MUSICAL
TIMES
PRESTO
Established
1884
Established
1881
THE AMERICAN MUSIC TRADE JOURNAL
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10 Months... $1.00
6 Months. .75 cents
BRIGHTER DAYS FOR
THE PIAN6 TRADE
Piano Business Now Breaking Through the
Last Stratum of Submergence, in the
Opinion of E. H. Story, President of
the Story & Clark Piano Company.
E. 11. Story, president of the Story & Clark Piano
Company, is in Chicago for the summer and is at
the offices of the company, 173 North Michigan ave-
nue, every day.
Mr. Story was not perturbed by the press reports
of earthquakes in his southern California neighbor-
hood, for in chatting with a Presto-Times representa-
tive on July 9 he said there was less danger from
California earthquakes than from Illinois lightning.
E.
H. STORY.
Earthquakes out there were due chiefly to the faulting
of the rocks, but one never knows when he might be
struck down by lightning.
The talk of earthquakes led on to causes for the
faulting of the piano business. Mr. Story modestly
denied having had late touch with the piano business,
but in another moment had keenly analyzed the
causes and prophesied its new uprearing and its
brighter future.
The stagnation in the business was brought on by
foolish slashing of prices and faulty manufacture,
largely, but now the second and third-hand pianos
were mostly sold oft and the trade ready to buy good,
well-made new pianos to a limited degree and would
soon be buying more of them. '
Trade Coming to the Surface.
As Mr. Story sees it, the trade is breaking through
the last stratum of submergence and will soon be out
of the ground and. able to shake the dust of slackness
from its garments and march forward along the well-
paved highways of prosperity.
Those who have stood the storms are financially
able to carry on and will do business at the old stands
with substantial dealers as their permanent custom-
ers.
Story & Clark have nothing to worry about. With
plenty of capita.1. an ample reserve, this great house
expects to continue piano manufacturing on an in-
creasing plan as changing conditions justify greater
production.
MRS.
G. H. DICKINSON DIES.
Mrs. Giles H. Dickinson, aged 53 years, wife of
Giles H. Dickinson, of the firm of Weeks & Dickin-
son, Binghamton, N. Y., music dealers, died on July
7. Mrs. Dickinson was probably best known in con-
nection with her activities in the Young Women's
Christian Association, in musical circles, and in work
for crippled children.
CHICAGO, ILL., JULY 15, 1929
*
NEW YORK
In conjunction with its tecetif regular opening
Clark Music Company, Publfc Square, Watertown,
N. Y., conducted a special piano style show. Fea-
tured in this style show was the new Gulbransen Col-
onial , baby - grand, . "home study" model William
Knabe grand,' Krakauer grand piano together with
the Ampico 'reproducing piano, Fischer modernistic
harpsichord baby grand model.
One of the special features was the presence of
music teachers, who gave lessons—the special les-
sons in piano in connection with the Clark Music
Company plan of assisting parents to determine
whether or not their children will take to piano study.
The plan provides for the rental of a brand new Gul-
bransen piano for three months period, during which
the child is given special piano instruction by com-
petent teachers. By this plan parents are not obliged
to buy a piano until after they determine whether
their children will take to piano study. At the end of
the three months' period if the parents decide to buy
the instrument, Clark's will apply the total cost of
cartage, rent, and the piano lessons against the pur-
chase price of the instrument.
It was Melville Clark, head of the Clark Music
House, Syracuse, N. Y., who interested Mr. Heffer-
man, owner of the new three million dollar Chimes
Building in Chicago. A set of Beacon Chimes has
been installed at a cost of $15,000. The Chimes Build-
ing is the third such structure to be built in the
United States and so equipped, the other two being
in New York City.
A charter has been granted to the Woodward
Music Store, Inc., of Fulton, N. Y. The capital stock
will consist of four hundred shares of common stock
without par value. Directors all residents of Fulton,
and their stockholdings are: William F. Woodward,
and Leland H. Williams, 199 shares and Alden M.
Hurd, two shares. The Woodward store is one of
the most completely equipped and stocked niusic
stores in this city, and is located at 61 South First
street.
v •
Winter & Co. Getting Trade.
W. G. Heller," president of Winter & Co., 849-863
East 141st street, New York, keeps busy these days
as the head of. .that piano manufacturing corporation.
His men are getting their share of orders on the road.
The reputation of 'Winter & Co. pianos for beauty
and tone qualities combine as a magnetic power to
draw customers toward these fine pianos. >_j ,.; -
Radio for Bettering Speech. , •: *; "o"
That radio will be the means of bettering speech
in this country is a hobby with Basil Sydney, an actor
now busy in New York. "Make good English fash-
ionable and you will solve the problem of speech in
America," says Mr. Sydney. "The radio can do it.
Radio is such a factor in American life that the obli-
gations of those responsible for it must not be under-
estimated. The ideal of good speech should underlie
everything that goes on the air. An announcer may
have excellent diction, and still fall far short of the
standard,of good speech.
"The radio must make people want to speak well.
It can be done by the same direct and indirect sug-
gestion that makes them want to drive the latest
car, or read the latest book. In time it might promote
nation-wide speaking contests, like those now being
carried on in every town and village in Ireland, mod-
eled after the Welsh singing festivals."
Follow Music for Happiness.
Henry C. Lomb, of New York, president of the
National Musical Instrument and Accessories Manu-
facturers, said recently:
"The music industry has its own great opportunity.
It must recognize, as it apparently has not yet, that
its music is the one great agency that leads to the
ultimate and lasting happiness of humankind. It must
appoint itself the custodian of human happiness. It
must see to it that the privilege that the American
people now enjoy of having greater leisure than has
ever fallen to the lot of any ether people, shall not
be abused; that this leisure be not wasted in the
pursuit of empty, fleeting pleasures but is employed
in a way to bring lasting happiness and real content-
ment. And that way lies through participation in
Issued Semi-Monthly
First and Third Saturdays
music, in the playing by the individual himself of a
musical instrument.
"This is no idle dream based on purely mercenary
motives. It is the doctrine of real service to a people,
because any business, any industry that does not
render true service in the best and highest sense, or
iill a legitimate need, that only takes but does not
give, has no right to exist. Among all the industries
of this nation, there is none that could render a
greater service, confer a greater boon upon the Amer-
ican people, than the music industry. Recognizing the
greatness of music as the liberator from the coarse
and destructive tendencies that have cursed mankind
for centuries, playing as it does upon the heatrstrings
of a nation, it can utilize its facilities to mould and
shape the course of that nation. It can, to its own
advantage, make itself an indispensable link in the
chain of national advancement. What higher aim,
what greater advantage can any industry ever hope
to have than this?
Our Trade with South America.
Antonio Salaroli, a banker from Buenos Aires, who
was at the Hotel Pennsylvania, New York, last week,
believes that within ten years South America will be
doing four times more business with this country
than at the present time. There will be at least
twenty steamers carrying passengers between the
two Americas, he predicted, and a much better
understanding between the nations. Mr.. Saroli is
also a colonization promoter. He says that the
Argentine is fallow soil for American business enter-
prise, as the United States' products are generally
preferred by his countrymen.
Actionless Centers.
In chatting this week with a New York piano trav-
eler who has just returned from an extensive trip,
Presto-Times correspondent, was surprised to learn
that there are still some sleepy dealers who "do not
care whether school keeps or not." And that there
are some towns where inefficiency and irresolution
characterize all classes of the people. Go into a house
late at night, they are all lounging about, too lazy to
go to bed; go in the morning, they are all yawning
in bed, too lazy to get up. If they get hold of any
money," such people are more apt to squander it in
speculation than to invest it in regular industry. They
seem like strange'characters to. a man from hustling,
bustling-.New York, yet he seems like a strange char-
acter to them, and they are always asking him,
".what's your hurry?"- They, are not given to deducing
effects from causes; in fact, they don't realize that
their own indifference and; inaction cause their de-
plorable condition. It is hard for a traveling sales-
man to get piano dealers of that shiftless class to
make a resolution that they will not falter until they
have effected an entire reformation of their system.
To put a little life into such fellows is not meddling
on the part of the piano drummer if he can prove to
them that idleness is pain. The traveling representa-
tive may be distressed at the apparent failure of his
efforts with such men at his first try-out on them,
but as a discouragement has no permanent place in
his mind, he will find on a second call a few months
later that his suggestions have brought a greater
measure of success than could have been hoped for.
Selling pianos is no visionary enterprise; it requires
activity and the application of common sense. It is
very seldom that a good piano man is obliged to
send out an S. O. S.
Television in Color.
Television in color was demonstrated last week by
research engineers in New York, as the United
States flag and other objects gave evidence that the
latest radio "eye" was sensitive to any color. The
television theatre is in the auditorium of the Bell
Laboratories at 463 West street, New York, and is
under the supervision of Dr. Herbert Ives, research
engineer, who a year ago this month introduced a
radio camera that pictured outdoor scenes for a tele-
vision audience. The great obstacle in the way of
applying colored television to radio is that it requires
so much space in the ether—three radio channels 20,-
000 cycles wide.
E. W. Furbush, widely known piano man whose
headquarters were formerly in Chicago but who has
been absent from the city for seven or eight months,
has returned and is now residing at the Belmont
Hotel, 3156 Sherdan Road.
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