PRESTO
12
Presto
THE AMERICAN MUSIC TRADE WEEKLY.
Published Every Saturday at 417 South Dearborn
Street, Chicago, Illinois.
C. A. DANIELL and FRANK D. ABBOTT
. Editors
Telephones, Local and Long Distance, Harrison 234
Private Phones to all Departments. Cable Address (Com-
mercial 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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of general interest to the music trade will be paid for
at space rates. Usually piano merchants or salesmen
in the smaller cities are the best occasional corre-
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d e p a r t m e n t s to PRESTO P U B L I S H I N G
Dearborn Street, Chicago, III.
CO., 417 South
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1924.
PROMISING AND DOING
A' Sanskrit proverb runs thus: "A mean
fellow promises but does not; a good man
promises not but does."
That was not said by a man of business,
much less by a man who made piano making
or selling the work of a busy life. When the
proverb was penned by the philosopher with
a turban or towel bound around his brow,
pianos had not yet been dreamed of, and Pan
and his pipes were the uppermost subjects of
the critics.
But how easy to fit the proverb into the
world of today. And how it seems to fit a
class of workers in the vineyard of "the art
divine." For while it could not be fair to
refer to piano salesmen as "mean fellows,"
it is true that too many of them have the
habit of promising and "doing not." And the
habit is one of the very worst.
Promising and "doing not" is a custom prac-
ticed in all parts of the piano business. It is
known to all piano dealers who sell to geople
who promise to pay monthly and pay not at
all, unless pushed by the collector. It is prac-
ticed by the dealers themselves when they
give their notes to the manufacturers, and
then permit the bank notary to earn fees. It
is even practiced mildly by the manufactur-
ers who take orders from the dealers and
then do not ship the goods until weeks and
months pass beyond the time agreed upon.
And so the ones who "promise and do not"
cumber the business world, and they are off-
set by the "good men" who "promise not
but do."
Is there an employer of salesmen who
doesn't pray for one who will find the "pros-
spect" and close the sale without boasting of
it before he does anything? What a relief it
is to have the salesman come in and say that
he has done something, instead of proclaim-
ing that he has a dozen or more sure-thing
sales all ready to close and then does—
nothing!
The Sanskrit proverb is a mine of wisdom.
It presents a picture of two kinds of men,
and we fear that the ones who promise but
"do not" are in the majority. It should be one
of the first precautions of the piano salesman
that he does not fall into the habit of the
"mean fellow" but that he is like the "good
man," who "promises not but does."
ONLY THE PIANO
The late Melville Clark, genius and real
piano maker, was first to fix up a combination
of talking machine and musical instrument.
But the piano and phonograph didn't syn-
chronize perfectly, and the "Apollophone"
was not a gigantic success.
The radio receiving apparatus had not pro-
ceeded far when two pianos were announced
with fixings for the modern marvel. Radio-
pianos called for attention and didn't get
much of it. Of course not. People who want
pianos know what it is they want. As an
automobile manufacturer says, "When we
want an oculist we don't send for a dentist."
And when we want an oyster stew we don't
order a cherry sundae. Pianos are too serious
in the scheme of life to submit to substitution
of that kind.
True, the furniture makers have devised
double-decked sofas which may be trans-
formed into twin beds. There also are book-
cases which may be opened up and used for
clothes presses. But the sofa-beds are sel-
dom good to sleep in, and the book-clothes-
presses contain no books.
A piano is all in all. It is enough. It can
not be mixed with anything else. Years ago
attempts were made to have a reed organ
joined to the instrument of strings. It didn't
work. A thousand other attempts have been
made to make the piano something that it is
not. There have been double key-board pianos,
and pianos with two sets of strings, and a lot
more. But they have all been coldly received.
The people who want pianos want—pianos,
and not miniature circuses.
If the time ever comes when it shall require
some extraneous contrivance to sustain in-
terest in the piano, at that time the piano will
die. But that time will never come. The
piano, as a piano, will remain the treasure of
music long after even the player mechanism of
today loses out and becomes forgotten save
as a chapter in the history of human progress.
A BRIGHT OUTLOOK
December 13, 1924.
come in and buy. But that, as a rule, doesn't
usually work. The proportion of drop-ins is
not large, even in large communities. It is the
energy and the persistent qualities of the man
whose business it is to actually sell, that
counts. To "run the store" demands special
qualifications, also, but they are not just the
same as the requirements of the salesman.
If the year soon to dawn doesn't prove a
good one for the average piano dealer, the
fault will not be so much with conditions as
with the man himself. Other lines of trade
are already feeling the forward impetus. Sev-
eral piano dealers have written to Presto that
their trade has brightened as the holidays
approach, and they anticipate a steady in-
crease, and a good year, unless something
wholly unforseen to the prophets and indus-
trial seers takes place in the near future. Do
your part to make 1925 a year of prosperity in
the piano business.
The latest charge against the automobile is
that it is likely to starve the violinists by the
same process of elimination that the mother
sparrow said it was starving her family.
Horses are becoming so scarce that there
threatens to be such a shortage of horse hair
that the supply of violin bows will give out.
30 YEARS AGO IN THE TRADE
From the Files of Presto
(December 13, 1894.)
Mr. John Jacob Decker, the head of the firm of
Decker Bros., died of pneumonia at his residence, 154
West Forty-fifth street, New York, on Friday last
after a short illness.
Mr. A. L. Ebbels, of Alfred Dolge & Son, and his
bride were guests of F. J. Woodbury, of the Jewett
Piano Co., at the Woodbury home in Leominster,
Mass., on Thanksgiving Day.
In a talk with a member of Presto's staff, Mr.
Hugo Sohmer recently gave expression to his views
on the subject of cheap pianos. As it is needless to
say here, Mr. Sohmer is one of the piano manufac-
turers whose ideal has always been a lofty one.
The holiday activity has already begun, and the
music stores are pretty well crowded with prospec-
tive purchasers. Some of the houses are doing re-
markably fine business already, and the prospects
for all are very good. There is a marked demand for
the high grade goods.
The illness which caused Paderewski to give up his
American tour this season and led to the reports that
he intended quitting the concert field entirely could
not have been so serious as was given out, or else
he recovered quickly, as he is to play in Glasgow in
January and in various cities in England.
The Graphophone-phonograph, which has been on
exhibition at Lyon & Healy's for a fortnight past,
offers about the only available theme still untouched
by the fictionists. What a wealth of suggestion there
is to the imaginative writer, in the cunning mechani-
cal tongue, which so readily reproduces every inflec-
tion and tone of the voices of those who are gone.
It is within reason for piano merchants to
look forward to a good year in 1925. Things
could hardly look better in some sections of
the country and, speaking broadly, the oppor-
tunity for active piano salesmen promises to
20 YEARS AQO THIS WEEK
be better than in the prosperous period of '21.
This view is the logical one, based upon con-
(From Presto December 13, 1904.)
ditions in other branches of trade and the gen-
Apropos of the Chicago Madrigal Club's concert
eral outlook of leading industrials and officials which took place Tuesday night, in Fine Arts Hall,
Chicago, we notice in the list of the membership the
who make it their specialty to prognosticate.
names of two music trade men—P. J. Healy and E.
The piano business is very largely a matter V. Church.
of individual effort and enthusiasm. The
In the United States Court of Appeals a decision
was handed down last week affirming the decision of
piano man who is willing to wait for things the
Circuit Court in the "kicker" suit which Theo-
to come his way will not find the things he dore P. Brown, of Worcester, Mass., brought against
waited for taking the form of live "prospects." the Huntington Piano Co.
Well, you dealers, have you looked carefully over
He will wait a long time for what he might your
list of prospects with a view to closing sales for
get started instantly his way, by the use of Christmas? Now's the time when many a close-fisted
papa may be made to loosen up and buy a piano for
some tact and more energy.
daughter. Get after them.
In Chicago this week Lyon & Healy sprung a
There are, and always have been, piano mer-
mild
sensation by advertising the Steinway as the
chants who think that selling instruments is "cheapest
piano." Of course the statement was
just like selling other merchandise. They be- based upon the familiar truism that "the best is the
but the display line coupling the name of
lieve that, if the store is well stocked and the cheapest,"
Steinway with the word "cheap" seemed strangely
windows make a fine display, the people will unfamiliar.
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