Presto Buyers' Guide
Analyzes and Clast ifies
All American P i a a o 5
and in Detail Tells of
Their Makers.
PRESTO
E.tabli.hed 1884.
THE AMERICAN MUSIC TRADE WEEKLY
Presto Trade Lists
Three Uniform B o o k -
lets, the Only Complete
Directories of the Music
Industries.
JO Cent.; $2.00 a Year
CHICAGO, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1923
IS THERE TOO MUCH
VOLUME OF TONE
A Piano Dealer, Having Found a Suggestion
in Presto, Writes on r Subject Which Is
Not Often Looked at in this Way
in These Noisy Days.
LESS SOUND, MORE MUSIC
And What, He Also Ask*, Will Be Nature of Instru-
ment to Follow Playerpiano After Long
Years Shall Have Passed?
BY ELMER E. ELTYNE.
In a recent issue of Presto I read a very sensible
editorial in which the idea was advanced that the need
of the piano is not more tone power, more "volume,"
hut. rather, sweetness and that insinuating quality
which stirs the heart-strings and recalls happy days.
And the idea so caught me that I have been threaten-
ing to write my approval ever since.
From the very first of f the "overstrung" pianos, we
have been striving to create more sound—often sound
only. The quality for which we really long is often
lacking, or else it is drowned out by the mighty noise
of the vibrating strings,, reinforced by the multi-vox
devices.
Wants Less Sound.
It has been my idea, that if the acousticians would
give more of their time to refining the piano tone, in
many cases, and to brir ging about the evenness and
sweetness without which real music is impossible,
greater results might follow. I might easily name
some pianos the results of which present the quality
of tone to which I refer.
And they are instruments the makers of which
have never made the mistake of boasting of the
"loudest" possible noises, or the "biggest tone" in
the world. And, just as I was about to write some-
thing to this effect to Presto, a friend in the South
sent me a newsp- '>er clipping in which there was
an article, accredit to "Lady Ross of Balnagowan,"
containing the following:
Piano for Modern Dance.
Never do I want to hear a blatant thumping piano
again except for modern music or for modern dances
when that notion seizes me. For music—I mean
music as understood by Mozart and Purcell and Bach
and Scarlatti and all the great ones—give me the
instruments that they knew and for which they com-
posed. Large concert halls and shrill far reaching
piano fortes meant nothing in the lives of these in-
spired music makers.
When they required volume of sound they never
thought of making one strong man thump one loud
hall filling instrument. They may be economical
from the box office side of the question but when
used as a medium for the floating melodies of those
untrammelled souls it is well nigh meaningless. They
used an orchestra when they required volume of
sound and how right they were! But this was an
experience of quite another sort and not soon for-
gotten. It was like being told almost in a whisper
the secrets and sources of things as sensed by one
genius and interpreted by another.
She sat and played to me and played on me as well
for two solid hours, and I know now as I never knew
before what music is meant for in one of its phases.
1 learnt too that there is a kind of music that one
can't listen to or follow with one's mind. During
the second movement of the Fantasia—when I was
most weepy and felt ashamed, I tried to pull myself
together and listen. But it eluded me—I know
nothing about it now, except I lived intensely while
I heard it. and when next I hear it I shall probably
misbehave myself again inasmuch as I shall probably
cry—for a moon!
As the Masters Played.
Now all that may mean only that the composers
of olden time had nothing better than the spinet, or
the clavicord, upon which to interpret their inspira-
tions. Have you ever heard Haendel played upon
the little, old-fashioned instrument? Have you heard
Pergolisi's pieces upon the spinet? No? Well, you've
missed a good deal. And what the writer, from
whom I have quoted, says seems to me to possess
sense.
It seems to suggest that possibly the vogue of the
very small pianos of today may be interpreted as
meaning that less noise, and more of the sweetness
of sound, is relished in the homes.
From the mammoth uprights of a few years ago,
we have come to upright pianos so diminutive that
they rest in the library, or in the parlor corner, almost
unobserved. But they are pianos, nevertheless. The
little Strohber, or the Midget-Cable, or the Hamilton,
or the Miessner—any of the modern-day small up-
rights, gives tone volume enough for any home.
The popularity of the "baby" grands may be
another proof that the people want less "volume"
of sound. For, while the little grands may be made
to produce ample sound, they are, nevertheless, of
smaller sound-producing possibilities than the giants
of earlier days.
Will They Come Back?
And, furthermore, is there anything in the sug-
gestion that perhaps the earlier styles of stringed
instruments may eventually come back? What has
become of the effort of the Chickering industry to
revive the spinet? The quaint little instruments were
good enough to survive. Did the Boston industry
find that the people preferred the full-grown piano?
Or was it the fault of the dealers that the new-old
instrument failed to gain a following?
In any event, I repeat that my approval followed
what was said in Presto on the need of no more tone
volume but, often, a better quality of tone coloring
in the piano. No one will applaud the attempt of the
genius who has devised a "soundless" piano, or
organ. The thing by which pictures are cast upon
a screen in such sequence as to suggest a continuous
story, a poem, or an episode in life.
Anyway, the question which was asked, in still
another issue of Presto, will not "down." It was,
in effect: What manner of instrument will come when
the playerpiano subsides, and after the reproducing
piano shall have outworn its novelty? And, what-
ever its form or name, let us hope that it will not
be dependent upon still greater volume of tone for
whatever favor it may win and sustain.
SUPERINTENDENTS MEET.
At the regular meeting of the Superintendents' Club
of the New York Piano Manufacturers' Association,
held at the New York Piano Club recently, Dr. H.
Newton, of the Kohler Industries, spoke on the work
of the National Safety Council. He told of the value
of safety first work in the factories of the Kohler In-
dustries. The subject of a simplified scale on the
hammer striking line was laid before the members in
a paper to be submitted to the National Piano Manu-
facturers' Association.
This subject will be dis-
cussed at a future meeting.
MOVES IN MEMPHIS.
The Floyd Piano Company, Memphis, Tenn., moved
December 1 to 160 Madison Avenue. C. M. Bishop is
president and R. E. Christy, treasurer of this con-
cern, which is well known as "The House of Pleasant
Dealings." This announcement was printed jlast
week: "We offer unusual inducements in our present
stock if bought now. Intending purchasers of pi-
anos, player pianos and phonographs will find it to
their interest to come and see these offerings. No
trouble to show goods—you won't be urged to buy."
F. X. REGAN'S APPOINTMENT.
Francis X. Regan, well known in trade and musical
circles in Washington, D, C, has been named one of
the directors of the Homer L. Kitt Co. and at a
meeting last week was elected secretary and treasurer
of the corporation. Mr. Regan has a wide knowledge
of all phases of the retail piano business and acquired
valuable early experiences with Thomas Goggan &
Bro. of Houston and Galveston, Tex. His first asso-
ciation in the national capital was with the J. H.
Williams Piano Co.
The Bush & Lane Piano Co. has established a
branch store at Brooklyn avenue and East Forty-
fifth street, Seattle, Wash.
MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
EXPORTED IN OCTOBER
They Exceeded in Values the Shipments of All
But Four of the American
Specialties.
According to the analysis of specialty exports of
the United States for October, musical instruments
were fourth largest in a list of twenty-three lines of
industry. General hardware, except heavy hardware,
came first, with the sum of $3,410,515. Musical in-
struments exported during the month were valued
at $1,148,146, greatly exceeding furniture of wood,
glass products and many other specialties.
The trade in musical instruments maintained the
high value made during the previous months of 1923
and again passed the million dollar mark. While
piano shipments in October were not as heavy as in
September they nevertheless exceeded those in Octo-
ber, 1922. Increased exports of piano actions and
parts are quite notable.
Shipments of phonographs in October were valued
at $286,953 and numbered 7,827, thereby exceeding the
value and volume of trade in this article for any
month of 1923 or 1922. Exports of records remained
high, though a little less than a year ago.
Foreign trade in stringed instruments was ex-
ceeded only by the September figures, which in turn
surpassed those of any other month of the year.
CHARLES KUNKEL DIED
IN ST. LOUIS LAST WEEK
Famous Musician and Member of Firm of Kunkel
Bros. Lived to Be 83.
Charles Kunkel, internationally known as pianist
and composer, who died at a hospital in St. Louis on
December 3 at the age of 83, was for many years a
prominent music dealer in the city named. The firm
was Kunkel Bros, and the brothers, Charles and
Jacob, were famous for their duet playing as well as
for their popular compositions. They also published
"Kunkel's Musical Review," a monthly magazine,
which had a wide circulation.
Charles Kunkel was noted as a musician and many
great artists were among the visitors at his home, in-
cluding Anton Rubinstein, Dr. Hans von Buelow,
Franz Rummel and Dr. Louis Maas.
Mr. Kunkel was born in Slippersfield, Rhenish
Palatinate, Germany, July 22, 1840. His family mi-
grated to this country in 1848 and he began his
studies as a lad of 8 under the tutelage of his father
in Cincinnati. He went to St. Louis in 1868.
Under his management, Moriz Rosenthal, now in
this country again after an absence of seventeen
years, played, and L. M. Gottschalk and Sigismund
Thalberg, with whom he had previously made special
studies of the pianoforte, visited here at his in-
vitation.
On the day of his death his old friend Rosenthal
arrived just in time to gret him in a last embrace
before death came.
NEW INCORPORATIONS
IN MUSIC GOODS TRADE
New and Old Concerns Secure Charters in Various
Places.
Albion Furniture Manufacturing Co., Albion, N. Y.,
to make phonograph cabinets; with paid in capital of
$40,000.
Kelly-Konter Music Corp., New York City;
$10,000; R. W. Konter, W. H. Saul, W. J. Kelly.
Coon Mobile Co., Mobile, Ala.; $10,000; Harry
Meyers and others.
M. & P. Piano Co., Brooklyn, N. Y.; $5,000; Joseph
Providenti, Brooklyn, and others.
Summer & Co. is the name of a new firm in the
business in Chillicothe, Ohio.
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