Presto

PRESTO-TIMES
The American Music Trade Weekly
cu bvcry Saturday at 417 South UcarDoin
Street, Lhicago, Illinois.
C. A. D A N I E L L and F R A N K D. ABBOTT -
Editors
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SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1927.
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at 11 a. m. Thursday. Any news transpiring
after that hour cannot be expected in the cur-
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MUSIC AND SCIENCE
the hurtful custom, according to an observant
music trade traveler. In the desire to make
the sale, the huckstering dealers will sacrifice
the necessary profit regardless of the impres-
sion it creates. The fact that their action de-
stroys confidence in the store in the minds of
the people does not seem to matter.
* * *
Music was used centuries ago for curing dis-
KNOWLEDGE OF COSTS
ease and relieving insomnia, said Dr. Agnes
Music trade paper editors occasionally hear Savill in a recent lecture at the Institute of
things from dealers or read them in their let- Hygiene, London, on "The Influence of the
ters that help the belief that many retailers Higher Emotions on Health." It was an
lack information about the cost of producing agency for linking man up to a whole gamut
pianos. That is they do not know essential of high emotions, and with the introduction of
things about the piano materials and the proc- wireless and phonographs there was no excuse
esses required in building them into finished for people not cultivating it, he said. There
instruments. Pianos might "jest grow" like was nothing like music for unravelling and set-
Topsy, for all they know or care. The ele- ting at peace all states of tension. The entire
ment of cost is negligible when they consider attitude towards life of a despondent or de-
a purchase. Every factory at some time or pressed individual could be changed to gaiety
other gets offers for big or little lots that and buoyancy by suitable music.
would be laughable if they were not deplor-
able.
It might even be well for the National Piano
Manufacturers' Association to provide printed
information about piano manufacturing costs
to dealers ignorant of necessary general in-
HENRY DREHER'S FRIENDS.
formation. Happily the ignorant ones are in
Few
men
in the piano trade have as large a list of
the minority, but that they exist is true. How friends as Henry
Dreher, head of the Dreher Piano
near does even the average piano dealer come Co., Cleveland, and Mr. Dreher's contacts have the
to having a fair idea of the actual cost to the human character that fosters enduring friendships.
program of the convention in Cleveland does
manufacturer of the cheapest instrument on The
not assign him official activity, but as chairman of
his floor? How much does the average dealer the Cleveland Golf Committee he automatically be-
suppose is the sum that represents the dif- comes one of the chief glad-hand we'eomers of the
ference, in actual cost, between his cheapest occasion.
Mr. Dreher is considered an ideal listener and the
and his best piano?
attentive manner in which he follows a monologue
We'll say it's a grand piano that is to be is very flattering. But his close friends like him best
when he dispenses an earful himself. That's a pleas-
considered, and that it is one the dealer thinks ure
they expect when he presides at the dinner at
he should get at a price to permit of his re- the Cedarhurst Country Club at the conclusion of
tailing it at less than he sold an upright for the golf tournament on the first day of the conven-
six years, or more, ago. How much does he tion next week.
* * *
suppose such a grand actually costs the manu-
HARRY T. SITE OBSERVES.
facturer to produce ? Ignorance of piano costs
Harry T. Sipe, general traveling ambassador for
emboldens the dealer in silly expectations to Adam Schaaf, Inc., Chicago, who has been making
buy "good grands" at medium grade upright an extensive Pacitic coast trip, is now traveling
homeward. He was in Colorado last week and
prices.
ducing piano and the radio receiving sets, while
appreciated, are viewed as things expected.
But when we stop to think, we know that the
results of scientific research accumulated in
many fields during the last twenty years or
so are the basis and source of these recent
marvelous advances.
JUST ABOUT SOME
MUSIC TRADE FOLK
Musical instruments have been notably de-
veloped and their uses extended in the prog-
ress of study of vibrations. Developing" knowl-
edge of mechanical vibrations has helped ad-
vance in electrical researches ; and vice versa,
methods that have been developed for study-
ing and controlling electrical vibrations have
most remarkably advanced knowledge of all
sorts of mechanically vibrating systems. Elec-
trical men have learned in this way new facts
about the diaphragms of telephone transmit-
ters, or those of loud speakers and phono-
graphs. By the application of scientific meth-
ods they have determined complex laws gov-
erning vibrations of columns of air such as you
find in the horn of a loud speaker or phono-
graph, and they have learned how to set up in
horns vibrations that will carry to the ears of
a listener all the notes and tones necessary for
the faithful reproduction of any sound of
music or speech. From fundamental studies in
telephone laboratories there have developed a
new art and a new technique.
The methods of scientific research have re-
placed the purely experimental methods of
earlier days. In these modern times one amaz-
ing development follows another so rapidly
that we are beginning to view them as the
commonplace occurrences of our normal life.
We generally accept them without a great
deal of thought as to how they were brought
about, or as to why these results had not been
obtained long before. The phonograph, repro-
September 10, 1927
The fall business season promises to be good,
according to a survey of the Chicago Tribune,
and the third quarter of this year, which w r ill
close on September 30, has witnessed a num-
ber of favorable developments since mid-
summer which gives promise of quickening the
tempo of commerce and of giving to it a
stronger tone than it has had so far this year.
"From which it should not be concluded that
trade has been poor," the review reads. "It
hasn't. In some lines sales have never been
larger, and certainly business can't be so bad
generally when one corporation is able to sell
$650,619,000 worth of luxury articles at a net
profit of $129,000,000" (referring, of course, to
General Motors).
* * *
Simplified practice cuts out waste. Less
waste means lower cost. Lower costs mean
lower selling prices. Lower prices mean larger
sales. Larger sales mean more work for the
factory, continuous operation, continuous em-
ployment, steady earnings, continued Inlying,
and therefore more sales !
*
•
*
A l t h o u g h many so-called neighborhood
stores have the advantage over the larger
stores in the center of the bigger cities in the
matter of overhead, they nullify it by con-
tinuing the old custom of huckstering. Many
small stores in country towns also continue
noted several of the high elevations the state is
remarkable for.
"Scenery affects me just as humans do. Among
people there are Pike's Peaks—extremes of frosty
reserve. You may try to get close to them with a
pikespeakorbust ambition, but you only get a chill
for your pains," writes Mr. Sipe.
"On the other hand there are frank fellows like
wide, open, breezy plains and sunny California val-
leys who evoke your warmth of feeling because they
dispense it themselves."
* * *
A GEORGE Q. CHASE VIEW.
George Q. Chase, president of Kohler & Chase,
San Francisco, is an enthusiastic proponent of piano
classes with an encouragingly low fee, but in en-
couraging the uses by the public of the classes
organized in the Kohler & Chase store, the induce-
ments are equally directed to adults and the young
folks. Mr. Chase believes that there are a great many
grown people responsive to the invitation to join a
piano class, considering it an opportunity to renew
ambition interrupted earlier in l'fe. He considers the
class announcement which does not invite adults falls
short of its purposes. Every adult, too, enrol'ed in
a piano class is not only a possible piano prospect,
but a probable one from the hour of the first lesson.
* * *
SHIRLEY WALKER'S MISSION.
Another Californian who sees the advantages of
piano playing contests and is free to express his
beliefs is Shiriey Walker, president of the Northern
California Music Trades Association. He has favored
the fostering of the contests and his action gives an
official character to his promotional efforts.
In a tour of northern California, Oregon and
Washington which he interrupted this week to jour-
ney to Cleveland to attend the convention of the
Ohio state association, he inaugurated movements
for piano playing contests in many places. Mr,
Walker convinces dealers with the effectiveness of
the contest for increasing sales by showing them
actual figures of results in sales from them.
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