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MUSICAL MERCHANDISE
MUSICIAN-INVENTOR OF TENNESSEE
PERFECTS VIOLIN BOW WITH FIBRE STRINGS
ANDERSON-SOWARD C O .
ORGANIZED OVER* 100 BANDS
In an article in the September REVIEW
referring to the activities of the Anderson-
HE development of the violin from rude suit of these experiments, he believes, is Soward Co. of Dayton, Ohio, in the or-
beginnings to its present perfection may something new under the musical sun.
ganization of amateur bands, it was stated
According to Mr. Kratochwill, the new that the company had organized 19 bands in
be traced by very regular steps to final
refinement of detail under the skill of the bow strings have all the advantages of
the last fourteen years. As a matter of fact,
horsehair without the disadvantages of the that number of bands was organized last
Amati, the Guarneri, the Stradivari and
natural fibre. He makes the following com- year alone and during the fourteen years
other renowned makers of Cremona and
Brescia, culminating in the work of An- ments: "Horsehair quickly becomes brittle over 100 bands have been formed.
tonio Stradivari in the 17th century. The and will then break easily. This is not true
In view of the success of the Anderson-
violin bow of the present day is the inven- of the synthetic fibre. The minute pro- Soward Co. in this work it b only fair that
tion of the Frenchman, Tourte, about 1780. tuberances on horsehair necessitate constant they should receive full credit.
Only the place and the time of the first ap- application of resin. This shortens the life
Because of the smoother
plication of the bow to the stringed instru- of the strings.
surface of the synthetic fibre it is necessary
ment is still unknown.
C. D. GREENLEAF SEES
to resin the new bow only occasionally. The
The violin itself has remained unaltered
man-made fibre is said by number of musi- SOME TRADE IMPROVEMENT
for several centuries. So also has the bow. cians who have tried the bow to give a
C. D. Greenleaf, president of C. G.
However, a recent announcement of patents sweeter tone.
Conn., Ltd., Elkhart, Ind., reports that the
issued on a violin bow strung with man-
business of his company has shown some
made fibre instead of horsehair has set
improvement with the coming of Fall,
musicians to wondering whether it will con- MILTON G. WOLF MARKS
although it is a bit too early to say how
tinue to remain unaltered.
complete the recovery will be. Although
The new bow hair is made of Bemberg, THIRD ANNIVERSARY
business for the first nine months was con-
The Vega Co., of Boston, had a sort of a
a multi-filament synthetic fibre made of the
cellulose of cotton linters by a cupram- field day, which resulted in extensive ad- siderably below last year, August showed
monium stretch spinning process. The man vertising and good-will for its line of gui- an increase over 1930, as did September.
tars, banjos, trumpets, etc., in Chicago on
There appears to be a much better feel-
who conceived the idea of stringing violin
September 24. This was due to the energy
ing among dealers, particularly in the East,
bows with Bemberg instead of horsehair, and
and popularity of their capable agent here, which apparently felt the spirit of depres-
who patiently perfected the processing of
the fibre necessary to this use, is R. A. Milton G. Wolf, who kept open house to sion before the West and is likewise be-
Kratochwill, musician-inventor of Greene- celebrate the third anniversary of his start- ginning to work out of it first.
ing the Milton G. Wolf Music Shop in
ville, Tenn.
"Providing general business conditions
improve, OT at least do not become any
Mr. Kratochwill is highly enthusiastic Kimball Hall.
worse," said Mr. Greenleaf, "we anticipate
Joe Termini, radio performer on national
about the new bow, and believes it has far-
reaching possibilities in the world of music. hook-ups, who uses Vega instruments ex- a fairly satisfactory business from now un-
clusively and played in Chicago that week, til January 1. We believe retailers' stocks
He used Bemberg fibre, he says, because it
was the guest of honor and the Wolf Shop are at a minimum and any substantial
combines extraordinary fineness with very
was visited by hundreds of teachers, per- buying must be reflected in increased activ-
high tensile strength. Patient experiment
ity at the source of supply."
formers and students.
over a period of years preceded perfection
of his invention. Now, having "proven" the
new bow to his own satisfaction, he is eager-
ly waiting its reception by his fellow musi-
cians.
The fibre in either single or two to three-
ply ISO denier 5 turn strands is used in the
form in which it emerges from the spinner-
Your continued success as a retailer depends on your retaining the
ette, twisted and treated with a solution to
give it the abrasive resistance and durability
confidence of your customers, and this depends entirely on the
essential to bow strings.
kind of instruments you sell them.
,
The idea occurred to him, Mr. Kratochwill
says, as a result of his study of Chinese
Insure yourself against loss of confidence and good-will by offering
music. According to the Chinese, he ex-
plains, he found recognition of eight dif-
them instruments so built as to guarantee more than ordinary
ferent natural musical sounds—the sound
satisfaction. Sell instruments that will make each purchaser an
of skin, stone, metal, baked earth, silk, wood,
enthusiastic booster for your store and more sales.
bamboo and gourd.
Seven Chinese instru-
ments he discovered to be entirely strung
with silk, because in these instruments the
Sell them the line that discriminating and particular professional
sound of silk attained greatest perfection.
players all over the world proclaim to be the world's finest.
He found also that one, Wu Fong, in 1675,
had used silk instead of horsehair to string
Sell them MARTIN "HANDCRAFT."
a bow, but that he had abandoned the ex-
periment "for many reasons," including the
high cost of silk.
With the introduction of Bemberg in this
country in 1927, Mr. Kratochwill decided
Elkhart, Indiana
the time had come to do a little experiment-
ing along the lines of Wu Fong. The re-
T
Confidence
Martin Band Instrument Company
36
THE
MUSIC
TRADE
REVIEW,
O c t o b e r , 1931