Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
Conducted by B. B. Wilson
AN INTERESTING ADVERTISEMENT.
RAGTIME ABROAD.
Chappell & Co., Ltd., London, Give Public
Warning Against Mechanical Reproduction
of Selections from Their Operettas—Specu-
lation Aroused by Announcement—Adds
Color to Reports.
Explanations of the Popularity of Syncopation
in Europe.
A number of music publishers have steadfastly
refused to grant permission for the mechanical re-
production of any of the music published by them,
talcing advantage of the protection offered to them
under the copyright law in that particular. • It re-
mained for Chappell & Co., Ltd., however, to pub-
licly announce the fact through an advertisement
in the London Telegraph recently, and its action
has aroused much interest on the part of the pub-
lishers, as well as those who reproduce music
mechanically. The announcement read as follows:
"RE INFRINGEMENT
OF COPYRIGHT.
"Messrs. Chappell & Co., Ltd., hereby give notice
that any copying of band parts, in manuscript or
otherwise, of selections from its operettas, multi-
plied for the purpose of making gramophone or
other mechanical records, is an infringement of
copyright and will be dealt with accordingly."
The advertisement adds color to the suspicions
voiced both in England and this country that some
members of the mechanical music trade have not
been over-careful either in securing permission to
use successful numbers for their records or in ac-
counting for the royalties later.
A BOON TO COMPOSERS.
The Man Who Is Unable to Express His
Thoughts in Musical Notation Has Now Been
Provided with a Machine to Do the Work for
Him—Music Roll Also Made.
"Everything is done by machinery these days"
has become a common expression for a decade or
more, and every year brings it nearer the truth,
ne of the latest inventions illustrates the nearness
to the truth of this statement, and that is a device
fox writing music by machinery.
A Swedish inventor named Nystrom invented the
apparatus, which may be used in connection with
any keyboard, either piano or organ. It is op-
erated by means of electricity, and when a piece
of music is played in the ordinary way this device,
called a "melograph," records the sounds on a
chemically prepared ribbon, which has been treated
with a preparation of wax to allow the impressions
for each tone.
After the music has been played the ribbon may
be removed and read, just as one would read
shorthand notes or the telegraph code. And in
reading it the proper notations may be made, when
—presto!—there is the music, actually "written by
machinery."
One of the greatest values of this invention is
to composers. A composer may finally strike ex-
actly what he wants and play it as though inspired.
Under the old method he had either to memorize it
by playing it over and over again, and then writing
it, or jot it down note 'by note. With the aid of
this invention he may play his composition, remove
the ribbon, and there it is, ready to copy into last-
ing form. Another feature of this invention is that
the ribbon may be placed in a specially constructed
player and played as ordinary player rolls are put
into a mechanical piano and played.
Harold and Helen Bailor's
POST CARD SONGS
Have Caught the Hearts and Purses,
The ONLY novelty in printed music. Original,
catchy, complete with accompaniment and pleastng
sentiment. Samples, List and Prices at your call.
HAROLD AND HELEN BALLOU. Publishers.
Maritime Building,
Seattle, Washington.
They ginger up the music trade.
On the subject of the psychology of ragtime,
Conductor Jacobs of the Trocadero Orchestra is
quoted as saying:
"The outstanding feature of ragtime music
sheets is syncopation. This means that they must
shove one note up against the other, and against
the time following on the weak beat. Syncopation
is a medical term, which applies to a beating heart
wruen it skips a beat. It means excitement, just
as music does. A man playing ragtime cannot
keep still. This music grips player and audience
alike and sets everybody on the jump. People
drop knives aind forks and snap their fingers as
toon as the melody begins. I think it has an
effect on the heart and makes it alter the beat to
the time of the music."
One of the London newspapers speaks of rag-
time as "this new and' wonderful melody, which
has conquered the great American republic entirely,
which has spread to the remotest villages of the
European Continent, and which now is whistled
by London office boys and Yorkshire farm laborers,
and is established in every grade of society."
Am English music publisher who says he is sell-
ing ragtime scores by hundred's of thousands un-
dertakes the explanation of ragtime's popularity.
Here is what he offers:
"We live in an age of rush. Ragtime music suits
the period. The old song or smoking concert, with
its slow, gentle boys' chorus, is finished. Life is
too 'short for it. English composers have been
unable to adapt themselves to changing conditions,
and Americans have stepped 1 in and done it. The
whole busy world^is now humming the new music,
which rushes just as fast as modern, hustling life."
Whether he is right or wrong, he is interesting,
says the Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin. Another
explanation might be that the public tires of mo-
notony, and welcomes a change, sometimes chang-
ing for the mere sake of change, from what seems
close to perfection to what by contrast looks crude,
barbaric and even vicious. This rage for change
is a law of life, and is illustrated in architecture
and literature as well as in music. It is illustrated
even in the fashions governing dress.
TABLET TO TITANIC BANDSMEN
Placed in Symphony Hall in Boston—Bears
Names of Victims.
MREVIOVMEARS
THAT Walter Damrosch's "The Dove of Peace"
was hailed with delight as a real American operetta
and a relief from the overplus of imported product
with the inevitable waltz.
THAT Mr. Damrosch then had to go and shatter
the illusion by inserting a waltz.
THAT the man who has the courage to insert an
Irish reel or a schottishe in an operetta will turn
Broadway upside down.
THAT the autoists among the songwriters seem
to prefer the long, low, rakish cars of which so
much is written in the newspapers these days.
THAT in all too many cases, recently, the word
"suggestive" as applied to a song is a misnomer.
Just plain "nasty" is the word.
THAT the authorities in Chicago have put the
ban on questionable songs and they have the stock-
yards there at last.
THAT the musical numbers in "The Follies of
1912" have proven a puzzling proposition to more
than one publisher who figured that he had the
inside track.
THAT "The Most Popular Songs for Every Oc-
casion" (Hinds, Noble & Eldredge) is breaking
numerous records for 'heavy demand.
THAT with cartoonists and ball-players breaking
into the ranks of the song-writers the regular fel-
lows will have to crowd worse than ever to get a
chance.
THAT song writing, like running a newspaper, is
one of those things that the amateur always feels
that he can do a little better than the professional.
THAT Chas. K. Harris will shortly have a new
ballad number on the market, which is expected to
meet with the usual reception accorded the Harris
ballad.
THAT the Florida Song Book Co., Tampa, Fla.,
has been incorporated with capital stock of $5,000.
THAT managers of the better class of dance halls
in New York are demanding that a greater pro-
portion of waltz music be played in order that
"turkey trotting" and similar dances to the ac-
companying of livelier music may be discouraged.
THAT at a recent amateur night at a New York
playhouse, five of the seven singers used Feist's
"When I Get You Alone To-night."
THAT wise and close buying means as much to
the music dealer as to the merchant in any other-
line of business.
GETTING A LINE ON COMPOSERS.
A handsome marble, tablet has been placed in
Symphony Hall as a memorial to the musicians of
the White Star steamship Titanic, who continued
play while the ship was sinking.
It is to be set in the wall of the Massachusetts
corridor. The donor prefers to remain anony-
mous.
Three feet four inches long by two feet four
inches wide, the white marble of the tablet is in-
scribed in letters of gold:
"In Memory of the Devoted Musicians, Wallace
Henry Hartley, Bandmaster; John Frederick Pres-
ton Clark, Percy Cornelius Taylor, Jo'hn Wesley
Woodward, W. Theodore Brailey, John Law
Hume, George Krins, Roger Bricoux, Who Were
Drowned Still Playing as the Titanic Went Down,
April 15, 1912."
GRAND OPERATOR DALLAS, TEX.
Robert N. Watkin has been selected secretary of
the Dallas Grand Opera Committee, which will
present the Chicago Grand Opera Co. with Tetraz-
zini, Mary Garden, etc., next February in four
performances at the Coliseum. Dallas is the only
city south of St. Louis to obtain grand opera.
"The way to detect the school to which a com-
poser belongs: I'irst, if he uses every key except
one in which the piece is written, he is a colorist;
second, if he changes the rhythm twice in eadi
measure, he is an impressionist; third, if he em-
ploys a theme of more than two notes, he is a
medalist; fourth, if 'he observes the key signature,
preserves unity of rhythm, and writes a tune that
pleases, he is old-fashioned."—London Musical
Herald.
Ain't Yo' Comin' Back To
Me, Ma Dinah Lee?
The greatest Southern song written since
"Down Upon the Suwanee River." A
quaint, pathetic song with beautiful har-
mony of real Southern character, sweet
and melodious. The Southern song "hit"
of the season. Get this one quick.
METROPOLITAN MUSIC PUB. CO.
1520 Broadway, New York City