Presto

MUSICAL
TIMES
PRESTO
Established
1881
Established
1884
THE AMERICAN MUSIC TRADE WEEKLY
10 Cents a Copy
CHICAGO, SATURDAY, JUNE 30, 1928
$2 The Year
TOURNAMENTS IN SALES PROMOTION
Perpetuation of Interest of Parents and Children in Piano Study Is Admirable Purpose of
Earnest Groups of Piano Men in Many Places Throughout the Country
DETROIT PLANS FOR
1929 PIANO CONTEST
Great Success of the Greater Detroit 1928
Piano Playing Contest Which Closed Last
Week Prompts More Widespread Efforts
for the Next Event.
The definite 1929 piano contest plan is now in
preparation for printing by the Detroit Board of
Education to be distributed to all officials and teach-
ers on opening of the fall semester, as is done each
year for the other two school contests. All cities of
Michigan are welcome to join with the twenty-one
towns already committed and will be extended every
co-operation so long as they conform to the same
rules of procedure and judging and assume their own
expense in competing in the semi-finals in the Detroit
Metropolitan area.
The leading civic and musical organizations have
expressed a desire to assume an active sponsorship
and have been extended the honor and privilege of
furnishing the prizes for 1929. However, it has been
deemed desirable that the Detroit Music Trades
Association continue to supervise the active man-
agement with the Detroit Times as sponsoring news-
paper.
School Officials Act.
As a result of this convincing evidence of the
popularity of the piano, the basic musical instrument,
a definite promise has been volunteered by the De-
troit school officials to immediately investigate Group
Instruction for experimental introduction next fall.
The Detroit piano dealers freely express themselves
as seeing very strong evidence of a revival of public
interest in the piano as evinced by this propitious
trend, and are entertaining new hopes for the future.
The Finals.
The Grand Finals of the Greater Detroit 1928
Piano Playing Contest took place Tuesday evening,
June 19, in the Fine Arts Civic Auditorium before
a high class, enthusiastic audience of 2,000 people.
There was 21,000 entries from 21 towns, 504 schools
(110 parochial) divided into 141 districts, contesting.
In addition to receiving the figurative laurel
wreaths as the city's most accomplished juvenile pian-
ists, each winner was presented with a grand piano,
the gift of the Detroit Music Trades Association,
under whose auspices the contests are held. Thomas
Boston was director of the contest and Frank J. Bay-
ley chairman of the association's committee in charge
of the activity.
The judges for the final contest were: Lewis Rich-
ards, head of the music department of the Michigan
State College; Mrs. Therese von Nostitz Mueller,
pianist and teacher of Bay City, and Albert Lock-
wood, head of the piano department of the University
School of Music in Ann Arbor. In the introductory
address Mr. Bayley said:
Mr. Bayley Speaks.
"The object of this movement is to stimulate and
promote even a greater interest and knowledge of
music, through the basic instrument, the piano. We
are more and more coming to a realization of the
fact that music is even more important in arousing
and developing those finer qualities in the human
than any other study and that music is quite as
essential in one's education as arithmetic, reading
or writing.
"Scarcely a musician or composer of note the past
one hundred and fifty years but who has had at least
a good working knowledge of the pianoforte. The
piano has a greater range than a symphony orchestra
and all compositions are first reduced to and worked
out on the piano. The piano, being able to produce
the four major harmonies simultaneously, is thus
complete in itself and because of this distinction is
the solo instrument of the artist and the instrument
of complement to the voice and all other instruments.
It thus is the common, the one instrument used
almost universally in the production of all music.
Without the piano or some one to play it, we are
lost."
PIANO CLASSES FORMED BY
H. ACKERMAN PIANO CO.
Progressive Marion, Ohio, Music House Provides
Facilities for a Hundred Pupils at a Time.
The H. Ackerman Piano Co., Marion, O., has
leased the second floor of the Hughes Building on
South Main street adjoining the firm's piano parlors
to the north.
Starting next Tuesday this room, in addition to
being used as a display room for pianos, will be util-
ized for a ten-weeks' course of free piano instruction
which is being offered to all children between the
ages of six and fourteen years who have had no pre-
vious piano instruction.
These classes are rapidly filling Ackerman Co. offi-
cials state and as there are no facilities for instruction
of more than 100 pupils, 20 in a class, the enrollments
will cease after this number has been reached. The
pupil does not need a piano at home for practice in
taking advantage of this training course, it was
stated.
CHICAGO DEALER STARTS
GROUP PIANO CLASSES
The Hyman H. Raieff Piano Company, Fine Arts
Building, Announces Attractive Study Scheme.
The Hyman H. Raieff Piano Company, 410 South
Michigan avenue, Chicago, representing the Bush &
Lane Piano Co., has organized a system of piano
classes for both children and adults, to be conducted
in a class piano studio fitted up and equipped for that
special work. With the co-operation of the Bush &
Lane Piano Co., the company is offering these piano
lessons for the low tuition fee of $2.50 for a full term
of ten one-hour lessons, given by a certified expert
teacher.
Enrollments in the classes have been begun and
will continue throughout the full school year of four
terms of ten lessons each, one lesson per week, pay-
able one term in advance—$2.50. Lessons include
harmony, composition, sight reading rhythm, transposi-
tion and proper technique, posture and hand position.
A NEW ENGLAND TRAVELER.
Robert L. Kapp, traveler in New England for Hal-
lett & Davis and Jacob Doll & Sons, said business
had been very good up to June in his territory.
There had been a little hesitancy in buying in the
sections where textile workers had been on strike,
but Mr. Kapp modified that restriction even by saying
that trade had begun to come back and he expected
it back a good deal stronger in the fall.
WORKING FOR WORLD'S FAIR.
The racial groups of Chicago will hold a get-to-
gether buffet dinner on Monday evening, July 2, at
the La Salle Hotel in furtherance of plans for the
Chicago World's Fair Centennial celebration in 1933.
The coordination of nationalities is one of the pro-
motional means towards success of the great under-
taking.
AMBITIOUS CONTEST
SCHEME IN CHICAGO
Movement Among Active Men in Music Trade
There Is for Perpetuation of the Tourna-
ment in a Progressive Form Appealing
to All Phases of the Industry.
Out of the Second Annual Chicago Piano Playing
Tournament just closed has grown a new, definite
movement to bring about a National Piano Playing
Tournament, with the winners of other cities com-
peting against the winner of Chicago. According to
present plans National Piano Playing Tournaments
are to be conducted each year until 1933 when there
will be an International Piano Playing Tournament
with the school children of all nations invited to par-
ticipate. This new step, of interest to manufacturers,
merchants and musicians everywhere in the United
States, was inaugurated at a meeting held Thursday,
June 21, at the Great Northern Hotel, attended by
members of the Chicago Piano Playing Tournament
Committee. At this meeting a resolution was adopted
in which the Chicago piano man issued a challenge to
the winners of other cities to compete for national
honors. This resolution reads as follows:
The Challenge.
"Whereas, the second annual Chicago Piano Play-
ing Tournament has ended with a record of success
and unprecedented interest in piano playing on the
part of the people of Chicago and,
"Whereas, this city feels that it has in it a child
champion, one who can successfully compete against
the champion pianists of similar age picked in other
cities of the United States and,
"Whereas, the piano men of Chicago feel that Na-
tional Piano Playing competition will serve as further
inspiration to the child pianists of Chicago and will
be of benefit to the piano industry of the L T nited
States.
"Therefore Be It Resolved, that the Chicago Piano
Playing Tournament Committee issues a challenge,
on behalf of its winner of the present year, to the
winners chosen in piano playing contests conducted
in other cities under similar rules and conditions, to
meet in Chicago at a convenient date in open compe-
tition, for the purpose of choosing the champion
child pianist of the United States, and a further invi-
tation to the cities of all nations in which Piano
Playing Tournaments are conducted, to meet in In-
ternational competition during the Chicago World's
Fair in 1933,
"And Be It Further Resolved, that this committee
favors the broadcasting of his challenge in every rea-
sonable manner and pledges its interest and co-
operation in making a national piano tournament in
Chicago possible if the plan meets with the response
of other cities."
Incentive to Dealers.
The new movement is an added incentive for local
piano dealers to get together and organize tourna-
ments in their cities, knowing that beyond their own
local effort will be the national tournament in which
the winners of their and other cities will participate.
The National Piano Playing Tournament will co-
ordinate the splendid work, the splendid influence of
the local contest. Piano playing will become a na-
tional topic. The child students will be the subject
of particular interest on the part of musicians and
music schools everywhere. Private music teachers
and music conservatories will be inspired to do their
very best work in developing child pianists. There
will be a great goal to shoot at.
The committee makes a strong plea to the dealer,
the piano manufacturer, the trade papers, the music
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