Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
32
The Music Trade Review
JANUARY, 1930
Broadcasting and Talkies Discussed
at Meeting of Boston Music Publishers
TjOSTON, MASS.—At the December meeting
*-* and dinner of the Boston Music Publishers'
Association, held as usual at the Parker House,
the guest of honor was Professor Hamilton C.
MacDougall of the music department at Welles-
ley College. Banks M. Davidson, president of the
association, presided and it may be said at the
outset that the various views advanced during the
evening by not only Mr. Davidson and Profes-
sor MacDougall but by William Arms Fisher
and Henry K. Austin were of a highly enlight-
ening character touching the relation of broad-
casting and the talkies to the music publishing
business.
Professor MacDougall, who spoke from the
viewpoint of the ordinary citizen, said that
broadcasting and talkies today were entertain-
ment for the eye and ear, but one of the great
evils of broadcasting is that it is heard without
actually being listened to, and is apt to destroy
one's power of acute listening. He naturally
deplored the amount of mediocre stuff that
came over the air and said that while the com-
positions of the great composers, the classical
music, would always live it was nevertheless
amazing to see the demand, though of a fugi-
tive character, there is for the so-called popu-
lar stuff, the latest of which is to be found too
frequently on the pianos of our young women.
This, he thought, was one of the unhappy
trends of the time here in America, for it seems
to be pleasure first without the note of serious-
ness, or really anything substantial back of it.
Referring to the amount of jazz that is let loose
to-day on the public Professor MacDougall
affirmed that little of it is good for anything
from the musical point of view, and he char-
acterized in anything but complimentary words
the strident, uncultivated voices, often falsetto,
that are the medium for this stuff. One of the
ultimate good results of present-day conditions
he thought would be that eventually only the
best artists would get jobs.
Paying his respects to the movies he said that
while they were silent they were getting along
very well; but as soon as they became talkies
the tendency was to deaden the imagination,
and for the most part the music that we are
called upon to listen to has a most repellent
effect. One immediate effect has been that the
orchestral musician has been actually killed off.
One of Professor MacDougall's final deductions
was that the artistic sense was being weakened
by these machines and that the talkies have
bent our whole musical svstem; it's a terrible
mix-up all along the line and is very vital to
the music teacher and the music publisher.
Mr. Fisher gave a delightfully informal talk
touching the music conditions as he found them
while abroad this past summer, and he said the
radio presented the same problems among the
music publishers and musicians generally as it
does here.
Mr. Austin took a rather hopeful view of
the situation, and believed that while the music
publishing business is passing through a serious
period he thought that things would right them-
selves, and the music-loving public would come
back to a state of normalcy, and the publishers
into their own again.
Clifford V. Buttelman outlined the plans for
next Summer's New England school music fes-
tival, for which he asked a stronger co-opera-
tion from the music publishers.
The association passed resolutions on the
death of Michael Morrisey, the head waiter who
had catered to the wants of the members at
every dinner held at the Parker House. Similar
resolutions also were passed on the death of
William G. Votteler of Cleveland; and on the
death of the wife of Grant Ege of Kansas
City, Mo.
«2@3SS
Lou Forman Celebrates
Double Anniversary
Lou Forman has simultaneously celebrated
his tenth anniversary with the Keith circuit,
and his first anniversary as orchestral conductor
at the Palace Theatre, New York. Prior to
his initial appearance at the Palace. Mr. For-
man conducted the orchestra at Keith's Eighty-
first Street Theatre. He also "opened" such of
the new Keith houses as the Flatbush, the
Hamilton and the Jefferson. Six years ago he
conducted the orchestra for the late Raymond
Hitchcock in "Hitchv-Koo."
JNDER.
Leo Diston Now
With Mills Music
Leo Diston, formerly with Witmark, has
joined Mills Music, Inc., in the capacity of
special service • manager.
He will continue
keeping in close contact with out-of-town bands,
orchestras and singers and local dealers.
Here's a Window Display With Life in It
\/lUB& BLOOMS DESCRIPTIVE MASTERPIECE./
SONGofthcBAYOl
LEO. FEISTINC
2.31 w. 4O th ST.
l!ti.T.*ew YORK ClTY^ il/f if!
Here is an effective "Rio Rita" window designed by Miss Mead, music buyer of the Kresge Boston
store. The figure in the window is real, being one of the girls in the store in a Rio Rita costume