Presto

PRESTO
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*
merclal 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.
Subscription, $2 a year; , 6 months, . . $1;
. Foreign,
_ . .
Payable in advance. No extra charge in United States
possessions, Cuba and Mexico. Rates for advertising on
application.
Items of news and other matter are solicited and if
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-
spondents, and their assistance is invited.
Forms close at noon every Thursday. News mat-
ter should be in not later than eleven o'clock on the
same day. Advertising copy should be in hand before
Tuesday, five p. m., to insure preferred position. Full
page display copy should be in hand by Monday noon
preceding publication day. Want advs. for current
week, to insure classification, must not be later than
Wednesday noon.
Address all communications for the editorial or business
departments to PRESTO PUBLISHING CO., 417 South
Dearborn Street, Chicago, III.
SATURDAY, APRIL 4, 1924.
HOW ARE THINGS?
There are social, religious and commercial
organizations which have been built upon the
idea of the unity of purpose and the concen-
trated power of thought. But there are in-
dividuals who persist in ignoring the force
and influence of the same ethical ends for
which such organizations, religious and co-
operative, are formed.
Of late, to illustrate, a writer and thought in-
spirer in St. Louis, has put forth a book that is
filled from cover to cover with its insistence
of the ease with which the individual will may
overcome the opposition of circumstance, and
wring victory from seemingly inevitable de-
feat. It is an exposition of the invisible
strength of the subconscious mind.
But, on the other hand, when some casual
caller or friend passing in the street, asks the
average business man—piano dealer or sales-
man, say—the inevitable question, "How are
things?" or "How's trade?" what is the an-
swer, nine times in ten? Isn't it "rotten,"-
"only so-so," or "don't know what trade is,"
or something else that implies stagnation and
dullness as stupid and needless as the reply
itself?
If the philosophers are right—and they usu-
ally are—then why not give the answer that
breeds confidence, and suggests red blood
corpuscles? Why choose the words that put
a damper upon the other fellow, and sink
deeper any possible sense of discouragement
in your own mind? It's the bright thought
that sets the mind a-sparkle. It's the cheerful
answer that turns away depression. Things
are never so bad as "rotten" so long as there
is life. And especially in anything related
to music, there is nothing but life and buoy-
ancy. That's one of many reasons why it is
so lucky a thing to be in the music business.
Anyway, let's surprise the subsconscious
self by talking of the fine way trade is wak-
ing up. Let's believe that this particular busi-
ness is just about what we make it, and say it
is. No man who is alive can find things dull
in the piano business. He might find it so in
some other lines, where he would be tied to
his counter or his desk, waiting for some
chance caller. But the piano business is all
over town, and far out into the country. It
will be just what we make it. And the way
to make it what we want it to be is to refuse
to see any signs of the dullness that is born
of doubt and fostered by the thoughtless habit
of exaggerating the disappointments and over-
looking the successes, when we begin to talk
about them.
ART PIANOS
April 4, 1925.
duced the first piano inventor. But another
instrument of the piano kind which bears
signs of having been made three hundred
years ago has just turned up.
* * *
It has been said that the radio industry is
overdone. Some say that one-half the now
existing radio manufacturers will wink out
within less than two years. Worse—or bet-
ter—than that! A French inventor has ar-
rived in this country with valid claims of mil-
lions of dollars for violation of his patents.
If he collects, not half the radio concerns now
operating can pay up and continue.
* * *
If any additional evidence of the strength
of the piano business is needed, it may be
found in the fact that the Chicago Piano
Movers' Union possesses 310 husky members
headed by S. J. Johnson, who pulls down
nearly as many pounds in his stocking feet.
* * *
Carry cheap pianos in stock, for you will
have cheap customers. But instruct your buy-
ers to want something good as they will buy
and you will make friends and build a better
business.
This is the age of the machine. If there
were a god of automatism it would supplant
Appolo and Orpheus, and then the adulation
of the mechanical worker could be no more
sincere. Even in the making of the things of
art the machine has first place. The state-
ment of Charles Eliot Norton, that the mark
of the potter's thumb endowed the humblest
of the Greek utensils with a virtue that no ma-
chine-made hall-mark could give it, is for-
gotten. And because of this machine worship
it is good that Secretary Hoover has named
a committee to report upon the Paris Exposi-
tion of Industrial Arts next May.
Not long ago a great French piano industry
sent to the United States for an expert in the
secrets of rapid production. One of the skilled
From the Files of Presto
factory superintendents and acousticians was
induced to go to Paris for the purpose of
April 4, 1925.)
The chief difference between the New York
"speeding up" factory methods and bringing
piano makers' banquet and those of the Chicago trade
about the kind of efficiency for which our appears
to have been that in the case of the former
American industries are famous. But we have there was more of it, to say nothing of the cham-
yet to hear of any American piano industry pagne.
Messrs. W. W. Kimball and E. S. Conway have
that has scoured France in search of a special- returned from the south, and now occupy their desks
ist in art or novelty by which something more in the beautiful new offices of the Kimball Com-
pany. Both gentlemen look as if their brief season
exclusive or distinctive might be created with of
recreation had been beneficial to them.
which to lift its instruments above the rest.
The banquet of the Piano Manufacturers Associa-
of New York and Vicinity, at Hotel Waldorf,
Not that our American pianos are not hand- tion
Thursday night last, was in every way a memorable
some, or in any other sense lacking in grace event in the trade. Never before have so many
prominent American piano manufacturers met to-
of either design or tone. But, go into any gether.
large piano wareroom, and see if by the cases
The people of Boston honored the venerable Rev.
alone you can distinguish the different instru- Samuel F. Smith, author of "America," on Wednes-
day. Public exercises were held in Music Hall, and
ments. In a few instances you can. But not the reception was presided over by Gov. Greenhalge,
in many. And, speaking generally, there is Dr. Smith made an address telling how he happened
to write the national hymn.
no need of change. The average buyer will
At a recent Commercial Travelers banquet at Troy,
not care to discriminate, from the standpoint N. Y., a local preacher gave utterance to our senti-
precisely. "The commercial men," he said,
of exclusiveness. But isn't it possible that, by ments
"represent the doctrine of faith. The Commercial
the introduction of variety of art kind, there Travelers have faith. They have faith in their goods
and faith in their employers. They also represent
might be better results to the dealers in the the
doctrine of perseverance. That kind of persever-
sale of pianos to the class of customers who ance that tries saints."
prefer something distinctive. A few such cus-
tomers have had special case designs created
at great cost. Would a reasonably restricted
20 YEARS AQO THIS WEEK
production of such designs, by manufacturers
whose ambitions are above the line of com-
(From Presto, April 6, 1905.)
mercialism, pay both producers and dealers?
The F. G. Smith Piano Co. at Washington, D. C,
making a great reach to get all the old square
We believe that it would. More than that, is
pianos it can get hold of.
it would lift the piano once more from the
Electric pianos are in use in all parts of the coun-
commonplace by which it is now too often re- tr3 r . Almost every daily or weekly paper that reaches
Presto office has some reference to electric pianos in
garded as mere "furniture," or a non-essential, use
at billiard halls, saloons or amusement parlors.
which may be bought at almost any price that
Everywhere in New York's piano industry regret
commonplace people care to pay for it. The is expressed at the death of P. J. Healy. From Stein-
way Hall to the Bronx, the piano men speak in words
Paris Exposition may serve a good purpose of sorrow at the going of one of the most widely
to the piano, even as far away as Chicago and known members of their trade.
The most elaborate signs to be found in the piano
San Francisco.
industry of Manhattan were last week put up at the
30 YEARS AGO IN THE TRADE
Unless the antiquarians and curio-hunters
stop finding old pianos bearing evidence of
age exceeding the year in which historians
say Cristofori was born, there is going to be
trouble. Italy, the home of song, will not
willingly relinquish her claim to having pro-
factory of William A. Tonk & Bro. on Tenth avenue.
The signs are of the woven wire pattern with giant
gilt letters. They extend in three sections along the
entire height of the factory building.
Mary had an ancient square and on the keys she
spanked; with ambidextrous vigor forth fierce jang-
ling sounds she yanked. Her ringers galloped up
the board and flopped from G to F, and cleared the
bars fortissimo in disregard of clef. She did brave
stunts in key of E or A B C F G. To these that
square was limited; it wasn't worth a D
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