Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
28
Musical Merchandise Section of The Music Trade Review
Awards Made in Great Harmonica
Essay Contest of M. Hohner, Inc.
/ ^ L O S E to 30,000 buys and girls representing
^ ^ practically every State in the Union, as well
as Canada, Hawaii and the Philippines, consid-
ered themselves sufficiently familiar with, and
enthusiastic about, the harmonica to enter in
the contest announced by M. Hohner, Inc., last
Kail for the best essays on "My Experience
With the Harmonica." The contest came to a
dose on January 15 of this year, and it re-
quired several weeks of intensive work to go
over all the entries so that the notable list of
judges could make their awards.
Tlie contest was confined to boys and girls
under eighteen years of age and the winner of
the first prize was Frederick Wolter, a thirteen-
year-old boy of Ohiowa, Neb., he receiving the
grand prize of $200 in cash. The second prize,
$150 in cash, went to William Magowan, four-
teen years old, of the Widener Memorial
The title of the essay was "My Experience
with the Harmonica," and the entrants were in
most cases enthusiastic regarding the matter in
which that instrument had not only brightened
their leisure hours but had led to other accom-
plishments in the field of music. The entrance
bank provided by the company brought forth
;i wealth of information as to the various in-
struments played by the children entering the
contest, the church and school attended, the
teacher and pastor's name, the name and ad-
dress of the local dealer and other pertinent
facts. It was significant that approximately
35 per cent of those who participated in the
contest were girls.
The essay submitted by the winner of the
second prize, William Magowan, is reproduced
for the reason that the boy is a cripple and
his story concerns the manner in which the
Prize Winners in Hohner Harmonica Essay Contest
1
Frederick J. Wolter, first prize; 2—-William Magowan
School, Philadelphia; third prize, $100 in cash,
lo Lee Hoppes, Long Island, Kans.; fourth
prize, $100 saxophone, to Dorothy J. Caldwell,
Los Angeles, Cal., and fifth prize, a Hohner
Piano-key accordion, valued at $90, to Elsie
Epstein of the Widener Memorial School,
Philadelphia. A strong touch of human inter-
est was added to the contest through the fact
that the winners of the second and fifth prizes
are both in the Widener Memorial School for
crippled children in Philadelphia and both are
suffering from some deformity.
The final judges of the contest were: Lieu-
tenant-Commander John Philip Sousa, famous
bandmaster; Peter W. Dykema, Professor of
Music Education of Columbia University, New
York; Nat Shilkret, conductor of the Victor
Salon Orchestra and well known to all radio
listeners; C. M. Tremaine, of the National
Bureau for the Advancement of Music, and
Major Arthur W. Procter, secretary of the Boy
Scout Foundation of Greater New York.
These judges met at the Hotel New Yorker
shortly after the close of the contest and spent
many earnest hours considering the various
essays. There was nothing haphazard about it,
each judge giving careful attention to each
essay and marking it according to a prescribed
standard. Certainly the boy who won the first
prize had the satisfaction of knowing that these
noted men were as a unit in acknowledging the
superiority of his effort.
In addition to the awards made to the win-
ners of the five principal prizes, those who
were awarded the sixth to the fourteenth prizes
had their choice of a violin, cornet or banjo
valued at $50, and the prizes for those ranking
from fifteenth to twentieth were ukuleles valued
at $20. The original plan called for the presen-
tation of Marine Band harmonicas to the next
five hundred in the list, but the response was
so enthusiastic that M. Hohner, Inc., decided
to send a Marine Band harmonica to each one
who submitted an essay.
3 — I.e-e Hoppes; 4—Dorothy J. Caldwell; 5—Elsie Epstein
h a r m o n i c a h a s served to make life a little-
b r i g h t e r for t h o s e w h o are handicapped physi-
cally.
H e writes;
My Experience With the Harmonica
I am a crippled boy, age fourteen, have been in th«
Widener Memorial School for Crippled Children for eight
years. I am only in the sixth grade, due to the necessity
of remaining away from my classes for six different
operations which have held me back in all my work
but not the harmonica. You can play that whether you
are in bed or up and around.
The harmonica has helped me in many ways. In my
conduct by keeping me busy learning and now leach-
ing. It has taught me to love music. It interested me
in other instruments. Music has become my best branch
and 1 owe it mostly to the harmonica. It helps me in
my brass band work—in time, tone and harmony, be-
cause when we practice on the harmonica these have lo
be correct. We do not give up a piece until it is correct.
The harmonica keeps me interested in all kinds of
music and iii hearing how the different parts blend.
1 listen to music every chance I get. Our harmonica
band is only three years old. In that time I have
played a baritone horn and a trombone. 1 am in the
regular school band.
1 like the harmonica because it is teaching me to
teach someone else, because it is such good company, it
gives much pleasure and keeps me happy.
1 am teaching the beginners. 1 have a class of ten.
1 have two other boys who are ready for the advanced
I'.an.l.
Until we started a harmonica band here we did not
go out. Our first outing' was to play at the 1927 J'hila-
delphia Harmonica Contest where, after eleven lessons,
we. won third prize. Since then we have won first prize
two years in succession. I am not bragging, but 1 do
want you to know what the harmonica has meant to me
and to our school.
We go out to play for entertainments and in
churches. It means much to get out among people and
to learn to meet them. 1 want everyone to love the
harmonica as 1 do. Our bandmaster thinks that the
harmonica movement is a very good thing- and he claims
that since we go out to play it has done much to make
the boys practice.
Eight boys have taken up brass intruments since learn-
ing the harmonica.
Several are taking piano lessons,
several starting on brass instruments.
We are now learning Sousa's famous Washington Post
March. Gee, it's great and we like it very much.
I play four different harmonicas in our band and use
three different ones in Sousa's march.
FIRST PRIZE
M Y EXPERIENCE W I T H THE HARMONICA
BY FRED'K J.
WOLTER, 13 YEARS OLD
"My experience with the harmonica started
several years ago, when I bought a harmonica
from a neighbor boy for three cents. He had
gotten it in a box of candy kisses. Before
night I had learned the 'Pig in the Parlor.'
"My sister considered me a nuisance because
1 always carried my harmonica with me, and
was always playing it. But I have earned
many a nickel and many a candy bar for play-
ing my harmonica.
"For some time I had desired to broadcast
over the radio. A chum of mine and I got
together and, after considerable practice, wrote
to a radio station for permission to broadcast,
and on March 5, 1926, made our first appear-
ance over the radio.
"Soon after my first experience over the
radio, I was taken to a hospital in Lincoln,
Nebraska, for an appendicitis operation. Four
days after my operation I was playing my har-
monica. I entertained myself and many of the
patients by playing the harmonica, and many
a doctor and nurse strayed in to listen to my
music. The harmonica certainly made the days
shorter for me while I was in the hospital.
"When I was on vacation trips with my
parents my harmonica was my pal. While in
the Black Hills of South Dakota I had a lot
of fun playing for a group of Boy Scouts.
"I have played at several community pro-
grams, receptions and lodge gatherings. I have
w n e with my father, who is a postmaster, to
Postmasters' Conventions.
"I have played in several contests and won
two firsts in radio contests, a first and a sec-
ond in district music contest.
"I'm a member of the Sonnen National Har-
monica Club.
"I think the harmonica deserves the name,
'That Musical Pal of Mine.' It has furnished
enjoyment to myself as well as education. I
think it has helped me in my school music by
perfecting my ear for music."
Boyer Wants Band Law
For New York State
James F. Boyer, secretary of C. G. Conn,
Ltd., in charge of public relations, is at present
in Washington, after having spent some days jn
New York City, for the purpose of promoting
the formation of a State Band Masters' Asso-
ciation. This Association would function in co-
operation with organizations in the State such
as musical clubs, Boy Scouts, Farm Bureau
groups, etc., for the purpose of bringing about
a State Band Tax to provide municipal bands
for communities of 500 population and up.
The plan would provide for free concerts by
at least one band in the smallest communities,
and probably several bands in the larger cities,
and provide an incentive for school children to
take up the study of band instruments. Ac-
cording to Mr. Boyer there are twenty-six
States in which such legislation is in effect at
present, and he feels that a State Band Masters'
Association in New York would do some splen-
did work for the cause.
New Jew-Harp Show Card
Buegeleisen & Jacobson, New York, are fur-
nishing free to dealers a jew-harp show card
which displays various styles in their actual
sizes, retailing from fifteen cents each to $1.25.
Many dealers have already tried out this show
card and found it very satisfactory.
These
cards can be used for window and counter dis-
play.