Presto

PRESTO
PRESTO
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY AT 407 SOUTH DEAR-
BORN STREET, OLD COLONY BUILDING, CHICAGO, ILL.
Q. A. DANIELL anri FRANK D. ABBOTT
Editors
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Private Phones to all Departments. Cable Address (Commercial Cable Co.'s Code),
"PRESTO," Chicago.
Kntered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, at the Post Office, Chicago. Illinois.
%
under Act of March 3, 1879.
Subscription, $2 a year; 6 months, $1; Foreign, $4. Payable In advance. j No «xtta
•uarge in U. 3. Dossevsions, Canada, Cuba and Mexico. '
Address all communications for the editorial or business departments to PRESTO
PUBLISHING CO., Chicago, III.
Advertising Rates t=»Thxee dollars per inch (13 ems pica) for single insertion*.
Bix dollars per inch per month, less twenty-five per cent on yearly contracts. Ths
Presto does not sell its editorial space. Payment is not accepted for articles of de-
scriptive character or other matter appearing In the news columns. Business notices
will be indicated by the word "advertisement" in accordance with the Act of August
84, 1912.
Rates for advertising in the Tear Book issue and Export Supplements of The
Presto will be made known upon application. The Presto Year Book and Export
Issues have the most extensive circulation of any periodicals devoted to the musical
Instrument trades and industries in all parts of the world, and reach completely and
effectually all the houses handling musical instruments of both the Eastern and West-
ern hemispheres.
The Presto Buyeis* Guide Is the only reliable index to the American Musical
Instruments; It analyzes all Pianos and Player-Pianes, gives accurate estimates m
their valtiea and contains a directory of their manufacturers.
£ Items of hews, photographs and other matter of general Interest to the must*
trades are invited and when accepted will be paid for. Address all communicatiou to
Presto Publishing Co., Chicago, III.
SATURDAY, MAY 22, 1920.
TO CORRESPONDENTS.
PRESTO IS ALWAYS GLAD TO RECEIVE NEWS OF THE
TRADE—ALL KINDS OF NEWS EXCEPT PERSONAL SLANDER
AND STORIES OF PETTY MISDEEDS BY INDIVIDUALS. PRESTO
WILL PRINT THE NAMES OF CORRESPONDENTS WHO SEND IN
"GOOD STUFF" OR ARE ON THE REGULAR STAFF. DON'T SEND
ANY PRETTY SKETCHES, LITERARY ARTICLES OR "PEN-PIC-
TURES." JUST PLAIN NEWS ABOUT THE TRADE—NOT ABOUT
CONCERTS OR AMATEUR MUSICAL ENTERTAINMENTS, BUT
ABOUT THE MEN WHO MAKE MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS AND
THOSE WHO SELL THEM. REPORTS OF NEW STORES AND
THE MEN WHO MAKE RECORDS AS SALESMEN ARE GOOD. OF-
TEN THE PIANO SALESMEN ARE THE BEST CORRESPONDENTS
BECAUSE THEY KNOW WHAT THEY LIKE TO READ AND HAVE
THE OPPORTUNITIES FOR FINDING OUT WHAT IS "DOING" IN
THE TRADE IN THEIR VICINITY. SEND IN THE N E W S -
ALL YOU CAN GET OF IT—ESPECIALLY ABOUT YOUR OWN
BUSINESS.
TIME IN DOLLARS
Here is something piano men have, perhaps, never thought of.
It is from the advance information sent out by the National Ad-
vertisers Clubs of the World, whose sixteenth annual convention will
take place at Indianapolis on June 6-10: "The value of the time of
delegates attending the convention has been estimated at $250 a
minute, and the speakers on the program intend to prepare their
addresses with this thought in mind."
Would it be worth while to make an estimate of the value of the
time of the piano men at their annual conventions—say the last one
in New York during the blizzard of February? And, following the
suggestion of the advertising men, what did the average speech of
the orators of the piano at the earlier conventions cost the members?
Can you recall the time when the speakers stood up and talked away
the merry hours without any regard to the value of time? Even the
eloquence of the trade editors was lavishly and extravagantly un-
leashed, as some may remember. But things are different now. The
piano men's conventions are better systematized than of old, and
what is said is more to the point. .
It is interesting, too, to note that the advertising men, who place
a value of $250 a minute upon their time, have arranged a program
in which no fewer than twenty-three set speeches are catalogued.
And at least one of them will be delivered by a woman. Her subject
is, "What Women Owe to the Home Influence of Advertising." Of
course it would be ungallant to suppose that the lady could say what
she has to say, on such a subject, in anything like ten minutes.
Allowing a modest twenty minutes, it is easy to compute the
value of the lady's speech, therefore, at about $5,000. And no doubt
it will be worth it. But what is the average piano man's talk worth,
predicated on the same basis? When a well-posted gentleman arises
to talk about the effect of music upon the newly-arrived immigrant,
or to tell of his appreciation of the warmth displayed in the invitation
May 22, 1920.
of the committee on entertainment, or to explain the way he has of
selling to the half-civilized natives of Podunk, or other inland villages,
how many minutes should he be permitted to expend, at the rate of
$250 a minute?
But possibly the value of time at the piano conventions is not
so large as that of the advertising men's meeting. We are inclined
to believe, however, that the reversal of the estimate would be correct.
The time of the piano man who can sell a carload of pianos in an
hour must represent more than that of the advertising man who sells
space in even the most costly story paper on earth. And the ad-
vertising man who can prepare a page of stunning copy in less than
a day can hardly be said to out-value in his time the net worth per
minute of a piano man who can sell players with both hands while
he gives orders for the delivery of a vanload of talking machines
without turning 'round.
In any event, the figures presented by the advertising men of
the world are instructive. They afford suggestions enough for the
piano men's associations. And by the time the next convention of
the music makers comes around we shall hope to see just as succinct
and confident a statement of the value of the piano man's minute in
speech-making as is now set forth by the publicity makers and
getters-up of space-filling fiction—or facts.
NEW THINGS
There are several new things under the sun. Instances are too
numerous to catalogue, so a few examples will suffice for a duet of
thoughts by the writer and the reader—or a discord if the reader will.
There are many new things besides new styles of playerpianos this
year, though there can be no denying that the playerpiano, in its
diversified possibilities, is making a wide mark in the list of new
things.
Last week's Presto gave particulars of the Apollophone activities.
The Apollophone is the instrument in which all of the powers of the
living pianist may be exercised upon the same instrument that may
of itself perform as skillfully as the artist himself. It may also repro-
duce in its phonograph chamber the singing of the best vocalist, and
it may play the accompaniment upon the piano while the voice repeats
the words and the melody of the song. Is that something new and
remarkable? If it were possible to put the question to your forebears,
say only fifty—yes, twenty—years ago, the answer would be an
incredulous denial of any such possibility.
Newness is the keynote of all things in this wonderful age. The
creative instincts of man have been stimulated by the events which
have shaken the world. The devices and designs of peace have
supplanted the sinister creative cunning of war, and the instruments
of music are playing their full share in the regeneration of the peoples
of the earth. In the homelier things, and in the freaks of life, there
are equally new things also.
There are new things in overalls. Witness an advertisement in
Newark, N. J., reading: "Overall suits in silver buckles, $42.50 to
$49.50." Then there is the candidacy of a negro for governor of a
state. The state is Arkansas, and the candidate is J. H. Blunt, who,
on April 29, paid the necessary fee to have his name placed on the
ballots as a Republican gubernatorial candidate. And there are new
things in the extravagances and the grotesque vanities of the world.
It is not uncommon to hear stories about uncouth-appearing people
who visit the great jewelry stores and buy diamonds scarcely less
valuable than that of the famed Kohinoor. The toilers are indulging
their ambitions to do as the rich have been doing, for they are them-
selves now comparatively rich. A cafe-keeper of "red light" proclivi-
ties was shot to death in his gaily bedecked caravansary last week.
It was discovered that he wore garters upon which were many-carat
diamonds, his gold-chain suspenders were decorated with large
sparklers and his raiment excelled the dreams of Solomon in all his
glory. It is the age of extravagance. And therein is a great problem
for the social and industrial economists.
It will be something new to have the greatest employing manu-
facturing company of a great city devoted to what? Making steel
rails? No—making musical instruments. The city is Baltimore, the
city that has been largely made famous by the Knabe pianos. The
Columbia Graphophone Company in its new plant now going up in
Orangeville—a part of Baltimore—intends to put 24,000 persons at
work.
It is something new out at Denver to read that potatoes have
been eliminated from the bills of fare at the hotels because they are
too expensive to be served. It is something new to have sugar sell at
31 cents a pound at wholesale, as it did in Chicago one day last week.
It is something new to find that old fogies are trying to get out
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