Classic Mode

Presto

Issue: 1920 1789

PRESTO
PRESTO
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY AT 407 SOUTH DEAR-
BORN STREET, OLD COLONY BUILDING, CHICAGO, ILL.
Editors
C A. DANIELL and FRANK D. ABBOTT
Telephones, Local and Long Distance, Harrison 234. Private Phones to all De-
partments. Cable Address (Commercial Cable Co.'s Code), "PRESTO," Chicago.
Entered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, at the Post Office, Chicago, Illinois,
under Act of March 3, 1879.
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icharge in U. S. possessions, Canada, Cuba and Mexico.
i Address all communications for the editorial or business departments to PRESTO
PUBLISHING CO., 407 So. Dearborn Street, Chicago, III.
i
Advertising Rates:—Five dollars per inch (13 ems pica) for single insertions.
Complete schedule of rates for standing cards and special displays will be furnished
on request. The Presto does not sell Its editorial space. Payment is not accepted for
articles of descriptive character or other matter appearing In the news columns. Busi-
ness notices will be Indicated by the word "advertisement" In accordance with the
Act of August 24, 1912.
Rates for advertising in Presto Year Book Issue and Export Supplements of
Presto will be made known upon application. Presto Year Book and Export issues
have the most extensive circulation of any periodicals devoted to the musical in-
strument 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.
Presto Buyers' Guide is the only reliable index to the American Pianos and
Player-Pianos, it analyzes all instruments, classifies them, gives accurate estimates
of their value and contains a directory of their manufacturers.
Items of news and other matter of general interest to the music trades are in-
vited and when accepted will be paid for. All communications should be addressed to
Presto Publishing Co., 407 So. Dearborn Street, Chicago, III.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 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.
PAUL B. KLUGH'S LETTER
It has been a long time since anything as meaty, in both fact a*nd
suggestion for the piano trade, has appeared as the letter by Mr.
Paul B. Klugh which appears in this issue of Presto. The letter was
not sent in for publication and we are not quite sure that we are in
line with Mr. Klugh's desire in giving place to it. But what Mr.
Klugh says so perfectly coincides with the views in part expressed in
these columns that there is in it a sense also of satisfaction of almost
personal nature.
There has been a feeling among some prominent piano manu-
facturers that the better plan for the retailer in his store is to give em-
phasis to the fact that prices are not only not going to drop soon, but
that they are liable to make another leap upwards. We have had
the idea that it is better for the salesman to side-step that part of the
argument and stick more closely to the merits of his instruments and
the necessity of every intelligent household having one of them. The
constant talk about high prices of things has a tendency to curb the
ambitions of the very class of people who can afford pianos and should
have them. They are the kind who dread the thought of extrava-
gance and strive to control their laudable desires until they can be
sure that they are buying at the lowest possible prices. And that kind
are not the ones who seek to hammer prices down, but usually pay
whatever the merchant considers right and do it in the most approved
manner—iwth cash.
But still more to the point, it is a good thing to have the facts
concerning future piano prices so clearly stated as is permitted by
Mr. Klugh's facility of expression. He leaves little ground for argu-
ment and makes straight some of the most misunderstood features
of the price problem. There is no more convincing argument than
that of wages and why they can not, and often should not, come down.
Nor can there be any question about the advisability of the piano
dealer getting out after his prospects. As Mr. Klugh says, the "easy
November 6, 1920.
days" are past. The clamor for pianos has subsided, and something
like the pre-war activities of the dealers and their salesmen are again
required, or will be needed in the very near future. It is no longer a
matter of taking the orders and promising to deliver as soon as pos-
sible. It is again becoming a question of finding the customer and
convincing him that the pianos you represent are all that they should
be and more than your powers of description can picture them to be.
In all lines of trade salesmanship is again required. It is not
salesmanship to sit in the store and listen to the appeals of customers
for the goods that can not be supplied. That condition has prevailed,
and it was an unfortunate condition no matter how much a few mer-
chants may have enjoyed it because of their happy possession of large
supplies. From this time forward it will call for salesmanship to sell
pianos, and the dealers who study what Mr. Klugh says this week, in
his letter to a Chicago merchant, may be greatly benefitted.
SMALL GRANDS
It is suggestive that the call for small grands is the feature of
the trade. In response to the demand, and of course also one of its
stimulating influences, is the fact that the number of exclusive small
grand industries has grown steadily of late. In New York City the
Bramhach Piano Co. has made an exclusive specialty of the dainty lit-
tle instruments for several years; the Lindeman factory made good
headway along the same line, and the newer Premier Grand is win-
ning fine progress in the same field. We also know that several very
strong ewstern industries are now preparing to speed up their small
grand departments.
The operating, a few years back, of an exclusively grand piano
industry would have been considered almost foolhardy. The grand
has been considered the highest attainment in piano creation, and of
such costly character as to preclude its popular sale. Most of us can
remember when it was not carried in stock by any but the largest
piano houses and never shown for sale except to professionals and
multi-millionaires. Today the small grand is in greater demand in
some communities than the upright. In the Far West there has been
developed a call for grands which has challenged the factory capacity,
and in all of the big city stores, East and West, the display is usually
as large as it can be made.
When the square piano was still with us—after the late Joseph
P. Hale had "arrived"—it had become so cheapened that many dis-
criminating music lovers, with the means to gratify their tastes, re-
fused to consider the "square grands." That was the beginning of
the effort to erect grands of lesser dimensions than those upon which
Gottschalk and Thalberg had performed. The parlor grands appeared
and met with a good sale. Then the upright began to run its way
and finally crowded the square off the stage entirely.
Today the "straight" upright has to a large extent, given way
to the player-piano, and the growing popularity of the player and
small grand promises to kill the so-called "middle-grand" upright en-
tirely. People who still prefer the piano, as a means of their indi-
vidual interpretation of good music, will buy the little grands, and
those who want music without the labor and study necessary to its
manual performance will have the player-piano.
And so we have come to another era in the piano industry. It is
again a fork in the road, with the small grand pointing the way. It
illustrates the fact that the player-piano, with all its fascination and
its marvelous powers of interpretation, does not fully satisfy the
highest demands of the ambitious world of music. The small grand,
as it is now produced, fills a want that has not been fully expressed.
It has come, not as a compromise, but as something distinct and per-
fect in its response to the needs of the large class of musical people
who want to express themselves independently and freely. They
have found satisfaction to a degree in the upright but the player-piano
has not fully appealed to them. And they find what they most want
is the small grand because, in addition to its admirable characteristics,
it comes within reach of their financial possibilities or even con-
venience.
It is said that some of the great American piano industries are
devoting the larger share of their ample facilities to the grands. This
applies, we are told, to Steinway & Sons, William Knabe & Co., Mason
& Hamlin, and others in the East, while in the West the same con-
dition exists with the Acoustigrande, Starck, Chase Brothers and
more. In Cincinnati the Morrison-Waters Piano Co. is making only
grands. The condition is one that has been greatly encouraged, too,
by the necessarily increased prices of pianos by which the better
grades of uprights have been brought within hailing distance of the
Enhanced content © 2008-2009 and presented by MBSI - The Musical Box Society International (www.mbsi.org) and the International Arcade Museum (www.arcade-museum.com).
All Rights Reserved. Digitized from the archives of the MBSI with support from NAMM - The International Music Products Association (www.namm.org).
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PffcESTO
November 6, 1920.
small grands. Within a year the small grand will be the instrument
upon which a very large proportion of piano salesmen will be de-
voting their energies and their powers of persuasion.
CAUSES OF FAILURE
Piano salesmen who feel that they have not made a success of it
may find the secret of their failure in the psychological research of a
Pittsburgh scientist who resorts to lecturing. If you happen to be a
fair-haired boy in the South, or if you are a dark-haired youth, of
whatever age in the North, your trouble is that you are in the wrong
climate. You have been struggling against the mysterious but potent
powers of the occult. You have failed to synchronize with your sur-
roundings, and your vibratory ego has been disturbing the wrong
aura. These hypotheses may not at first be as clear as a complete
eclipse, but they represent the very latest theories of. an expert in
cause and effect as pertaining to human effort in applied piano sales-
manship. Therefore they are worth-while shadows of suggestion
for trade paper discussion.
It seems that, according to the psychologist, the South is not a
good section for a light-haired, freckled-faced salesman. There is
something in the balmy breezes of the temperate zones that miti-
gates against blonde success in salesmanship. The piano man in the
South may say that the case is triple-veneered, the action so fine that
nymphs and dryads like to employ it to express their joys, the tone
more entrancing than any siren's voice, and the price further inside
the line of reason than anything else on the bargain counter. Still
the prospect will hold back and express a desire to "look around."
And the dark-haired salesman in the North may have the identical
and very depressing experience. What then is the answer.
Of course, the Pittsburgh psychologist being right—and pos-
sibly he may be—it must follow that the dark-haired salesman in the
South is a great success. He captures all the prospects that the light-
haired chap permits to escape. And in the North the light-haired
hypnotist takes in all the installment paper while the dark-haired un-
fortunate wonders why and throws up his job. That being all true,
there is little use for correspondence schools designed to qualify both
dark and light-haired youths for first-class piano salesmen in either
the North or the South. The only way, and this important part of
it the psychologist forgot to dwell upon, is for the two prospect
chasers to change places. The blonde should get up North and the
dark chap should immigrate to the South. This seems the most plaus-
ible solution, though it may not be infallible.
Every now and then the syndicated doctors of the daily news-
papers are called upon by anxious readers to tell why dark circles
appear in the faces of their inquirers. And, almost without exception,
the literary M. D/s answer that the quickest cure is by application
of warm water and soap, not too gently applied, to the affected parts.
It is barely possible that some such recipe might work out well in the
case of the Pittsburgh psychologist's patients. And it certainly is true
that if the dark piano salesman has neglected the personal precau-
tions which are, of all things, essential to the piano trade, he can not
hope to succeed either North or South.
THE CHICKERING AMPICO IN
SAN FRANCISCO CONCERT
Instrument and Soloist Furnished by Byron Mauzy
for Cadets' Annual Affair.
The Chickering Ampico Grand played a prominent
part in the program of the Annual Competitive Drill
and Concert of the First Regiment of the League
of the Cross Cadets given at the Civic Auditorium,
San Francisco, Saturday evening, October 23.
Miss Nona Campbell, soprano, sang two solos ac-
companied by the Ampico. Miss Campbell is a
young soprano of remarkable ability with a well
trained, round, refined and powerful voice neces-
sary to fill the Auditorium.
The Chickering Ampico Grand was also used to
accompany the Feist Trio in two of their popular
songs; the novelty of the performance, in addition
to the performance of the Ampico, pleased the au-
dience of two thousand. The event is the most im-
portant and the most spectacular given by the
League of the Cross in San Francisco. The Ampico
and the soloist were furnished by Byron Mauzy.
Prominent mention was made of this fact on the
program. The direct supervision of this act and the
arrangement of the same was in the hands of Luigi
Galliani, sales manager.
Byron Mauzy returned from a five weeks trip in
the East Monday, October 25. His itinerary included
But this doesn't in any degree solve the problem of the blonde-
haired boy of the South and his lack of success. So that, in view of
the failure of the hypothesis of the soap and water, nothing remains
but the exchange of climate. Or, better still, there remains the
admonition to dig in and win, no matter what the color of the hair
or even if there isn't any hair to speak of. It isn't a question of
latitude or longitude, nor is there any secret in salesmanship that can
be so well revealed by the psychologist as by the everyday teacher
of common sense who knows that success is a matter of hard work
and the genius of everlastingly keeping at it.
Last Saturday's New York Evening Post put forth a Music Number
in which the activities of the National Bureau for the Advancement of
Music are plainly seen. Mr. C. M. Tremaine is doing fine work in the
furtherance of good music and the big newspapers seem to be ready to
help him. The best article in the Evening Post's Music Number is
"America's Musical Awakening," by Mr. Tremaine, with which there is
a good portrait of the gentleman.
* * *
The advertising influence of one great house is seen in the publicity
department of the Kohler & Campbell Industries. Since the two-color
spreads of the great New York industry began several other big concerns
have fallen into the same line of printer's ink enterprise. And the effect
upon the entire piano trade is that of wholesome stimulation. All that any
great movement needs is a starter, and it will go irrepressibly.
* * *
One trouble with the discussion of prices, and some other things, is
that the arguments that fit the large cities do not apply equally to condi-
tions with dealers in small places. The intelligence and fair-mindedness
of the individual is the best guide to what it is proper to do in the piano
business. No rules of any "vigilance committee" can help either the public
or the dealer very much.
* * *
A prominent eastern piano man writes: "I was greatly surprised and
saddened by the news of the death of Fred Chickering. The last time I
saw him he was the picture of health. It must have been a terrible blow
to his brother, Mr. Clifford Chickering." It certainly was and widely re-
gretted by all who knew the stalwart and ambitious piano manufacturer.
* * *
Some say prices will and others say they won't. It is up to the
piano merchant to sell at a fair profit and to regulate those profits by the
cost of his instruments, which must be largely governed by their
quality. And then he may as well forget the high cost of things when he
finds opportunity of making sales.
There should be no association of profits and fraud in any respecta-
ble business. Few piano dealers realize excessive profits and the number
of multi-millionaires is not sufficiently large to suggest over-charge in the
sale of the most economical means to home happiness the world over.
* * *
Look over your unsold "prospects" of the last two or three holiday
seasons, and get after all of them right away. Some of them are sure
to be ready and only require a few words to stimulate them to buy now.
Chicago, Rochester, Boston, New York, Philadelphia,
Washington, Indianapolis, Los Angeles. The ac-
tive San Francisco dealer gathered much informa-
tion concerning the piano business in general
throughout the East, the possibility of obtaining
supplies in both pianos and talking machines, as
well as the various benefits of piano merchandising
and piano advertising that are now being used
throughout the country and which are so radically
different from the old school of piano publicity. A
dinner meeting was held on Thursday evening of
last week at which Mr. Mauzy gave the entire sales
force some of the benefits of his trip around the
country.
OUT-OF-TOWN DEALERS
ENCOUNTERED IN CHICAGO
Men in Search of Pianos and Players Make Things
Lively in Offices.
The Q R S player music rolls are presented by
the Wolfe Music Co., 641 Prospect avenue, Cleve-
land, O.. as the "opportunity" for the playerpiano
owner. More playerpiano sales follow the increase
in the output of Q R S rolls is the satisfactory con-
dition noticed by the Cleveland dealers. The Q R S
product is ably and consistenly advertised by the
firm and the result is made evident in bigger pur-
chases of the rolls as well as in greater interest in
the playerpiano.
J. K. Haraldson of Rembrandt, Iowa, was in Chi-
cago on Monday of this week. Mr. Haraldson sells
Story & Clark and other makes of pianos.
D. D. Luxton, of the Vose Piano Company, was
in Chicago on Monday of this week making a western
trip. Mr. Luxton brought a cheerful report of good
prospects for business all along the line.
R. S. Blatt, piano merchant of Columbus, Ohio,
was in Chicago on Monday of this week choosing 1
pianos of the lines handled by his house. He said
he was looking forward to an exceptionally good pre-
Christmas season's sales.
F. L. Suffern, formerly of Decatur, 111., now of
Waterloo, Iowa, was in Chicago this week buying
pianos and playerpianos. Mr. Suffern is now pro-
prietor of two stores—one at Decatur and the other
at Waterloo. He has just purchased the Syndicate
Building at Waterloo, a five-story brick structure,
and in it he displays a large stock of instruments.
The music department of Barker Bros., Los An-
geles, Cal., held its annual outing at Devil's Gate
Dam recently. About fifty people participated. J.
W. Boothe is manager.
George K. Dowd has been made manager of the
Knabe Warerooms, Inc., Washington, D. C. He
had been manager of the Baltimore warerooms of
the company for the past three years.
ROLLS AND PLAYER SALES.
Enhanced content © 2008-2009 and presented by MBSI - The Musical Box Society International (www.mbsi.org) and the International Arcade Museum (www.arcade-museum.com).
All Rights Reserved. Digitized from the archives of the MBSI with support from NAMM - The International Music Products Association (www.namm.org).
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