PRESTO-TIMES
The American Miuic Trade Weekly
Published Every Saturday at 417 South Dearborn
Street, Chicago, Illinois.
C. A. DANIELL and FRANK D. ABBOTT •
scribed. It is an instrument into which the
music lover possessed of the inspirational ap-
preciation of good music, may easily find com-
plete expression. It is an instrument that
would live even were all other forms of the
piano to be forgotten.
• 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, 1S^.
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.
Payment is not accepted for matter printed in the
editorial or news columns of Presto-Times.
Where half-tones are made the actual cost of pro-
duction will be charged if of commercial character,
or other than strictly news interest.
When electrotypes are sent for publication it is
requested that their subjects and senders be carefully
indicated.
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, JANUARY 1, 1927.
The last form of Presto-Times goes to press
at 11 a. m. Thursday. Any news transpiring
after that hour cannot be expected in the cur-
rent issue. Nothing received at the office that
is not strictly news of importance can have
attention after 9 a. m. on Thursday. If they
concern the interests of manufacturers or
dealers such items will appear the week follow-
ing. Copy for advertising designed for the
current issue must reach the office not later
than Wednesday noon of each week.
THE FOOT-PLAYER PIANO
No observing piano man can doubt that the
foot-operated player is coming' back, and at
a rapid rate. It would be strange were it
otherwise, as any one who understands Amer-
ican character must appreciate.
For there has never been any other form of
instrument that fills the requirements of the
unskilled music lover to such fullness and sat-
isfaction. No other instrument can so easily
and readily interpret the dreams and visions
of the master composers, or the popular ones,
for that matter. To be sure, the reproducing
piano is not now under consideration. That is
the final attainment of musical re-creation and
can not be likened to anything else. But we
have now in mind the instrument that is with-
in easy financial reach oJ the great family of
music lovers.
The foot-player demands no great expendi-
ture. It is not exceptional as an investment.
And yet it has within itself the gratification of
the highest instincts and most refined tastes.
No man with the love of good music, but
lacking in the skill to reproduce it without
mechanical help, can hope to possess anything
else to compare with the foot-player. And no
student of the piano can have any other means
of example of how the best music may be
played—an invaluable imitation aid—to com-
pare with the foot-player, which is, in a larger
sense, controlled by the operator.
This is the reason of the come-back of the
foot-played piano, as it is often ineptly de-
TRADE PAPER TOPICS
January 1, 1927.
WHAT WE WERE DOING
And Saying When the Trade
Was Young
45 YEARS AGO IN THE TIMES
(From Musical Times, Jan. 1, 1881.)
We haven't a word to say about the music
"Confessions of a Musical Journalist" may be
trade papers, more than that they are too all The
right enough, but a musical journalist with nothing
prone to the printing of silly stuff. They to confess is what we want to know.
the new factory of the Bridgeport Organ
seem to lose sight of their purpose on the Co. When
is completed it will be one of the most imposing
earth. We have a notion that a trade paper establishments devoted to musical industry in the
is, first of all, designed to promote the line of world.
Messrs. William Tonk & Bros., 47 Maiden Lane,
business by which it is sustained and to en- New York, sent beautiful and appropriate New
Year cards to their customers. Musical Times ac-
lighten the devotees by w r hich it is read.
knowledges the compliment.
On a recent occasion the Weber agents in Montreal
It isn't worth while particularizing closely.
forcibly but unsuccessfully resisted the entrance of a
Last week, one of the awkward trade paper Decker Brothers Grand into Queen's Hall, of which
essays was based upon what some other they are lessees.
We were recently shown _a newly-designed organ
equally stupid writer had said about "bananas," case
in the style of a complete dressing bureau.
as in some way applied to piano problems. Of There were the drawers on either side, the mirror and
course, no one knows the aim of a length) r all the other "modern conveniences."
discussion on such a subject. No sane per-
son, least of all one busy in the piano business
could be expected to read it. But the theme as
(From Presto, January 2, 1901.)
well as its treatment was almost necessarily
The old year is gone, and once more we voice the
oft repeated wish, "Happy New Year to all!"
silly, as the subject suggests.
The John Church Co.'s lease of the building at
Another trade paper devoted more than a 258-260 Wabash avenue, Chicago, which dates from
May 1st next, is for a term of five years from that
page of space to an immature discussion of date.
piano factories that had expired during the
Here's to the music-trade editors, during the year
1902. May their "puffs" not all end in smoke nor
past ten or more years. The list presented— of
their "roasts" in burnt cinders. Remember the edi-
for what purpose no one could tell—unless as tors; they also have troubles of their own.
is with sincere regret that we have to announce
a warning to other piano manufacturers—just the It death
from heart failure, superinduced by pneu-
twenty concerns some of which are really still monia, of Frank Hutchinson Peavey, multi-million-
aire grain operator of Minneapolis, and the largest
in existence.
stockholder in The Cable Company, Chicago.
The list was too small to be in any way im-
The Haddorf Piano Co., of Rockford, 111., incor-
pressive. No industry of any consequence poration papers of which were recently filed with
the secretary of state, is rapidly completing its organ-
could expect a mortality of fewer than twenty ization. As yet, 'the concern has not been fully or-
in more than as many years. But, as a mat- ganized but everything is expected to be in good
working order at an early date.
ter of fact, there have been thirty piano in-
dustries wiped out within the past quarter
25 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
century. And even so great a numerical loss
(From Presto, Jan. 1, 1891.)
signifies little to the stability of the piano bus-
The square pianoforte has almost ceased to be
iness. On the contrary, it may imply a gain. manufactured; not more than 100 have been turned
during the year. For several years past the de-
For factory numbers do not afford an estimate out
mand for this style of instrument has been growing
of the productivity, or substantial character, less and less, uprights and grands have taken its
place.
in any live industry.
By a close estimate, 78,500 pianos and 135,800 cabi-
But it is the trade paper's discussion as from net organs were manufactured in the United States
the year 1890, representing, in round numbers, a
the point of view that suggests a desire to be- in
net value of $1,500,000 and $700,000 respectively. Of
little the industry in which it is itself engaged, this product, Chicago's nine piano factories produced
12,500 pianos; her nine or ten organ factories, made
that must challenge the fitness of the discus- 47,700
organs, or considerably more than one third
sion. It is an unripe point of view that per- of the total output of all the factories in the country,
mits any commercial publication to dwarf in- some forty in number.
One remarkable fact about the firm of Lyon &
dustry for no better purpose than to "draw a Healy,
and one which no other music house in Chi-
veil of charity over the event." And especially cago can boast of, is that through the twenty-six
years of prosperity, the firm's name has remained
since in the entire list there is not one the the
same. Last year the firm became a corporation,
closing of which seems to have been caused by although retaining the old style name, with a capital-
ization of $500,000. T-he officers are P. J. Healy,
anything suggesting lack of principle or of president;
Charles N. Post, vice-president; Robert
questionable character, with respect to the in- B. Gregory, treasurer; John. P. Byrne, secretary. Mr.
as is well known, is now a member of the
dustry in general. The piano industry remains Lyon,
firm of Lyon, Potter & Co.
one of the productive, progressive and am-
THE RIGHT START.
bitious the world over. We might produce a
No matter what the end in view,
list of piano industries now obsolete but whose
No matter what you aim to do,
withdrawal was due to satiated ambitions of
Results depend on how you start
No less than how you play your part;
the owners, or to death, following which there
It's certain that the journey's end
were no successors to continue.
Must largely on the start depend;
The road that's run into the West
The trade papers can never boast of their
To travel East can not be best.
"bigness," either physically or in influence,
The locomotive on the rails
until they display better judgment than to
That starts the right way never fails
waste their space on matters the only end of
To reach the place for which it's due
If all the rules are carried through;
which may be to disparage, or hold up as an
But should it start, and then turn back
"awful example," the line of industry by which
Upon some other, elsebound track,
There's none can estimate the cost
they are sustained.
35 YEARS AGO IN THE TRADE
Nor compensate what may be lost.
The plan of national piano publicity is fine.
The greater the piano the better the results,
and there are pianos whose fame is such that
they alone present the best possible slogan in
any store.
And so how oft the crash of fate,
Whose warnings often come too late,
Might never fall if in our plan,
We'd judged them right ere we began; ""
Life is the road and trade the train
Bound for success or pulled in vain;
So as the milestone glides from sight
Let's start the Happy New Year right.
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