Presto

PRESTO
Presto
THE AMERICAN MUSTC 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.
Subscription, $2 a year; 6 months, $1; Foreign, $4.
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
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, SEPTEMBER 26, 1925.
YOUR FRIEND AND "LEADER"
A popular newspaper feature just now is the
short prose poems by George Matthew Adams
by which are syndicated touches of sentiment
designed to twang the heart strings and agi-
tate the lachrymal glands. The latest of the
"Today's Talks" comes to Presto from a
prominent piano man who is just now in the
Far West. And following is the opening
paragraph of the article, to which the piano
man has appended the complimentary sugges-
tion to the editor that "You will appreciate
this, as I do" :
Sometimes I wonder if friends, after all, aren't appor-
tioned to each of us. For as the years go on and we
meet new people and like them, still, how rare it is that
we take on a new friend.
That is a fine sentiment. And isn't it equal-
ly as applicable to pianos as to our other
friends? When a man who makes it his life
work to sell pianos has been daily, for years,
associated with any particular piano, as most
successful dealers have been, doesn't that
piano become a closer friend and something
more than merely an article of trade?
Talk about no sentiment in business! Two-
thirds of the men who pass their days selling
pianos have so much affection for their "lead-
ers" and spend so much of their vitality talk-
ing about the instruments' beauty and charm,
that sentiment "is their middle name."
We recall a veteran piano merchant from
Australia who said that he sold the Steinway,
and just after the great war started he found
that, with but two of the "Instruments of the
Immortals" in stock, he could get no more. He
sold one of them and, though he had many
customers eager to get the last one, he could
not bear to part with it. "I play the piano
myself," said the Australian, "and I loved to
sit down to that Steinway so much that I was
very loath to part with it."
Was there no sentiment in that? And isn't
it the same in almost innumerable other in-
stances, the world over? The same thing ap-
plies to every one of the great pianos. There
is a real affection for them in the men whose
business it is to sell them. And that is one
of the inestimable assets of a great piano's
name—of the piano itself, from the polished
top to the casters that rest upon the floor.
Sentiment and art are inseparable. And in the
cases of many a veteran dealer, it is as true of
the piano in their warerooms as with their
friends in the flesh—"how rare it is that we
take on a new friend."
They may not say so, for that would not
be "good business." And they will take on a
new piano, so long as it does not interfere
with the old friend, for that may be good busi-
ness. But the leader in the line! Every trav-
eling salesman knows how hard it is to get
in anything that may seem to be designed to
supplant the instrument that has won the
dealer's affections and continues to retain it.
ONLY FIVE PER CENT
We are told by a London trade paper that
only five per cent of the pianos made in Eng-
land contain player actions. In other words,
only five in every hundred instruments are
playerpianos. And yet proportionately it
seems that the piano business in England is
as good as it is in the United States. How
do you account for it?
Probably, as one London piano manufac-
turer said at the recent meeting of the Brit-
ish trade, there would be greater activity if
the player were to be made more of. If the
same spirit had been put into the British play-
erpiano that has marked its manufacture and
sale over here, the London factories would be
busier and the retailers would be correspond-
ingly active. At least for a time.
And the question naturally arises : Why has
the playerpiano developed so slowly in Eng-
land? Is it that the English people are less
musical? Or is it a sign to the contrary? Is
it that the manufacturers are less ingenious,
or the dealers lacking in selling energy? Or
is it that the English people of musical taste
persist in preferring to play the piano in the
old way, exercising their digits while they
exert their musical understanding and taste?
And is it true that, in the long run, the
English playerpiano, if permitted to push
aside the old-fashioned instrument, would be
more profitable to either the manufacturers
or the trade ? In the face of the fact of the
coming of the perfected player, is it evident
that the industry or the trade has flourished
more liberally, or become vastly more wealthy
than it was in the earlier days? And is the
future more filled with promise of increasing
prosperity because of the player?
In England there have been the same de-
terrent influences that over here have been
charged with hurting the piano business. Over
there they have automobiles, their roads are
good and the love of the out-of-doors has
never been less than our own. The moving
picture is as much alive over there as here,
and the radio is as much in vogue—and just
as uncertain.
What, then, has kept the hand-played piano
so far ahead of the player in the industry and
trade of England? We dislike to think that
it is a sign of a larger love of the study and
application necessary to piano playing in the"
old way. Nor do we want to believe that it is
a vastly smaller regard for what Mr. A. G.
Gulbransen has characterized as the unmusical
noise called jazz. Anyway, and whatever the
September 26, 1925.
cause, the piano remains far ahead in England
with the playerpiano tagging behind with only
five per cent of the piano output to its credit.
As an index to the uppermost thought in
governmental authority a nation's post office
direction is suggestive. Just now the provin-
cial English cancellation stamp reads in large
letters, "British Goods Are Best." Our Uncle
Sam contents himself with "Air Mail Saves
Time."
* * *
The aim of several piano manufacturers to
win the favor of school boards and similar
educational influences, is a good one. Of late
several special piano advertisements have
pointed that way, and with good results. The
future of the piano rests largely with the am-
bition of the young to actually possess the
ability to interpret music in their own way,
and by the use of their own fingers.
* * *
The Cooper patent on Player Grands was
issued in 1910. Its purpose was to protect a
plan of construction wherein the player mech-
anism would not injure the appearance of the
piano, and so that the addition of the mech-
anism would not necessitate changes in the
form .of the case. The patent is stirring a
good deal of interest just now.
* * *
Thirty years ago the daily newspapers were
invading the sheet music trade, printing "pop-
ular songs" and otherwise threatening to an-
noy the music publishers. Nothing of that
kind today. Even the big popular magazines
no longer boast of their music departments.
30 YEARS AGO IN THE TRADE
From the Files of Presto
(September 26, 1895.)
This is Geo. P. Bent's jubilee year—his twenty-fifth
year in business.
We understand on good authority that E. W. Fur-
bush is going to "cut a pie" soon, also that Geo.
Grass has known for a long time how that check-rain
came to be found.
Newman Bros, are feeling quite elated over their
success in England. A cablegram came yesterday
from Robert Cocks & Co., London, ordering a num-
ber of special styles. The export styles of Newman
Bros, are specially adapted for foreign trade and they
are already in great demand across the waters.
The new business that is coming to Presto is the
best possible proof of the place the paper holds in the
trade. This new business, as already indicated, does
not all appear in the form of regular displayed cards,
nor in special full page advertising. But its effective-
ness will be fully recognized and felt at the proper
time.
The fall trade is developing just as Presto has pre-
dicted—not a boom nor a general all around slide
into ease and prosperity, but a decided brightening
up, with promise of a good business for those who
work for it. The piano trade is at all times largely
a matter of hustle, and the man who sits idly in his
office waiting for customers is not the one who does
the business.
20 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
(From Presto, September 14, 1905.)
Bush & Gerts Piano Company, Chicago; capital
stock increased from $700,000 to $1,000,000.
A w-ealthy Englishman named Backhaus has con-
tributed five thousand francs for first prize in a piano
competition. What a dandy name for a bum piano.
The Schumann factory, at Rockford, is so busy at
present that the company finds it almost impossible
to keep up with the demand for the Schumann pianos,
and this demand is from all parts of the Union.
Charles F. Trebar sailed for Europe on Tuesday
last and his embarkation was regretted by a host of
friends made here. He left behind him a splendid
record in the world of art and trade. He will be
missed by scores of artists, business men and his old
associates in the Steinway house which he served so
long and ably.
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