MUSICAL
TIMES
PRESTO
Established
1884
Established
1881
THE AMERICAN MUSIC TRADE JOURNAL
10 Cents a
I Year
Copy
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10 Months. ..$1.00
6 Months. .75 cents
NEW YORK CROWDED
WITH SHOPPERS
There Are Always Hosts of People with
Money to Spend at Holiday Time, for
Pianos, Radio, Gewgaws or
Necessities.
To see the New York crowds surging on Sixth
avenue, Broadway, 34th street, 42nd street and Fifth
avenue and shopping for Christmas presents, one
would think there had never been any such thing as
a stock slump. This great city is anything and
everything to all men, according to the individual
viewpoint. Some call it a feminine city, yet it is
anything but effeminate or effete. Some call it a crim-
inal city, yet it manages to punish its major criminals
in the main.
It is a city full of the inquiring, the curious; yet
it does not practice meddling inquisitiveness, probably
through fear of being considered unsophisticated. In
spots it is very old in its quaintness and in other
spots it is as much up to date as Chicago, Los An-
geles, Detroit, Minneapolis, St. Louis or Dallas. In
the total volume of its business it is a giant.
It has had some winter; 5,200 shovelers tackled the
snow there last week.
Christmas Tree for Animals.
New York is a religious city, a charitable commu-
nity, if such a vast town can be alluded to as a com-
munity. It keeps every holiday and is hunting for
more holidays. The habit of its people of taking
vacations is lengthening their lives and giving them
something to look forward to. It even sets up a
Christmas tree for animals. The eighth Christmas
tree celebration for animals will be held December
24, at 2 p. m., in front of the Humane Society, 44
Seventh avenue. Last year thousands of children and
drivers visited the Christmas tree and with their pets
received presents of dog discuits, salmon, collars,
leashes, dog and cat baskets, soap, etc. Drivers got
a pail with a Christmas dinner for their horses, as
well as a blanket and other articles. The children and
drivers also received suitable gifts for themselves.
Orchestral Scholarships.
Orchestral scholarships sponsored by the Philhar-
monic Society were offered again this year to about
seventy students attending the New York city high
and junior high schools, and the first lesson was
conducted at the High School of Commerce late in
the afternoon of December 3. George H. Gartlan is
director of music in the city schools.
Knabe 92nd Anniversary.
It is natural that the Metropolitan Opera be fea-
tured in the New York celebration of the historic
Knabe 92nd Anniversary, since the Knabe is the offi-
cial piano of the Metropolitan Opera Company and
has long been used and endorsed by its artists. Dur-
ing Metropolitan Opera week, Knabe introduced eight
new Knabe and Knabe-Ampico baby grands.
Lead Public Away from Jazz.
A campaign to lead the public away from jazz and
in the direction of melody is being started by the
Radio Corporation of America and two music pub-
lishing houses.
An anti-jazz organization, called the Radio Music
Company, was incorporated at Albany on December 4
with a capitalization of $6,800,000. Its organizers are
the music publishing houses of Carl Fisher, Inc., and
Leo Feist, Inc., and the National Broadcasting Com-
pany, a Radio Corporation subsidiary. The new
organization will be linked with the phonograph in-
dustry through the Victor-Radio Corporation and
with the talking pictures through Radio-Keith-Or-
pheum.
The Bechstein and Debussy.
A historic piano, a Bechstein, arrived in New York
on the Steamship De Grasse, on her last arrival in
this port. It is an instrument w T hich was specially
made by the firm of C. Bechstein of Berlin, Germany
for the composer Debussy, and upon which that noted
French composer and, incidentally, fine pianist, com-
CHICAGO, ILL., DECEMBER 15, 1929
posed some of his most famous compositions. This
historic instrument is now on exhibition at the Wan-
amaker piano warerooms in the first gallery of the
Wanamaker building, the Wanamaker company being
the representatives in New York of the' Bechstein
piano. It is planned to give a series of recitals at
WanamakerV in the near future, featuring various
works that Debussy composed on this instrument.
Buys Three Publishing Houses.
Warner Brothers Pictures corporation recently pur-
chased outright the music publishing houses of
Harms, Inc., ,M. Witmark & Sons, and J. H. Remick
& Co. in order to obtain control of their copyrighted
hits"
, ." •
Prima Donna Dies.
Mrs. Ida Brooks Hunt, who in 1908 was the prima
donna of Victor Herbert's "Algeria" at the old Broad-
way Theater, New York, died in Brooklyn, Decem-
ber 8. She w r as the widow of Dr. G. Edwin Hunt,
an Indianapolis surgeon. Her last appearance was in
"Robin Hood" as Dame Durden on November 18.
Activity at Steinway's.
There is great activity at Steinway & Sons head-
quarters, Steinway Hall, 109 West 57th street, New
York, these pre-Christmas days. Many special instru-
ments are being delivered—specially designed pianos
in fine cases—and others are being exhibited in the
warerooms de luxe of the company. At the Stein-
way factories the departments are working at prac-
tically full capacity most of the time. Everything
about the Steinway establishments bears the appear-
ance of being at least normal, and the inside informa-
tion is that this year is better than many another year
has been.
Music Dealers Handling Radio.
In an advertisement of the places where Edison
radio is sold in New York and suburban cities there
are many piano stores and other musical instrument
establishments mentioned, including, in Manhattan:
Alba Music Shop, Dyckman Music Shop, Goldsmith
Music Shop, Marconi Brothers, J. McCreery & Co.,
Reubert Piano Company, Surma Book & Music Co.,
and Weser Brothers. In the Bronx: Charming Phone
Company, Inc., Joseph Mancusi, Nardone Piano Com-
pany and West Farms Grafonola Shop. In Brook-
lyn: Brody's Music Shop, Bushwick Music Store,
Ferm's Music House, Fifth Avenue Grafonola Shop,
Flatbush Piano Company, Ideal Piano Company, and
Parkinson & Irvine. In Westbury: The Defarrari
Music Shop. In Newark: The Lauter Piano Com-
pany and Griffith Piano Company. In Jersey City:
The Brunton Piano Company. In Passaic: The Para-
dise Piano Company. In Bloomfield: The Jersey
Music Company.
CHICAGO CHILDREN
SHOW MUSICAL TALENT
Even Seven-Year-Old Little Folks Entertained Dig-
nitaries of the City.
Proof that music is a civilizing influence was given
in Chicago on December 12. The third semi-annual
civic assembly, which convened on that day at Or-
chestra Hall to show Chicago what the schools are
accomplishing in the way of musical education, par-
ticularly in piano playing, convinced 2,000 parents that
their children, if not more civilized than in the past,
are at least better musicians.
Samuel Insull, industrial magnate and patron of
the Chicago Civic Opera, made an address to the
children in the course of which he said:
"I never had your opportunities, but I can only
advise you to make the most of them; and choose
for your goal the mountaintop rather than the valley."
Mr. Insull went on to say that this applied in music
or in any other profession. "But speaking of music,"
he said, "I know of no other country where music
has developed so far in recent years, and I know
of no city that has given so freely of its time and
money as Chicago. Our opera and symphony orches-
tra are educating adults and children alike."
The slowest of us cannot but admit that the world
moves.—Phillips.
Issued Semi-Monthly
I iis( and Fifteenth of Kuch Month
WONDERS OF
THE OSISO
Musicians Can Now See as Well as Hear Their
Own Music by Reflected Light Upon
Revolving Mirrors Which Pro-
ject It Upon a Screen.
By means of a new device, known as the projec-
tion osiso, it is now possible for singers, speakers,
actors, pianists, violinists, and other vocal and instru-
mental artists to see the sound waves they produce
dance visibly across a screen, just as they dance in-
visibly through the air to the ears of their audience.
This device was developed by C. Anderson, engineer
of the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Com-
pany, Newark, N. J., in collaboration with William
Braid White, acoustic engineer of the American Steel
& Wire Company, a subsidiary of the U. S. Steel
Corporation, who is using it in a series of studies of
A LARGE PICTURE OF A SOUND WAVE TAKEN BY
THE PROJECTION OSISO AS IT WOULD APPEAR
THROUGH A SCREEN FKOM A SLIDE. THIS IS A
TRACING OK A SOUND AVAVIO MADE BY RUDOLPH
GANZ AT THE PIANO IN THE ACOUSTIC LABORA-
TORY OF THE AMERICAN STEEL &. WIRE COMPANY.
musical sounds at Steinway Hall with the coopera-
tion of Messrs. Steinway & Sons. It consists of sev-
eral different parts. The sound waves are caught by
a microphone, which can be placed in any convenient
location, and are conveyed electrically to an osiso,
which consists essentially of a delicately suspended
mirror that is oscillated in unison with the received
sound waves. A beam of light, directed on this mir-
ror, is reflected by it to a system of revolving mir-
rors, which, in turn, project it upon a screen where
it can be viewed by any number of people.
When all is quiet around the microphone, a long
white line is seen on the screen, but as soon as any
kind of a sound reaches the sensitive electrical ear,
the white line on the screen is thrown into waves,
much as a clothes line is thrown into waves when its
RUDOLPH GANZ AT THE PIANO MAKING A SOUND
WAVE RECORD.
end is shaken. The form of these waves varies with
the sounds producing them, and they range from
gentle ripples, produced by low pure tones, to the
most intricate of patterns produced by loud complex
chords and noises.
"Two practical investigations are now being car-
ried on with the aid of the projection osiso," stated
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