Presto

August, 1930
P R E S T 0-T I M E S
ISSUED THE
FIFTEENTH IN EACH
MONTH
F R A N K D. A B B O T T
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PRESTO PUBLISHING CO.
Publishers
417 So. Dearborn St.
Chicago, I1L
The American Music Trade Journal
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Editor
Telephones, Local and Long Distance, Harrison 0234.
Private Phones to all Departments. Cable Address (Com-
mercial Cable Co.'s Code), " P R E S T O , " Chicago.
Entered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, at the
Post Office, Chicago, 111., under Act of March 3, 1879.
Subscription, $1.25 a year; 6 months, 75 cents; foreign,
$3.00. Payable in advance. No extra charge in United
States possessions. Cuba and Mexico. Rates for adver-
tising' 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 correspondents, and
their assistance is invited.
Payment is not accepted for matter printed In the edi-
torial or news columns of Presto-Times.
Where half-tones are made the actual cost of produc-
tion will be charged if of commercial character or other
than strictly news interest.
When electrotypes are sent for publication It is re-
quested that their subjects and senders be carefully indi-
cated.
Forms close at noon three days preceding date of pub-
lication. Latest news matter and telegraphic communica-
tions should be in not later than 11 o'clock on that day.
Advertising copy should be in hand four days before pub-
lication clay to insure preferred position. Full page dis-
play copy should be in hand three days preceding publi-
cation day. Want advertisements for current issue, to
insure classification, should be in three days in advance
of publication.
Address all communications for the editorial or business
departments to PRESTO PUBLISHING CO., 417 South
Dearborn Street. Chicago, III.
The last form of Presto-Times goes to press at 11 a. m.
three days preceding publication day. Any news trans-
piring after that hour cannot be expected in the current
issue. Nothing received at the office that is not strictly
news of importance can have attention after 9 a. m. of
that date. If they concern the interests of manufactur-
ers or dealers such items will appear the issue following.
CHICAGO, AUGUST, 1930
There are premonitions of compromise to be pro-
posed in the big fight between the Radio Corp. of
America and its allied companies on the one hand and
the Grigsby-Grunow Co., on the other.
* * *
In manufacturing pianos this year more careful and
particular work is being done than ever before. Not
so many pianos, but better pianos, seems to be the
motto of the manufacturers—and they can truthfully
lay claim to the assertion that it is "the survival of
the fittest" that has weathered them through the worst
storm the trade has ever known. They have found
that there may be a difference of quantity which
practically amounts to a difference of quality.
* * *
A reasonable percentage of each new generation
will want to play the piano. That's why the method
of piano teaching in the schools is a winner for new
trade.
* * *
A friendly piano traveling man who calls at Presto-
Times office every time he gets to Chicago says that
trade will be better after the prevailing unrest and
excitement, due to the presence of crooks in the large
cities and their satanic operations, has died down.
One hindrance to trade has been in the inability of
city canvassers to get audience with the women in
their homes, for naturally a stranger was taken for a
hold-up man.
* * *
It would be a mournful satisfaction to a certain
gloomoquist in the trade to strew some flowers on the
grave of the piano business. But, l ; ke the corpse
who arose in his coffin and asked "What's the hur-
ry?", the piano trade is showing signs of renewed life
and vigor that would put the gloomoquist's desire to
strew these flowers in a ridiculous light.
SO ICHABOD WAS A
PIANO, WAS HE?
It is impossible to know everything. Even a col-
lege professor, if he is wise, will plead ignorance of
some things. Only the Smart Aleck will pretend to
know it all. The following brief letter came to
Presto-Times office last week;
"Music survives in spite of and not because of
the piano industry. No manufactured article is so
singularly unique in respect to its complete freedom
from competition as is the piano, and yet. "look at
the d—d thing."
"Nothing in sight to replace the piano. Nothing
now available can replace it. Music cannot survive
without it, and at present it (the industry) is a
severe pain in the neck. 'Ichabod—thy glory hath
departed from thee.' "
Ichabod was an ancient Hebrew, but he lived so
long ago that you can't prove by us that he was
musical, nor in what respect he resembled a mod-
ern piano. The inference of the writer of the letter
is that Ichabod was unique—uniquely unique with a
high degree of uniqueness. Living in those pioneer
days near Sodom or Gomorrah, where deserts could
be squatted on, he could raise his leeks and garlic
and onions in complete freedom from competition
from radio or Wall street panics.
STUDENT OF SUMMER MUSIC, AGED 5.
The Chicago Evening Post on July 12 ran a pic-
ture of Dr. J. Lewis Browne, director of music in
the public schools of Chicago, and Miss Mary Eliz-
abeth Brown talking over the music situation with
5-year-old Bernice Isbet, Bernice is the youngest
pupil among the 200 who are continuing, during va-
cation, their school classes in harmony and apprecia-
tion at Lvon & Healv's store under Miss Brown.
FAITH IN PIANO TRADE
Loyalty to one's calling and the duty of such fidelity are not principles to be cast lightly
aside in order to follow some glittering; will-o'-the-wisp whose uncertain flashes will only land
the deserter in a bog. There are men who have deserted the piano trade within a year or two
who are now gradually returning to the ranks of the workers—most of them glad to get
back. They have discovered that they were frittering away their time and strength in fields
with which they were not familiar; that certain bonds of attachment for the piano business
had never been broken. Admitting that things took a very unfortunate turn two years ago,
a new cycle of piano popularity has set in whose calendar seems to extend years ahead, and
these returning salesmen who have been studying the situation now regard the prospects as
exceedingly flattering.
* * * *
SPECIAL APPLICATION TO ONE'S JOB
President William Howard Taft on one of his trips to Chicago several years ago while
speaking to the school children defined a happy people and well-governed state as a place
where ever}' fellow did his own stunt to the best of his ability. This would be good advice
to the piano men today. The man who bluntly and unsympathetically says "Get busy" may
seem harsh and commandeering, but in times like these he is a real friend. Special application
to the job of selling pianos is the necessary means to employ for the maintenance of the bus-
iness. At this season of the year in the north temperate zone selling pianos to far-out cus-
tomers can be made a semi-pastime, with an agreeable alternation of city and country.
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VALUE OF A PIANO NAME
The value of a name on a piano depends upon the piano. This sounds axiomatic, but it
is true. No matter how much a piano name may be forced to the front by means of scientific
advertising, the scheme is foiled the moment the piano cannot be depended upon; that is. the
moment the piano does not conform with the tenets embodied in the claim of its makers. The
men most unconscious of leadership in the things of art and beauty are probably the piano
manufacturers themselves, and yet what line of effort in this world's work has attained closer
to perfection than the making of pianos?
* * * *
TO GET WHAT TRADE THERE IS
The good salesman is he who when he covers certain territory gets all out of it there
is latent in it. Ah, but we hear someone ask: "Are there piano sales to be had in every
locality?" Of course, there are piano sales to be had for the asking, and the desire to dis-
cover something ought to be the prompting to mark the direction in which the salesman
must look for his prospects. If he canvasses thoroughly, we predict that there will fall within
the illuminated circle of his vision not one prospect but many. Wherever he finds himself,
the good salesman looks forward and not backward. He learns to expect the unexpected, and
his past experience has taught him that existence is a continual creation, whether in his own
body, or in the animals and plants around him or in causing his own trade to exist and
continue.
RARE MODE OF ADVERTISING.
Earl Bowman, manager of Knight-Campbell's at
Casper, Wyo., has an unique way of advertising.
He runs three piano cuts vertically in double-column
space—a grand, a player-piano and an upright—with
the announcement down below that "we have the
choicest piano in each price field." But the beauty of
the design is greatly enhanced by the flowing gar-
land that twirls about the cuts—a cornucopia of beau-
tiful women and fairies floating, holding hands, dis-
tending the wreaths, or flying with just enough of
grace of limb and feature to charm the reader to look
more intently for other cupids and additional faces
which the adroit artist has cunningly woven into the
design.
HARRY HAMILTON'S WIT SQUIBS
Harry Hamilton, general sales manager and pro-
motion expert at the Clark Orchestra Roll Co., De
Kalb, 111., sees the funny side of life as he works. If
he had turned his attention to newspaper work he
would most certainly have been a columnist. Here
are two of his latest observations in passing:
Do She, or Do She Don't?
"Can your daughter play the piano?" asked the
visitor.
"1 don't know whether she can or can't, but she
does!" replied her father.
Advertising Tip to Piano-Makers (No Charge).
"I believe that the
piano is the best one
that I have ever leaned against."—Will Rogers.
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