Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE.
MUSIC
TRADE
REVlF-W
Piano Dealers Express Themselves Disappointed with Volume of Ho'iday Business—The Reasons
Given for This Condition—Cunningham Piano Co. to Expand—Want More Pianos in
Public Schools—Featuring the Kranich & Bach—Some Pipe Organ News—Other Items.
(Special to The Review.)
Philadelphia, Pa., Dec. 20, 1910.
This is the last week of the holiday business.
There are only four more days. The Christmas
buying has been disappointing. This latter I learn
from most of the dealers. There are those in the
minority who will try to make you believe it has
been the biggest Christmas season they have ever
had. The draymen will tell you different. If
business had taken on its proper boom—if there
had been any particular spirit in it—most of the
stores would have been open evenings. They were
not. The few that observed this old custom found
it very disappointing, and I noticed that they were
all closed up every evening before 10 o'clock, for
Chestnut street was deserted evenings all during
the holiday season, excepting between 7.30 and
8.15, when people were going to the theater, and
for a half hour after closing time.
I do not believe, if every one were to tell the
truth, that business was very much better than last
year. I have found several who were willing to
say that it was not; and, in fact, not so good.
They give many different reasons for it. The auto-
mobile is most frequently accused. Then the ex-
treme cold weather we had for ten days before
Christmas kept people in doors. The wretched
trolley service here, not only affected business, but
it affected the theaters, the cafes and everything
else depending on good conditions to make them
popular.
Cunningham Co. Prepare for Expansion.
The Cunningham Piano Co., whose factories are
at Fiftieth and Parkside avenue, purchased recent-
"Piano Saving
and How to
Accomplish It"
(Copyright.)
Sounds Good, Does it Not ?
Every subscriber to The Review will
be furnished with A COPY FREE upon
application.
It is a work which is destined to ob-
tain wide circulation.
It will create new business for the
dealers, and will, therefore, at once
command their attention and support.
They will be interested in distributing
the book because it will be a business
builder for them.
It will create trade where none has
existed before.
It will be helpful in every way.
Every piano dealer in the United State*
will be supplied with a copy free for the
asking.
1 0 , 0 0 0 Copies are now ready
EDWARD LYMAN BILL
Publisher
1 Madison Ave.
NEW YORK
ly, from James Dunlap, a large plot of ground to
the east of its present main building, to which many
additions have been made during the last decade,
with the view of making other very considerable
extensions in the near future. The demand for
extra factory space recently has kept the com-
pany's management constantly on the alert, and
the contemplated structure is expected to relieve
the strain by furnishing ample accommodations at
least for the present.
Pianos in the Public Schools.
It is very evident that eventually every public
school in Philadelphia will have a piano of its own.
"Pianos are as necessary as desks in the schools
and ought to be provided by the Board of Educa-
tion," said the superintendent of schools of Phila-
delphia, Dr. Martin G. Brumbaugh, last week. His
statement was occasioned by the trouble that is
being found by the Binney school in securing a
piano, no amount of effort being sufficient to raise
the necessary purchase money.
Louis Nusbaum, the principal of the school, en-
deavored to find a means of raising the money by
making application to Superintendent Brumbaugh
for permission to hold a fair or to have the
children sell some tickets, but this method was em-
phatically scored by Dr. Brumbaugh. The Prop-
erty Committee of the Board of Education has also
officially put its ban on such a method.
It is planned to ask the Board of Education at
its next meeting to supply pianos in the schools
and to set aside a sufficient appropriation for this
purpose. However, a plan is being worked out by
which the board will buy new pianos for the
schools which already have instruments secured
through their own enterprise, and the old pianos
of these schools will be given to those schools
which never secured pianos.
Dignified Advertising of the Kranich & Bach.
1 have been struck rather forcibly all through the
holiday period by the dignified advertising of the
Kranich & Bach pianos by G. Herzberg. Here is
one of the examples of Sunday publicity, and it
stood out strikingly alongside of some of the other
advertisements:
''The Kranich & Bach piano is eminently satis-
fying to musicians and to all persons of keen judg-
ment, who value the 'better and still better,' who
can appreciate that almost indefinable something
which makes a piano appeal to the cultured ear;
who can feel, as well as hear and see, the
superior quality in a piano."
That sounds sane, polite, dignified and convinc-
ing, and I am sure such advertising must make a
good impression on a sane and sensible piano pur-
chaser.
Estey Organ for All Saints' Church.
The Estey Co. have just completed a very fine
pipe organ in the All Saints' R. C. Church of
Bridesburg. This is a very large church at present,
but it has grown from a very small denomination
and edifice. But it has never been without an
Estey organ, and as the church has grown in size
so has the organ had to be enlarged. At present
this is one of the largest and finest churches in this
community, and they have just had placed in the
church the largest and finest Estey pipe organ
made.
Pipe Organ Concerts Attract.
The Strawbridge & Clothier firm have been at-
tracting very much interest during the holiday sea-
son by the concerts that have been given on the fine
Estey pipe organ in their piano department. This
organ has been installed in the department for
more than four years. It really should be used
oftener for concert purposes.
Mrs.
Oeser in Charge.
It is announced that Mrs. Lizzie Oeser will in
future look after the affairs of Oeser & Co., piano
dealers of Philadelphia, Pa., formerly managed by
Oswald Oeser, who died recently.
Talking Points
on
Piano Actions
Did you ever stop to con-
sider the intricacies of the
piano action?
It's an impressive study
and the subject is worthy of
close investigation.
One will then realize the
great thought and inventive
skill necessary in bringing
the piano action to its present
high state of perfection.
The history of action man-
ufacturing in this country
is full of interesting details.
The general method of man-
ufacturing grand and upright
actions, keys and hammers,
is being thoroughly discussed
by Strauch Bros., New York,
and many points of interest to
piano manufacturers, dealers,
salesmen and repairers, are
being advanced.
In 1867, w h e n P e t e r
Strauch, founder of the house
which bears his name, com-
menced upon his successful
business career, the action
industry was in its swaddling
clothes, so to speak.
He was young, ambitious,
talented, and aided by his
devotion to his profession,
and the concentration of his
inventive skill upon action
development, there has been
a constant advance.
There are so many parts of
the piano action, each one of
which must be delicately ad-
justed, in order to make a
perfect mechanism, that a
study of it will be interesting.
The closer the acquaint-
ance that the manufacturer,
the dealer, the salesman, and
the tuner, have with this im-
portant part of the piano, the
better it will be, because the
more intelligent the analysis
of the piano action, the better
it will be understood, and the
more forceful quality-actions,
like the Strauch, will loom to
the front.