Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
THE "SMALL GOODS" TRADE
How Qraphophone Records Are ban statue and the quality of music is thus fortunately preserved in an audible
quite as entrancing.
form.
Made.
The principal difference in the manner
of making records in the laboratory and at
home, is that it is unusual to make more
than one record at a time in the latter,
while several are made simultaneously in
the laboratory. This added element of
complexity naturally introduces many sin-
gular-looking devices, and a room, for ex-
ample, in which a brass band is play-
ing and its strains are being imprisoned
On a number of Graphophone cylinders
presents a spectacle at once edifying
and astonishing, the astonishment being
made manifest when the listener pon-
ders on the fact that the same iden-
tical music that is entertaining him will,
in due course, be heard not only at
home, but all over the world—in city
homes, in farm houses on lonely roads and
in the miners' huts, dotting the rich auri-
ferous mountain sides. In hundreds and
thousands of places on the highways and
along the by-ways, in the crowded streets
of cities, on the surging sea, in the waste
places of the desert, in the woods of Arden
—in camp and on the march—the realistic
music, originally played in a distant city,
may be heard from the Graphophone,
whether the hour be noon or midnight and
whether the snowflakes are making their
feathery flight earthward or the sun is
shining brightly out of skies that promise
to be always blue.
In ancient Thebes, if we accept the
tradition, there was a magic statue which
was ever dumb, excepting when touched
by the first waves of the rosy dawn. Then
from its lips melodious strains arose. And
so it is with the Graphophone. When we
wish it to be silent it is as mute as the
eternal stars, but it can be more easily
awakened into tuneful life than the The-
HOWARD
They are made on scientific prin-
ciples, and for volume, purity and
sweetness of tone, have never been
equaled. Write for catalogue and
prices.
We have spoken of the band records for
purposes of illustration, but there are
many other kinds of equal desirability.
Perhaps the records which appeal most
strongly to musicians are those made from
the violin. They are truly wonderful.
Then there are talking records which are
general favorites and to those who enjoy a
story, with a point to it, told in an artistic
way, one of these records, if no others of
the same selection were obtainable, would
be worth very much more than its weight
in gold. All of this kind of record mak-
ing, with its numberless ramifications, is
conducted by professionals in the Music
Department of the Columbia Phonograph
Co., in their building at the corner of
Broadway and Twenty-seventh street,
New York.
An always interesting divertisement in
connection with the Graphophone is the
making of records at home. However
pleasant it may be to entertain the house-
hold with song and story, with instrument-
al selections or with violin, cornet, or pic-
colo solos, the real joy of the occasion
begins when the members of the family
and the guests of the evening turn their
talents to record making. And as a mat-
ter of fact some very excellent and valu-
able records are made in this way. A little
practice is necessary—the practice that
makes perfect, not only in record produc-
tion, but in the accomplishment of every-
thing that is worth doing.
The writer recalls that a gentleman
once came to the factory in Bridgeport,
with a piano record which he said his son
had made only a week before. In the
meantime, the angel of death had touched
him with his icy finger and the sorrowing
father had brought this record to see if
others could be made from it. His fear
was that it might be broken and he wished
others made which could be held in re-
serve. A few copies were supplied, with
difficulty, the original having been care-
lessly made in the course of a festhe even-
ing and no attention having been paid to
its preservation, until the unexpected ad-
vent of death transformed it into a souve-
nir to be forever guarded as a sacred heri-
tage.
In the last years of his life that genial
gentleman, classmate of Holmes and by
him embalmed in undying rhyme as a fel-
low of infinite pith whom Fate tried to
conceal by naming him Smith—Mr. Sam-
uel Francis Smith, author of our beloved
national hymn entitled "America"—in
his last years, we say, Mr. Smith was a
resident of Bridgeport and when the art
of engraving sound waves upon a wax
cylinder was perfecting, he took advantage
of an opportunity to recite the words of
his hymn into a graphophone and they are
Similarly the words and the very tones
of Mr. Gladstone were made secure in wax
a few years ago, and the cylinder contain-
ing this most virile suggestion of the great
man, now gone beyond us, is indeed a
priceless legacy. The letters and manu-
scripts of eminent men are valued far
higher than their portraits; but a piece of
paper bearing a few fading marks is as
nothing compared with having, in perpetu-
ity, the very utterance and unmistakable
tones as they came from the lips of men in
whom the spirit, since departed, then dwelt
and animated to vigorous thought and
speech.
And if these imperishable mementoes of
the great are valuable beyond computa-
tion, what price shall be put upon the
records made by our children, our parents,
our brothers, sisters, sweethearts, wives,
husbands and those close friends whose
hands, at twilight, slip so gently into ours,
whose hearts throb in unison with our
own and who, when we encounter them
upon the line of our daily march, give us
the grasp of faithful comrades in arms and
refresh our hearts with their inspiring
glance of friendship?
Walter P. Phillips.
Scribner Expects Big Trade.
Frank Scribner has completed all ar-
rangements for the prompt supply of his
customers with the Weiss products, includ-
ing the Brass Band Clarion and Brass Band
Harmonica. Out-of-town advices received
by Mr. Scribner are to the effect that a phe-
nomenal trade will be done this fall in
these instruments.
Wurlitzer Co. Secure Contract.
The Rudolph Wurlitzer Co., of Cincin-
nati, last week closed a contract with the
Navy Department of the United States
Government for supplying two hundred
trumpets. Business in all departments of
this concern is very brisk. They report a
satisfactory growth of trade—the hot
weather notwithstanding. The various
Wurlitzer specialties merit all the app "eci-
ation bestowed. They are carefully made
and bound to find a still larger market in
all parts of the country as time grows
apace.
Campaign •* Wonders."
The C. G. Conn Co. is preparing for a
big business in campaign musical instru-
ments. Before many weeks, campaign
clubs and fife and drum corps from Maine
to California, from the Atlantic to the
Pacific, will be informed that the Conn
drums, and fifes, and bugles, are ready for
delivery.
The reasons why the Conn products are