aspect of the situation must be
thoroughly canvassed and as thoroughly treated,
for there are many aspects to the problem
which is before us and it is hard to say that any
one of them is more important than any other.
Of course the piano is the basic musical in-
strument, and being so, that which first takes
our notice is what may be called its manual as-
pect. It is evident from the start that the
proper way to promote piano sales is to pro-
mote piano playing among the children and
adults of the land. But with all this granted, one
simply cannot wish away the player-piano or the
reproducing piano. Here they are, strongly in-
trenched and with a record of such usefulness
to the industry as to entitle them almost to first
place in strength and selling value. These in-
struments cannot be treated as if a campaign
could go along without them. In a word, they
must be considered, and considered with very
great, and even meticulous, care. For if they
are neglected it is quite probable that they will
succeed in wrecking the whole scheme of propa-
ganda, not through inborn malice on their in-
animate part or on the deliberate part of their
makers and sellers, but because of their own
natural strength, influence and hold upon pub-
lic affection. To ignore them would simply be,
in a word, to invite disaster.
The Pedal Player Especially
For the present moment let us consider the
single case of the player-piano properly so-
called, that is, the instrument which consists of
a piano, grand or upright, fitted with a
mechanism which plays the piano when oper-
ated and controlled by human brain and body.
Let us for the moment put aside altogether
the reproducing piano, which indeed deserves
separate treatment, and consider this one large
and extremely interesting factor in our problem.
What is to be its position? Where does it come
in with respect to a campaign for promotion of
piano sales conducted on a national scale?
Ever since the player-piano came on to the
market more than twenty-five years ago it has
been a sort of step-child in respect of its treat-
ment by those who should have nourished and
cherished it. Its own enormous power has en-
abled it to strike pretty deeply, despite neglect
and stupidity, but it has never become what its
first promoters were justified in believing il
would speedily come to be. It has, in fact,
been never sold at all, in the strict sense of
the word. To this day millions, literally
millions of excellent men and women who have
some liking for music and probably some de-
sire (it is a normal desire) to express them-
selves therein, have not the least idea that the
player-piano is what they really want, have not
the remotest notion of what can be done with
it, by one who learns to play it. The brilliant
advertising which the Gulbransen Co. has been
doing for so long has always to fight against
this ignorance, which is so deep-seated that
only the strongest language repeated a score of
thousand times can ever be expected to modify
it. And how has all this come about? Simply
enough. It is the fruit of a quarter century of
I
the talk about no skill being needed and about
a child playing as well as an adult. Plainly, so
long as this is the prevailing belief among mil-
lions, the player-piano will positively not par-
ticipate in any benefit from a campaign based
upon music. A promotion campaign calculated
to benefit sale of player-pianos, when such sales
are made on the principle of misrepresentation,
will have to be based upon something quite
far away from music.
Up to Retailers
In other words, it is entirely a matter to be
decided by the merchants and their salesmen,
whether the sales of player-pianos shall be in-
creased through the operation of the forthcom-
ing national campaign of piano promotion. As
a matter of fact, if the salesmen and the mer-
chants would, from this time onward, make up
their minds to begin selling player-pianos upon
the principle of telling the truth about them
and learning how to play them well and demon-
strate that playing to their prospects, nothing
more would be needed to create an imme-
diate upturn in the sales account. For, as was
said before, the player-piano has never yet been
sold, rightly speaking. To the vast majority of
those who ought to possess and play player-
pianos, these instruments are to all intents and
purposes quite unknown. It is still virgin terri-
tory, this of the player-piano market. That is
to say, the proper territory, the territory which
should have been combed over from the first, is
still almost untouched. The intelligent people
have been utterly neglected where they have
not been frightened away, and why? Simply
because merchants have clung to the absurd
belief that the way to sell a musical instrument
is to make it as unmusical as possible, to per-
mit it to give out sounds which would disgrace
a street piano, and then to say that this is "giv-
ing the people what they want." That is why
the only natural and proper market for the
player-piano has been to this day left untilled.
And that too is why the player-piano impera-
tively is needing, from now on, a revival of mer-
chandising common sense to the end that it
may partake, equally with the piano proper and
the reproducing piano, of that revival of public
interest in piano music which must be the cer-
tain result of the planned national campaign.
To put it in yet another way, the position of
the player-piano in respect of the present situa-
tion is this: It is a musical instrument. It
should, can, and in fact must, henceforth be sold
as a musical instrument, to be learned, played
and enjoyed. Any honest effort to teach people to
play it well will set the whole merchandising
situation on a new and firm basis. Whereafter
the benefits which will accrue to the straight
piano from the planned campaign of promotion,
will equally tend to the use and hehoof of the
player-piano likewise.
A State of Flux
The whole situation is in a state of change.
The position of the player-piano was never so
favorable as it is to-day. Simply the question
is whether the retail trade will take advantage
of the fact and reap the reward.
Hanley Piano Co, Moves to New Store
Giving It Four Times Present Space
Demand in the Twin Cities Fair for Season of the Year With Main Emphasis on High Grade
Instruments—Some Dealers Report July a Splendid Month
OT. PAUL and MINNEAPOLIS, July 24.
^ —Business and the weather may be char-
acterized respectively as "fair and warmer" al-
though that is being a little faint in describing
trade conditions. While merchants, for the
most part, report that things are a little quiet,
there are others who tell of an unlooked-for
acceleration in certain lines.
P. J. Hanley is among the latter and has
quite a few bits of interesting news. First,
July so far is a splendid month and the higher
priced pianos, chiefly the Bauer, have been
moving more than well. Mr. Hanley adds that
the lower priced goods are not moving as fast
but there are no complaints with $1,000 units
of sale on the books. The Hanley Piano Co.
moved on July 22 into its new store a few
doors from the present headquarters. It is at
45 South Eighth street, in the Pomeroy Build-
ing, and the space there is about four times
the present area.
E. R. Dyer, president of the Metropolitan
Music Co., is on a vacation at Pine Camp
above Park Rapids in the Northern Minne-
sota woods. He will be gone, it is stated, un-
til August 1.
July has been a fair month is the report from
the Metropolitan Co.., with all departments
steady.
More than half the 1 Foster & Waldo force
are on vacations. R. O. Foster says that the
phonograph business is wonderful with Pana-
tropes especially going strong. The books
show this department away ahead of the volume
of last year.
Although July is somewhat quieter than
June, the Cammack Co. is very well satis-
fied. Portables are enjoying the seasonable
boom and records maintain a steady average
of sales.
Among the many Minnesota music vaca-
tioners is M. L. McGinnis, of the firm of that
name. He is at Welawiben, near Kimberly,
Minn.
Wurlitzer Plant Reopens
The large plant of the Wurlitzer Grand Piano
Co., DeKalb, 111., reopened on Monday after
the usual two weeks' shut-down, during which
time the staff took their annual vacations. The
plant is now running full force on full time and
orders for grand pianos are pronounced as satis-
factory. The Wurlitzer models now represent
eighteen periods and these types are becoming
particularly popular with the trade and the
public.
The William
street, Laconia,
cently by John
St. Clair Music
H. Avery Music Store, Main
N. H., has been purchased re-
E. St. Clair, proprietor of the
Store.

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