March 28, 1925.
25
PRESTO
SHEET MUSIC AND RADIO
THE DEALER'S AMBITIONS
What He Hopes to Accomplish Should Be
Basis of a Business Creed Strictly
Adhered To.
A policy for the sheet music dealer is at once a
stimulation and a corrective. The business machine
needs a set of brakes as well as a tank of gas. The
counter trade and the mail order business in sheet
music is best governed by some kind of a creed.
For one thing the sheet music dealer must regard
his calling as a profession and consider his store as
something more than an equipment of storing shelves.
"If you don't see what you want, ask for it," is a
trite reminder for customers that the progressive
sheet music dealer should not need. But his prompt-
ness and ability to supply requirements should be
the characteristic that should always be suggested by
the mention of his name to the buyers of music.
When the public is made to understand that any
piece of music, published anywhere, may be procured
at the store in the shortest possible time, the dealer
has achieved the kind of prominence on which big
businesses are built. The dependence of a customer
on the dealer to find a piece of music, the publisher
and place of publication of which he is ignorant, is
an acknowledgment of sheet music trade ability that
tends to increase the number of customers. In fact,
the ambitious sheet music dealer should consider it a
privilege to be intrusted with difficult commissions
so that he may prove his resourcefulness and ability.
About the best way for the sheet music dealer to
show his resourcefulness is to keep abreast of the
times and meet the new conditions in the music
trade. It is the dealer's responsibility to note the
trend of public taste and at the same time do a little
himself in improving that same public taste. While
wrapping up the fleeting populars with one hand he
might put forward the more musically meritorious
standard number with the other, so to speak.
How much have you made of the various musical
instrument furors? How many saxophone and uku-
lele and banjo folios have you sold?
As a sheet
music dealer what have you done for these enthusi-
astic amateur players in exploiting the books devoted
to their particular instrument and what of profit for
yourself in doing so? These are questions that deal-
ers answer with a smile of satisfaction for profits
garnered or with a sigh of regret for opportunities
disregarded.
There are important items in the sheet music stock
besides the popular songs here today and forgotten
tomorrow. There are keen music publishing houses
which keep their music portfolios up to the minute
and which provide novelties for every instrument.
There are a vast number of portfolios which appeal
to this, that and the other enthusiastic pupil filled with
the desire to master some instrument. When prop-
erly featured these music books are as salable as the
"hits" that encumber the sheet music counters. Deal-
ers with initiative are selling them and creating a
IN THE RADIO TRADE FIELD
Items of Interest to Dealers and Jobbers Gathered
from Many Sources.
All the windows of the big Paris stores are stacked
full of all varieties of radio sets, ranging in all prices
and various forms. Everything possible has been
done to bring the radio into the public eye in the
drive started a few weeks ago by the French manu-
facturers to bolster the fast declining radio trade in
France.
Fred Garner, manager of the new radio department
of the Wunderlich Piano Co., Kansas City, Mo., is
cheerful over the success of his lines and the favor
that is assured for the new section.
C. C. Christensen recently opened a music store in
Niles, Mich.
Louis D. Robbin is proprietor if a new music store
at 3606 Georgia avenue, N. W., Washington, D. C.
Jimmie's Song Shop is the style name of a new
store at 4 Plaza Way, Atlanta, Ga.
The music store of Mr. and Mrs. Frank W.
Weaver, Franklin, Mass., was opened recently.
Only one-fifth of the first sale business in radio
sets has been touched according to the Radio Dealer,
which says that less than one home in six in the
United States owns a radio set.
Jerome H. Remick's "Dreamer of Dreams" was
one of the organ arrangements recorded recently by
Jesse Crawford, organist of the Chicago Theater,
Chicago, for the Victor Talking Machine Co.
RADIO FOR NORTHWEST FARMERS.
It is estimated that there are between 40,000 and
100,000 receiving sets in the territory tributary to St.
Paul and Minneapolis. Through a questionnaire sent
out by the department of agriculture to county agents
in the northwest it has been found that from Jan. 1,
1924, to Jan. 1, 1925, the number of sets in use by
farmers in that section has increased three and one-
half times. When it is recalled that 82 per cent of
the population of the northwestern stations is com-
posed of those in rural communities the increase has
considerable significance.
RADIO FOR FARMERS' BOYS.
Financing the purchase of radio receiving sets to
keep young men on the farms has become a specialty
of a North Dakota banker, reports J. H. Tregoe, ex-
ecutive manager of the National Association of Credit
Men, who has just returned from a trip through the
middle west. One enterprising banker when con-
fronted with the problem of keeping the young men
in rural districts content to remain at home and work
the farms, devised the unique plan of financing the
purchase of radio sets. The idea was met with en-
thusiasm and has been successful.
SAYS RADIO HELPS.
More persons are learning to play musical instru-
ments than ever before, due principally to the radio.
F. E. Larson, Chicago secretary of the National As-
sociation of Musical Instruments and Accessories
Manufacturers declared in Cleveland during- the meet-
ing of this association last week. Mr. Larson was in
Cleveland with officials of the Music Industries
Chamber of Commerce completing plans for the con-
vention in Chicago next June.
Manufacturers of
RADIO
Elgin Phonograph & Novelty Co.
Elgin, 111.
PRICE FOR RADIO PATENT.
A radio patent granted only upon a regular filed
application, upon payment of a $20 fee, and only after
a determination of utility and completeness of dis-
closure of the invention and a search to determine
its novelty.
Estimates
9est /
Music Printers (
WestbfNewYorkV
ANY PUBLISHER
\^
OUR REFERENCE ^
business of a steady and profitable kind. Selling
sheet music is a competitive game and the fossilized
ways of a decade ago are suicidal.
7on Any thing in Music
^
BAYNER DALUJEIM &Ca
^ '
- WORK DONE BY
^ ALL PROCESSES
2654-2060 W.Lake St., Chicago, 111.
PROBLEM FOR COMPOSERS
Successful Ones Differ as to Advisability of Forbid-
ding All Copyrighted Compositions from Radio.
Radio has placed a new problem before the Ameri-
can Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.
Many members of the society are doubtful about the
benefits to be derived by composers from the broad-
casting of their numbers.
"Judicious handling of new song hits by the pro-
gram directors is the only policy which will ever
enable the broadcaster and the composer to benefit
together from radio," said J. C. Rosenthal, general
manager of the society. "New tunes are being killed
every day by being overplayed and oversung."
If the program director handles his musical pro-
grams skilfully, he added, this fault can be corrected.
And in any event, it is Presto's opinion that the entire
matter of danger to the composers is greatly ex-
aggerated. Most of them would walk miles any time
to hear their songs by radio.
SHEET MUSIC TRADE NOTES
A Few Items Interesting to People in Sheet Music
Department Are Printed.
The Iowa State Farm Bureau Federation meeting
recently in Des Moines voted to urge people to learn
five songs this year, recommending that they be sung
at the farmer gatherings. The songs suggested are:
"Swanee River," "America," "America the Beautiful,"
"Little Brown Church in the Vale," and "Juanita."
A big business in Irish sheet music and books of
Irish songs by the Oliver Ditson Co., Boston, was
the result of a St. Patrick's Day window in which
everything of an Irish flavor was featured.
The Anderson Piano Co., Dayton, O., has installed
a complete radio department in a remodeled section
of the store.
REMICK SONG HITS
My Best Girl
Me and the Boy Friend
Old Pal
I Can't Stop Babying You
Somebody Like You
Why Couldn't It Be Poor Little Me
Dreams
Lucky Kentucky
Take Me Back to Your Heart
Just Lonesome
Swanee Butterfly
Dreamer of Dreams
Follow the Swallow
Until Tomorrow
New Kind of Man
J. H. REMICK & CO.
New York
Chicago
Detroit
ADVERTISING SONG BOOKS
Editor Presto: One of our customers inquires
about a collection of old-fashioned songs, suitable for
giving out to prospects and the general public. If
you can inform us where these are printed, you will
confer a great favor, and incidentally boost the piano
business, as it is a foregone conclusion that every-
one receiving a book will need a piano on which to
produce the accompaniments.—A Jobber.
Reply: About the best book of the kind within
our knowledge is put forth in quantities by the Illi-
nois State Register of Springfield, 111. We believe
if you write to that concern you will get a sample of
about what you want.—Presto.
Over 50 gongs, words and music for 4 voices and piano,
82 p.p., 6x9, in editions with special illuminated cover
printed to order as wanted. Mention Presto.
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