December 18, 1920.
PRESTO
range of personal interests. Therefore, his friends are too largely
confined to the circle of his own trade to permit of a very broad
ranged intellectual vision. If he can not talk shop, he is looked upon
in mixed company as an eccentric.
It is a rut to sell too cheap. One should love the instrument he
is selling—love it enough to get a fair price for it. It pays to be
pleasant; it is a rut to grouch and growl at anybody. Life is short
at the longest, and to be known as a grump is to have a lot of people
thankful when one is dead. The evil that men do lives after them—a
few days anyway. So the man who is radiating sourness is certainly
in a bad mire and needs a hitch by an optimist's automobile, before
he sinks out of sight in the slough of despond.
Mistrusting the abilities and purposes of others is a bad rut.
The more piano dealers in one's town, and in one's own neighbor-
hood, the merrier. If a fellow is half the salesman he thinks he is,
he'll sell all the more pianos because others have seemingly settled
too close to him in his line. Most moss-back towns owe their frowsy
condition to one or two early settlers who have constantly discour-
aged strangers from starting up there. The fear of competition is
another rut, and the notion that the other fellow, who also wants to
close sales now and then, is an enemy is the deepest kind of a rut.
It is a fine thing to get out of all the ruts that make the piano
business—all lines, in fact—a hard road to travel. The man in the
ruts can not get along very fast or very far. He is of the ancient
order of mephistics and, no matter how youthful in years, he is an
antediluvian whose whiskers are ingrown but just as long. The
piano, being an instrument of music, suggests cheerful good humor
and joyous jollity. It mirrors no long faces unless the dealer happens
to be looking into its shining sides from a few ruts. Don't do it!
Get out of the .ruts before the New Year dawns, and be ready to do
business along the glad ways of success and prosperity.
V In his very creditable Christmas number, Mr. John C. Freund
makes an entertaining incursion into the past. But, as is often the
case, he again illustrates the "inhumanity to man"—dead men this
time—in his reference to certain old-time associates. For instance
Mr. Freund refers to "a big, burly fellow who had been a brakeman
at one time and then became a piano salesman. His name was Frank
H. King. He was a character." But the trade paper editor forgot to
say that Mr. King was also his own partner in an abortive attempt
to establish a couple of trade papers following Mr. Freund's famous
trip to Mexico. And the Good Samaritan appeared. As a matter of
fact, Mr. King was a very able gentleman, who had been engaged in
matters musical for years before he went to New York. He had also
been a band instructor in Indianapolis, as well as editor of a musical
magazine.
* * *
Farmer trade for cash is hard to secure just now, according to a
letter received late last week by a prominent Chicago piano manu-
facturing concern. This dealer said that farmers in his section of
Central Kansas had "blood in thei r eyes" at present when approached
on a cash basis for the purchase price of a piano or playerpiano.
APOLLO'S PART IN
FINE CONCERT PROGRAM
At Affair in De Kalb, 111., in Aid of Boy
Scouts, the Famous Local Product Con-
tributes to Success.
Pride in the Apollo and Apollophone, pleasure at
a choice program of music and singing and en-
thusiasm for the Boy Scouts' cause evoked emotions
in De Kalb, 111., last week at the concert for the
benefit of the boys' popular organization. Every
seat in the armory was filled by 8:15 when the pro-
gram opened with an overture by De Kalb musi-
cians.
The important part of the Apollo in the prog-ram
is an evidence of the promoters' confidence in the
fine playerpiano made by the Apollo Piano Com-
pany, whose big plant is a source of pride to the
lively Illinois city.
In Number 5, "The Mysterious Lady," a musical
novelty act from vaudeville, Fred Berrens, violinist,
introduced the Art-Apollo.
Number 6, a selection played by Chas. E.
Howe showed the expression possibilities of the
regular foot-power Apollo. A piano solo by Marion
Wright showed the tone qualities of the Apollo.
Tosti's "Good-bye," sung by Caruso, for reproduc-
tion in a record, was reproduced by the Apollo-
phone with an accompaniment recorded by Lee S.
Roberts.
Farmers, he said, feel that they are getting the worst of it in present
prices for wheat. They say their wheat cost them $1.75 to $1.85 a
bushel to produce it as far as the bins, and in the bins 80 per cent of
it is stored today waiting for the market to rise. The local banks are
not pushing the farmers, so the latter are not worrying. The only
way to sell a farmer a piano is for payment next fall—the autumn of
1921—on notes, the writer of the letter said. But, of course, he may
have been "stalling" just a little.
A New York trade editor reminds us that at the first piano manu-
facturers' convention, at Manhattan Beach, in 1897, "we newspaper
men were permitted to cool our heels on the verandah." True enough.
But a little later the trade editors were permitted to raise the tem-
perature of the convention by a series of wild-man talks in which
representatives of all of the seven publications of the period dis-
gorged their views with great indifference to the appetites of the
manufacturers. It was anything but a "closed meeting" once it got
going.
* * *
Exaggerating salesmen beware! A machine is being invented
which will tell whether or not one is lying. Prof. H. E. Burtt, in-
structor in the psychology department of the Ohio State University,
Columbus, is perfecting the apparatus registering his data to estab-
lish this possibility. Blood pressure and inhaling and exhaling are
registered. It is the theory that breathing and blood pressure are
more rapid when a salesman is lying than when he is telling the
truth.
* * *
The Methodist Church has put a ban upon dancing and the
Actors' Equity Association has issued a protest in which a statement
of the New York Independent is indorsed. The statement is that
"the Amusement Ban puts church members today in the dilemma of
a choice between common sense and conscience." The "bans" are
certainly crowding common sense pretty fast.
*
*
*
An American movie expert, now in London, predicts that a non-
inflammable film will be discovered in a year or two. And then
movies should be as common in homes as pianos and phonographs
now are, for there will be no danger of fires. This improvement will
be another proof that revolutions in science do not destroy; they
extend.
* * *
One of the New York trade papers will next week admonish the
dealers to "make collections." And the advice will be good. It is
good advice at almost any time, and especially at the close of the old
year. Of course, make collections—and pay your debts with what
you collect.
* * *
What Mr. Alfred Dolge said to his employees more than twenty
years ago seems to apply almost perfectly to certain conditions in
the piano industry today. For this reason they are reproduced in a
Presto article this week.
In a piano duet, the primo by Miss Marion Wright
and secundo by the Art-Apollo, more wonderful pos-
sibilities of the instrument were shown. The final
number, a piano solo, (a) "Minuet Antique," com-
posed and played by Ignace Paderewski, was a re-
production of the great master's playing of this fa-
mous composition by the Reproducing Apollo Piano
showing the phrasing and the various shadings
of expression of the famous pianist.
(b) A
comparison demonstration by Charles E. Howe,
showing the human way in which the Reproducing
Apollo re-creates the hand playing of the artist.
"The Apollo makes the voice of Caruso, and the
magic music of Ignace Paderewsky as familiar to
the child of today as was 'High Diddle Diddle' to
his great-grandfather," said the De Kalb Index
with proper pride in a famous local product. "Ber-
rens showed that the Apollo could not only play but
could talk and carry on an entertaining dialogue,
and Mr. Howe demonstrated that not only the mas-
ter tone of the master musician should be brought
to the fireside, but the voice was well.
"We cannot feel that we have told the whole
story without referring to two men, neither famed
as musicians. They say corporations have no souls,
but heads of corporations such as are E. S. Rau-
worth, president of the Apollo Piano Company and
E. H. Abbott of the Vassar Swiss factory must be
exceptions.
"Without the co-operation of both the pleasures
of last evening could not have been possible. The
smiles on their faces during the evening were only
eclipsed by the smiles of the scoutmasters."
NEW MANAGER FOR BUSY
ELKHART, IND., MUSIC HOUSE
James Osgood Smith to Direct Activities of the
Boyer Music Company.
James Osgood Smith, who was born in Elkhart,
Ind., and resided there until fifteen years ago, re-
turned from the East to become manager of the
Boyer Music Co. Mr. Smith was formerly musical
director of a number of musical comedy and dra-
matic attractions on the road.
James E. Boyer, head of the Boyer Music Co.,
and Mr. Smith have been close personal friends
since the former's boyhood, and Mr. Smith's earlier
musical activities were largely a result of Mr.
Boyer's influence.
Because Mr. Boyer's duties as secretary of C.
G. Conn, Ltd., require practically his entire time,
and the demand on his outside hours by the various
civic and musical organizations with which he is
affiliated continue heavy, he has wished to be re-
lieved of as many of the details of the management
of the Boyer Music House as possible.
In announcing 1 Mr. Smith's connection with the
company today, Mr. Boyer stated the company had
experienced such uniformly good business since
occupying its new store at 417 Main street, that
further expansion of facilities was necessary, and
would soon be made. Other lines of musical ac-
tivity are shortly to be launched by the company.
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