Music Trade Review

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The Music Trade Review
Salt Lake City Dealers Find Demand
Holding Up Well During the Summer
Talking Machines and Records Selling Exceptionally Well—Daynes-Beebe Draws
Attention With a True Fish Story—Music Men Vacationing
C A L T LAKE CITY, UTAH, July 15.—The
^ music business in this city is in good shape this
Summer; better than normal, it seems. The
great improvement in the talking machine busi-
ness has helped not a little. Records are selling
exceptionally well. One or two firms report
collections as very good. There is much in-
terest in the tour of the big Tabernacle Choir,
which leaves for the Pacific Coast next week
and will be away for eleven days. The Choir
will give concerts in San Francisco, Oakland,
Los Angeles, San Diego and elsewhere. More
than 200 singers will make the trip.
The industrial outlook continues good. Crops
not matured have been given a new lease on
life by the torrential rains of last week, which
were followed by hot suns. The metal mining
and smelting industries are in a strong position
and the tourist business is bigger than ever be-
fore.
Alvin A. Beesley, manager of the Beesley
Music Co., and Mrs. Beesley are back from a
New York trip. While in New York they called
upon Frederick Dixon, the pianist, who gave a
series of concerts here in the Spring.
J. C. McClain, of the Utah Music Co., who has
been seriously ill, is well again.
Ed. McCallum and Miss Frances Osborne, of
the Glen Bros.-Roberts Piano Co., are on their
vacations, Mr. McCallum being at Yellowstone
National Park and Miss Osborne now arranging
a trip.
The Glen Bros.-Roberts Co. is working the
country strong this Summer with fine results,
according to Manager Thomas J. Holland.
The Daynes-Beebe Music Co. has a window
furnished as a living-room featuring the Estey
grand piano.
Not a little excitement was caused at the big
Daynes-Beebe Music Co.'s establishment the
other day when Colonel Joseph J. Daynes, presi-
dent and general manager of the company,
caused the big catch of fine trout made by him-
self and his four sons and Vern Calder, one of
the firm's salesmen, to be placed on exhibition
just inside the public entrance on the main floor
of the store. The fishing trip, which proved so
successful that it called for an exhibition of the
catch, occupied three days in all and the fishing
grounds were beautiful Fish Lake in southern
Utah, a considerable distance from Salt Lake
City. Mr. Daynes' four sons who made the
trip with himself and Mr. Calder were Donald,
Sharp, Byron and Wilford. Donald is treasurer
of the Daynes-Beebe Co. and Sharp, a recent
graduate of the State University, was recently
appointed a salesman of the firm. Twenty-one
fish were caught by the anglers during the day
spent at the lake. The smallest weighed two
and one-half pounds and the largest, caught by
Mr. Calder, weighed nine and one-half pounds.
They were frozen in 600 pounds of ice and
mounted on a handsome green stand. A card
bbre this inscription: "A True Fish Story.
These fish were caught in Fish Lake on July 5
by Joseph J. Daynes and sons, Donald, Sharp,
Byron and Wilford. Weight from two and one-
half to nine and one-half pounds, the ten-
pounder by Vern Calder." The exhibition proved
a mighty interesting attraction from the stand-
point of store publicity. Many hundreds of
people made a special point of seeing it after
they had been told about it by friends. It also
got into the newspapers. It was unique, for
one thing. Colonel Daynes has always been a
keen and successful angler and his sons are fol-
lowing in his footsteps.
Oscar Olson, salesman in the phonograph de-
partment of Daynes-Beebe Music Co. for many
years and a recent benedict, was a member of
the entertainment committee in connection with
Public's
the visit here last week of the Crown Prince
and Crown Princess of Sweden.
George Studham, of Daynes-Beebe Music Co.,
and family are enjoying a motor tour during
which they will take in parts of Canada. They
will be away a month or more.
The local store of the Glen Bros.-Roberts
Piano Co. is offering without charge a complete
eight weeks' course in music to a member of
any family purchasing a piano.
Mrs. Ethel Olin, manager of the Utah Music
Co., has returned from a month's business and
pleasure trip in the Eastern States.
JULY 31, 1926
The Daynes-Beebe Music Co. is featuring a
baby grand piano in one of its windows on a
revolving floor and a pattern showing the exact
floor space which the piano requires is being
distributed gratis. It is felt that many people
hesitate to buy a grand piano of any kind in
these days of smaller rooms for fear it will not
fit in the space they would have for it, and this
pattern will help them to study the problem in-
telligently and swiftly.
Fred Beesley, member of the old-established
house of Beesley Music Co., South Main street,
will leave for the Pacific Coast next week with
the Mormon Tabernacle Choir of this city,
which will conduct a ten-day concert tour. Mr.
Beesley, a veteran musician and music mer-
chant, and widely known in both fields, sings
bass.
"Salt Lake City" is the name of a new local
song hit. The music is by B. Cecil Gates, as-
sistant director of the Tabernacle Choir.
A. G. Gulbransen Sees Old Pianos as
a Drag on the Sales of New Instruments
President of the Gulbransen Co., Chicago, States It Would Be More Profitable for the Trade
to Burn up the Old Instruments—False Ideas on Trade-in Values
¥ T seems strange that a people as progressive
* as the Americans, ever on the alert for
things that are new, should tolerate old, out-
of-date, valueless pianos to the extent that
they do. We see these old pianos on every
hand, worn out, decrepit, totally out of keep-
ing with their modern surroundings, and yet
because they were once "pianos" they are still
so considered.
Many people change their furniture every
few years; they tire of the old and demand
new things. Yet they will keep a piano that
has no place in any home—let alone a well-fur-
nished one. We see homes on all sides, some
of them of the latest types of architecture,
furnished with oriental rugs, modern furni-
ture, a radio in a period model cabinet, luxur-
ious hangings, and yet in that same home fre-
quently will be seen a piano that should have
been discarded ten or twelve years ago.
Why people are so loath to part with an old
piano is rather difficult to analyze. It is not
because of finances, for many of the oldest
pianos are in homes of means and in clubs, in-
stitutions and other places that have ample
financial resources. Probably it is a matter of
mental attitude and education. People have
come to believe that pianos should last for
generations.
Another thing that their minds seem to be
set on is that every piano has a trade-in
value. It is peculiar that this i'dea should have
become so firmly entrenched.
Old furniture
has no trade-in value. You cannot turn your
old rug in on a new one. The dealer would
laugh at the suggestion. And yet, no matter
how far from being a piano worthy of the
name it may be, the owner expects an allow-
ance and a very liberal one, when he buys a
new one.
Old pianos ought to be burnt up. The very
worst thing that can be done with them is to
present them to needy institutions, such as
churches, settlement houses and other places
of similar character. No matter into what sort
of a private home they may be put, they still
do the piano business harm. They are a dis-
tinct detriment to music as long as they are in
existence and I feel that the best interests of
the trade and the music loving public would be
served by a policy of destroying the old instru-
ments.
The modern trend of piano designing, the
popularity of the grands and small size up-
rights, the more general recognition of the
foot-power instrument as the standard instru-
ment of the home, all help this idea along. The
time is ripe, it seems to me, to spread the
thought that old pianos should be discarded
and destroyed the same as any other old fur-
nishings. This would be one of the biggest
steps forward in preserving the musical ear and
the artistic eye of the nation. The spread-
ing of this thought would have another im-
portant effect, that of minimizing the trade-in
value of pianos that do have some monetary
worth, so that reasonable allowances can be
made by merchants instead of the exorbitant
amounts often demanded and given.
Sterling Roll & Record
New Sonora Distributor
Will Handle Instrument in Parts of Kentucky,
Indiana, Ohio and West Virginia
The Sonora Phonograph Co. has appointed
the Sterling Roll and Record Co., of 137 West
Fourth street, Cincinnati, O., as its exclusive
distributors for both the Sonora radio and
Sonora phonograph for the following territory:
That part of Kentucky east of and including
the following counties: Davies, McLean, Muhl-
enberg, Todd; Indiana, less the following coun-
ties: Marshall, Newton, Elkhart, Lake, La
Porte, St. Joseph, Porter, Benton, Kosciusko,
Warren, Starke, Jasper, Pulaski, Fulton; south-
ern half of Ohio bounded on the north and in-
cluding the following counties: Drake, Shelby,
Champaign, Madison, Pickaway, Hocking,
Athens, Morgan, Washington, Monroe; West
Virginia, all the following counties: Mason,
Jackson, Roane, Calhoun, Gilmer, Braxton,
Webster, Pocahontas, Greenbrier, Monroe,
Summers, Mercer, McDowell, Wyoming, Minge,
Raleigh, Fayette, Nicholas, Clay, Logan,
Boone, Kanawha, Putnam, Cabell, Lincoln,
Wayne.
The sales and distribution of Sonora prod-
ucts in this territory will be directed by Ben L.
Brown, general manager.
The other officers of the company are: Oscar
F. Barrett, president; Myers Y. Cooper, vice-
president and treasurer; Frank E. Wood, secre-
tary; E. J. Burke, assistant treasurer.
To Handle the Gulbransen
PORTLAND, ORE., July 22.—E. B. Hyatt, of the
Hyatt Music Co., has announced the taking over
of the exclusive agency of the Gulbransen
piano, the negotiations for the transfer from
the Thompson Piano Co. to Mr. Hyatt being
made by G. E. Corson of The Dalles, Ore., the
Pacific Northwest representative of the Gul-
bransen Co.