Presto

PRESTO
June 30, 1923
BUSINESS IN GRANDS OF
BURLINGTON, IA., FIRM
Part of Mark P. Campbell and Brambach
Piano in Achievements of Guest Piano
Co. Told in Newspapers.
THINGS SAID OR SUGGESTED
How do you play grand opera on your harmonica?
Not very well! Then let the next small boy you
meet try it out for you. He may be a professor of
the harmonica in the near days ahead. For the
humble little instrument that performs almost auto-
matically, but without pedals or action, is coming
into its own—or some better instrument's own! It
may have surprised you—and possibly also some of
the contemporary great pianists—to see a full-page
Hohner Harmonica advertisement in some of the
great daily newspapers. But time's charges are at
work. Hail the Harmonica!
* * *
The Music Industries Chamber of Commerce is
sending out ready-made copy to the newspapers.
Clippings from other sources are put into type and a
new convenience added to the.already too-easy work
of the editorial staff. The purpose, no doubt, is to
stimulate the love of music. If it helps to that end
the effort is well expended. The more the people
read about music the less they may care to ride over
the country roads reading nature from the open
limousine.
* * *
Don't let the band boys go away from home to buy
their bazoos, bass tubas and drums. First time you
hear of a new band in contemplation get in touch.
Use your general knowledge of business, plus what
you know of the music trade and the brass-band
instrument makers. If you do not already represent
a good brass band industry, write to the C. G. Conn,
Ltd., at Elkhart, Ind., or Lyon & Healy, Inc., Chi-
cago, or some other good one, and see what you
can do.
*
•
*
You must have read what this trade paper has said
about the music roll business. What are you doing
about it? Are you selling music rolls, or just carry-
ing a few samples—enough to help you sell the
playerpianos? If you are a real music dealer you
must be selling a lot of music rolls at a good profit.
What music rolls are they? There are music rolls—
and music rolls. Not all sheets of paper with holes
in them are music rolls. Advertise the make of rolls
you like best—and sell them.
* * *
Twenty years Ego two young men in a big city
were in the reed organ business. Both were making
a small number of good instruments. Later both
added pianos to their product. The other day the
two men met—not so young as twenty years ago,
but still far from old. One was active, prosperous
and aggressively enterprising. He is the president of
a great industry, with several factories. The other
is almost forgotten and his manner shows it. His
store has been closed and his factory might as well
be. The former has advertised, and pushed and im-
proved his product. The other has drifted without
much effort and with parsimony as his watchword.
This is a busy world. Things change. The music
trade has changed. So have the two men. One has
turned backward; the other changes his styles and
widens his vision. Same in any business, though,
only these two are in the same business.
* * *
Croaking, kicking and seeing things bluely are not
the ways to success. Croakers who can sec nothing
'out disaster in whatever may not suit them are not
built with their faces to the sun. They let the other
fellow's troubles become their own troubles, in the
wron gway. To sympathize with an unfortunate
doesn't mean that you also are in need of sympathy.
Perhaps you have heavier burdens than he has. To
really sympathize with another is to help him with-
out hurting yourself. The old maxim about charity
beginning at home is, like so many of its kind,
foolishness. Help him also with a cheerful face and
a "jolly" that may start him along the right way
again. This isn't piano talk. No, but it is just what
one of New York's greatest piano men said during
convention time.
* * *
A few years ago you would not have thought that
a man conid make a profitable business of lecturing
on the subject of selling things. But there are sev-
eral eloquent gentlemen who do well .by giving talks
.to business organizations. It is just the idea that has
been practically applied by several of the larger piano
manufacturers for years past—notably President Al-
bert S. Bond, of the Packard Piano Co., at Fort
Wayne, Indiana. Mr. Bond has made it a practice
to assemble the hundreds of factory workers once a
week and deliver a familiar talk on subjects per-
taining to Packard work and the requirements of
consistent progress in piano manufacture. It is the
practical working out of the thought expressed in
the Packard piano slogan: "If there's no harmony
in the factory there will be none in the piano.''
"Shop talks" are good, and the professional business
talker has a very wide field in which to exercise his
peculiar and forceful abilities. One of the business
talkers participated in the music trade convention,
and some of his ideas are still subjects of office and
wareroom discussion.
There has been some talk of one of the old eastern
pianos invading Chicago which in a way revives a
past glory. It was said that a prominent building
would be occupied and signs of huge size perched
upon it in a way to almost dominate the sky after
dark. The plant was an ambitious one. It would
bring to prominence again a piano which was once
the pride of one of the most popular manufacturers.
It would prove that a great piano name, even if per-
mitted to partially drop out of sight, may be revived
again. The interesting part of it, as applied to the
Chicago talk, would be to see how quickly the re-
vivifying process might be made effective.
* * *
Trade visitors to Chicago, or passing through east-
ward bound, can take a trip to Rockford in a day,
see the great Haddorff piano factory, meet C. A.
Haddorff, one of the most skillful, also A. Johnson,
whose genius for work and organization have done
so much for the industry; even meet also Mr. Peter-
son, one of the real industrial giants of the Mid-
West. It requires little more than two hours to
reach Rockford.
* * *
And there's Milwaukee, too. A boat trip "in sight
of land all the way" is a pleasure to any visitor.
Milwaukee is a piano making city now. Its former
fame as Blatzville, or as the "city that beer made
famous," has given way to a better fame—the city
where Waltham pianos are made. And when in
Milwaukee no dealer should miss the others—the
Miessner Piano Co. and Otto Miessner himself; then
also Conrad Kreiter will smile upon them, though
his factory is, as you know, in the beautiful little city
of Marionette, Wis., three hundred miles northward.
* * *
Commuters who travel on the I. C. suburban trains
rub up against many men of fame in special lines
of professional work. They may not recignize the
possessors of names with which they have become
familiar by newspaper or book reading. But they
see them often. The other evening I saw four very
prominent men in the same stifling car, homeward
bound from their day's work and all reading the
newspapers as they sweat! One was the sculptor,
Taft, whose latest masterpiece, typifying Time,
graces the Washington Park entrance on the Mid-
way. Another was the champion pessimist and great
lawyer, Clarence Darrow; the third, Judge Landis,
baseball grand umpire, who, when he wore the
ermine, soaked Standard Oil the well-known thirty
millions. But the fourth, even more interesting, to
Presto readers, is the man who has for years dic-
tated fine "copy" for the advertising space of a great
music house. Still more, he is the author of the new
measurement known as "millines," which has been
adopted by the great newspapers and advertising ex-
perts, including the Chicago Tribune. He is Ben. H.
Jefferson, sturdy, modest and studious. He has done
something. His ideas have influenced millions in the
world of publicity—a great world, and now pro-
digiously inhabited. But you must know "Ben"
Jefferson a long time to really know him at all.
BALDWIN FOR CONFERENCE.
Baldwin pianos are in use in the Winona Assembly
and Bible Conference opened this week at Lake
Winona, near Warsaw, Ind. It is the beginning of a
succession of enjoyable events at the place in which
musical features will be provided. Among the sched-
uled attractions are Tito Schipa, the tenor of the
Chicago Civic Opera Company, Joseph Levinne, the
pianist, Bachman's Band and others.
The United Music Co., New London, Conn., re-
cently bought the stock of pianos and players of D.
S. Marsh & Co., and sold it by special sale.
The Guest Piano Co., Burlington, la., is a con-
sistent proponent of the of the grand piano in its
smaller forms. The firm early saw the "talking
points" of such an instrument; its power of appeal to
the "average family" which at one time considered
the grand piano as something beyond its means to
acquire and its musical usefulness to the professional
or proficient amateur pianist.
The earnest adherence to the claims of the small
grand piano recently suggested a theme for a special
article to one of the staff of the Burlington Hawkeyc
and in this the activity of Mark P. Campbell, presi-
dent of the Brambach Piano Co., and the small grand
instruments made by the company are entertainingly
set forth for Burlington readers. This is said:
The world admires a man who does something.
The pioneer takes up more pages in our history than
the army of men who follow in his foodsteps. The
followers may make greater progress than the
pioneer, but still the pioneer is the man who is ad-
mired and remembered.
Robert Fulton would perhaps not dream there was
any relation between the greyhounds of the Atlantic
and his Claremont, but he is credited with the inven-
tion of the steamboat; and Eli Whitney's model of
the cotton gin is a curiosity compared to the machin-
ery of today, yet it is the name of Eli Whitney that
is linked with the cotton gin.
Mark P. Campbell, who is president of the Bram-
bach Piano Company, New York, is the pioneer in
the small grand piano for the home. Since 1856 the
grand piano has been held in reverence and awe as
a wonderful thing beyond the reach of the American
public, because it was believed to be too expensive
and too large. This was not fancy, but real fact.
However, the people of America aspire to the most
beautiful things and have a desire to possess them in
their homes. Back in 1912 Mr. Campbell took up
this problem, and was able through his organization
to have designed a small grand piano that was truly
musical in every way, possessing the full, rich tones
of a grand piano, and the same even, beautifully re-
sponsive action that the large grand has, and having
all the grace and charm of a grand piano from a
descriptive standpoint.
The Guest Piano Company was one of the very
first to see the great possibilities in bringing to
Burlington a grand piano that was of such a charac-
ter as to possess true musical qualities and at the
same time grace the home as no other musical
instrument could. It was over ten years ago that
the first Brambach was sold in Burlington, and since
that time their sale has become increasingly large.
Imitation is the sincerest flattery, and Mr. Camp-
bell has now many imitators. His factory produces
more grand pianos than any other factory in the
world and has been working continuously for over
seven years without a let-up, each year showing an
increase of production—a true mark of success.
In some men's lives the gaining of a livelihood is
of small importance compared to the doing of some-
thing worth while for their fellow men. It is Mr.
Campbell's hope and desire to see the majority of the
somes in America equipped with a piano that has the
artistry and symmetry that only a small grand pos-
sesses. The influence of this on the home life is hard
to measure, but it certainly lends a very strong force
to the atmosphere that is created to bring up the
coming generation of Americans with a love of the
beautiful.
READY FOR BIG WORK.
H. H. McFarland, the progressive Springfield, O.,
music dealer, is pointing with natural pride to the
excellent arrangements in all departments of his
new store at 14 South Fountain avenue. Mr. Mc-
Farland's experience in music goods merchandising
is evident in the way he has planned things for
the three floors of the number named. "It is one
of the preparations for expansion. Now it is up to
the energy of myself and sales staff," said Mr. Mc-
Farland this week.
PLANS IMPROVEMENTS.
Plans for the improvement of its store have been
made by the Bechtold Music Co., Fourteenth and
Champa streets, Denver, Colo. The proprietor and
manager is Martin Bechtold, whose energies and
merchandising abilities have built up a big business
for the store. More economy of space will be
effected by the carrying out of Mr. Bechtold's plan.
OCCUPIES NEW BUILDING.
Stanton Powell, the Grants Pass, Ore., music
dealer, is now located in a building specially con-
structed by him to properly house a business that
shows growth at the passing of every month. In ad-
dition to the line of players of the Gulbransen-Dick-
inson Co., Chicago, Mr. Powell carries a line of
talking machines and small goods.
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