Music Trade Review
Issue: 1927 Vol. 85 N. 5 - Page 23
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23
The Music Trade Review
JULY 30, 1927
The Technical and Supply Department—(Continued from page 22)
stalment plan. Everybody is buying everything operation has now to be adopted in place of
Forest Laboratory
in creation on the instalment plan. And the a long-held attitude of hostility or at least of
merchandise experts of these real estate, auto- indifference. Yet just this change must be
Courses Fully Enrolled
made.
mobile, refrigerator and furrier concerns are
wise birds. They have all the tricks and then
some. They have learned the game backwards
and forwards. They can give poor old con-
servative us cards and spades, and then beat
us. And they have the public immensely in-
terested and preoccupied. And that is the trou-
ble with piano selling—and with piano tuning,
too.
The Same Boat
Yet there is a way out. There is no cause
for despair, or even for faltering. Everything
is a matter of recognizing that the industry
is a unit, that we are all in the same boat and
that we must work together unless we are
willing to go into a gentle decline. It is not
possible to say just what will be the course
of the various types of the modern piano.
No one can tell to-day what will be the future
of the straight upright, of the straight grand,
of the player-piano, or of the reproducing
piano. The course of the industry may bring
to the top again elements which have been
partly submerged during recent years. But
whatever happens, there is one thing which
everybody must recognize if both sales and
service are to prosper. And that is that we
are all alike faced with the task of re-educating
a public fallen into bad ways. I say "fallen
into bad ways" because I know perfectly well
that the American people are no more losing
an interest in music than in motor cars. The
trouble is simply that while the interest is still
there and is ready to grow, it has been al-
lowed to run wild, is losing its vitality and
needs careful pruning and cultivation to bring
it back to health.
All my readers are aware that the National
Piano Manufacturers' Association is now com-
mitted to a policy of piano promotion. The
main ideas of this policy may be expressed
thus: (1) Public interest in pianos can only
be recreated when public interest in the music
given by the piano has been recreated. (2) There-
fore, the first task before the piano industry
is "the task of facilitating and encouraging in
every way the study of piano playing and of
rediscovering to the people the undoubted and
unquestioned social value inherent in an ability
to play the piano.
The practical means adopted for carrying
into effect these ideas, and so of bringing about
again that state of public interest which is neces-
sary to the life and prosperity of any industry,
are well known to all my readers. The piano-
playing contests, the promotion of group in-
struction in piano playing, the movement for
more music in the schools; all this is well
known. But it would be the greatest mistake
possible to imagine that these things have
nothing to do with the tuner. It may not be
easy for the older men, or for those whose
experiences have been confined to a narrow
field, to bring themselves to realize that times
have changed and that an attitude of co-
FAUST SCHOOL
OF TUNING
Standard of America
Alumni of 2 0 0 0
Piano Tuning, Pipe and Reed
Organ and Player Piano
YEAR BOOK FREE
27-29 Gainsboro Street
BOSTON, MASS.
Tuners and Repairers
Our new illustrated catalogue of Piano and
Player Hardware Felts and _ Tools is now
ready. If you haven't received your copy
please let us know.
OTTO R. TREFZ, JR.
2110 Fairmount Ave.
Phila., Pa.
What to Do
The tuners' association, about to meet in
New York for the seventeenth consecutive
time, is a powerful body. It is a member
association of the Music Industries Chamber
of Commerce and so possesses a voice in the
government of all the music industries. Presi-
dent Deutschmann is now the oldest director
of the Chamber in point of service. The
tuners are to discuss next week their present
position and probable prospects. Let them
resolve that they will co-operate in the hearti-
est possible manner with every association or
group, national, regional or local, of merchants
and manufacturers in every effort these latter
may make to promote piano instruction, to
recreate interest in piano playing and to build
up once more a better understanding of the
inestimable social value of ability to play the
piano even moderately well. If every division
of the N. A. P. T. will offer its services and
its co-operation to the local music trade asso-
ciation, it will find an atmosphere of friend-
liness and an immediate response. The time
for hostility is gone, the day of internecine
warfare is over. Bickerings and quarrels are
to-day fatal. What we must have is co-opera-
tion, understanding, sympathy and a willingness
to forget the past; above all, co-operation with
merchants and manufacturers in every effort
they may make for the revival of the public
interest in the piano.
And I do sincerely hope that the N. A. P.
T. will adopt some strongly worded resolution
bearing upon this point.
Correspondence
Is solicited and should be addressed to William
Braid White, 5149 Agatite avenue, Chicago.
Reducing Fire Hazards
on Varnish Sprayers
National Board of Underwriting Engineers Pre-
pares Recommendations to This End
In consequence of many unfortunate fires re-
sulting from the use of paint and lacquer spray-
ers in improperly protected booths, the National
Board of Underwriting Engineers has prepared
some recommendations for reducing the haz-
ards of these processes. They state that the
National Board regulations for spraying and
spray booths, published in 1922 and revised in
1926, do not appear to have been followed. The
engineers state that most of the fires in spray-
ing booths result from fans and motors used
for ventilating the booths; broken electric lamps
and other electrical effects; cleaning interior of
booths, fans and motors with highly inflam-
mable solvents and accumulations of deposits
or residues in the tubes and vent pipes.
In carefully managed plants the spraying is
done in metal booths, which are provided with
various types of exhaust systems, but in many
plants it is done in the open. It is his opinion
that a really safe spraying equipment has not
yet been discovered. The greatest hazard is
not in the lacquer wheh is sprayed on the metal
or wooden surface to be covered but in that
which is shot past the object and is deposited
on walls and floors in the form of fine grains,
which have been found subject to spontaneous
combustion.
The only effective way to deal with this haz-
ard is absolutely to cut off the department in
which the spraying is done from all other parts
of the risk, for it is considered inevitable that
explosions and fires will occur even though the
booths are frequently cleaned and every reason-
able precaution taken.
Directors Report Indications Are That Quotas
Will Be Filled for September Courses
MADISON, WIS., July 23.—The number of en-
rollments already received in response to pre-
liminary announcements indicates that the
Forest Products Laboratory's Fall group of
courses will again enjoy a full attendance, ac-
cording to W. W. Weber, manager of the
courses. Last Spring, Mr. Weber was obliged
to turn away applicants for instruction in all
three of the short courses in gluing of wood,
kiln drying and boxing and crating. Within
two weeks of the first announcement of the
date, the September gluing course had been 25
per cent enrolled and inquiries and enrollments
for the other two courses were coming in at a
rate indicating that quotas would again be filled
or exceeded.
In order to make it possible to attend both
the gluing course and the kiln drying course on
one trip to Madison, these courses have been
set for consecutive periods. The instruction in
the gluing of wood will be given the week of
September 12 to 17 and the kiln drying lectures
and demonstrations September 19 to 30. The
short course in box and crate construction will
be in session September 19 to 24.
Wessell, Nickel & Gross
Report Better Demand
Entire Equipment of Factory Being Carefully
Gone Over in Preparation for Fall Season
The entire mechanical equipment of the Wes-
sell, Nickel & Gross factory, New York City,
has been carefully gone over and in some in-
stances reconditioned in preparation for what
will probably prove a very busy Fall season.
F. A. Wessell, president of the company, re-
ports that the number and size of orders re-
ceived has shown a marked improvement.
George Koenig, secretary of the company,
left with his family on Saturday on vacation.
He has gone to Lake Sunapee, N. H., from
which he plans to make several motor trips
through the White Mountains.
Arthur L. Wessell, vice-president of the com-
pany, is spending much time during the Sum-
mer months at Barton, Vt., when- tin- mills of
the company are located.
Investigating Federal Cut
WASHINGTON, D. C. July 25.—Turning the tables
about, the National Lumber Manufacturers' As-
sociation will consider at a meeting of its direc-
tors announced for San Francisco, August 3,
the question of whether the Federal Govern-
ment is cutting its national forest timber too
rapidly.
While complaints of too rapid timber cutting
are usually directed at lumber men and often
from governmental sources, it was explained
to-day by Wilson Compton, secretary and man-
ager of the National Lumber Manufacturers'
Association, that there is a considerable body
of opinion among lumber manufacturers that
holds that the supply of virgin timber owned
by the Federal Government is being lumbered
too rapidly. It is alleged that the putting on
the market at present by the National Forest
Service of large amounts of timber is not pro-
moting conservation. Owners of private for-
ests have to compete with the Government-
owned timber, with a resulting tendency, it is
claimed, toward overproduction at times and,
consequently, a waste of forest material.
Consult the Universal Want Directory of
The Review.
23
The Music Trade Review
JULY 30, 1927
The Technical and Supply Department—(Continued from page 22)
stalment plan. Everybody is buying everything operation has now to be adopted in place of
Forest Laboratory
in creation on the instalment plan. And the a long-held attitude of hostility or at least of
merchandise experts of these real estate, auto- indifference. Yet just this change must be
Courses Fully Enrolled
made.
mobile, refrigerator and furrier concerns are
wise birds. They have all the tricks and then
some. They have learned the game backwards
and forwards. They can give poor old con-
servative us cards and spades, and then beat
us. And they have the public immensely in-
terested and preoccupied. And that is the trou-
ble with piano selling—and with piano tuning,
too.
The Same Boat
Yet there is a way out. There is no cause
for despair, or even for faltering. Everything
is a matter of recognizing that the industry
is a unit, that we are all in the same boat and
that we must work together unless we are
willing to go into a gentle decline. It is not
possible to say just what will be the course
of the various types of the modern piano.
No one can tell to-day what will be the future
of the straight upright, of the straight grand,
of the player-piano, or of the reproducing
piano. The course of the industry may bring
to the top again elements which have been
partly submerged during recent years. But
whatever happens, there is one thing which
everybody must recognize if both sales and
service are to prosper. And that is that we
are all alike faced with the task of re-educating
a public fallen into bad ways. I say "fallen
into bad ways" because I know perfectly well
that the American people are no more losing
an interest in music than in motor cars. The
trouble is simply that while the interest is still
there and is ready to grow, it has been al-
lowed to run wild, is losing its vitality and
needs careful pruning and cultivation to bring
it back to health.
All my readers are aware that the National
Piano Manufacturers' Association is now com-
mitted to a policy of piano promotion. The
main ideas of this policy may be expressed
thus: (1) Public interest in pianos can only
be recreated when public interest in the music
given by the piano has been recreated. (2) There-
fore, the first task before the piano industry
is "the task of facilitating and encouraging in
every way the study of piano playing and of
rediscovering to the people the undoubted and
unquestioned social value inherent in an ability
to play the piano.
The practical means adopted for carrying
into effect these ideas, and so of bringing about
again that state of public interest which is neces-
sary to the life and prosperity of any industry,
are well known to all my readers. The piano-
playing contests, the promotion of group in-
struction in piano playing, the movement for
more music in the schools; all this is well
known. But it would be the greatest mistake
possible to imagine that these things have
nothing to do with the tuner. It may not be
easy for the older men, or for those whose
experiences have been confined to a narrow
field, to bring themselves to realize that times
have changed and that an attitude of co-
FAUST SCHOOL
OF TUNING
Standard of America
Alumni of 2 0 0 0
Piano Tuning, Pipe and Reed
Organ and Player Piano
YEAR BOOK FREE
27-29 Gainsboro Street
BOSTON, MASS.
Tuners and Repairers
Our new illustrated catalogue of Piano and
Player Hardware Felts and _ Tools is now
ready. If you haven't received your copy
please let us know.
OTTO R. TREFZ, JR.
2110 Fairmount Ave.
Phila., Pa.
What to Do
The tuners' association, about to meet in
New York for the seventeenth consecutive
time, is a powerful body. It is a member
association of the Music Industries Chamber
of Commerce and so possesses a voice in the
government of all the music industries. Presi-
dent Deutschmann is now the oldest director
of the Chamber in point of service. The
tuners are to discuss next week their present
position and probable prospects. Let them
resolve that they will co-operate in the hearti-
est possible manner with every association or
group, national, regional or local, of merchants
and manufacturers in every effort these latter
may make to promote piano instruction, to
recreate interest in piano playing and to build
up once more a better understanding of the
inestimable social value of ability to play the
piano even moderately well. If every division
of the N. A. P. T. will offer its services and
its co-operation to the local music trade asso-
ciation, it will find an atmosphere of friend-
liness and an immediate response. The time
for hostility is gone, the day of internecine
warfare is over. Bickerings and quarrels are
to-day fatal. What we must have is co-opera-
tion, understanding, sympathy and a willingness
to forget the past; above all, co-operation with
merchants and manufacturers in every effort
they may make for the revival of the public
interest in the piano.
And I do sincerely hope that the N. A. P.
T. will adopt some strongly worded resolution
bearing upon this point.
Correspondence
Is solicited and should be addressed to William
Braid White, 5149 Agatite avenue, Chicago.
Reducing Fire Hazards
on Varnish Sprayers
National Board of Underwriting Engineers Pre-
pares Recommendations to This End
In consequence of many unfortunate fires re-
sulting from the use of paint and lacquer spray-
ers in improperly protected booths, the National
Board of Underwriting Engineers has prepared
some recommendations for reducing the haz-
ards of these processes. They state that the
National Board regulations for spraying and
spray booths, published in 1922 and revised in
1926, do not appear to have been followed. The
engineers state that most of the fires in spray-
ing booths result from fans and motors used
for ventilating the booths; broken electric lamps
and other electrical effects; cleaning interior of
booths, fans and motors with highly inflam-
mable solvents and accumulations of deposits
or residues in the tubes and vent pipes.
In carefully managed plants the spraying is
done in metal booths, which are provided with
various types of exhaust systems, but in many
plants it is done in the open. It is his opinion
that a really safe spraying equipment has not
yet been discovered. The greatest hazard is
not in the lacquer wheh is sprayed on the metal
or wooden surface to be covered but in that
which is shot past the object and is deposited
on walls and floors in the form of fine grains,
which have been found subject to spontaneous
combustion.
The only effective way to deal with this haz-
ard is absolutely to cut off the department in
which the spraying is done from all other parts
of the risk, for it is considered inevitable that
explosions and fires will occur even though the
booths are frequently cleaned and every reason-
able precaution taken.
Directors Report Indications Are That Quotas
Will Be Filled for September Courses
MADISON, WIS., July 23.—The number of en-
rollments already received in response to pre-
liminary announcements indicates that the
Forest Products Laboratory's Fall group of
courses will again enjoy a full attendance, ac-
cording to W. W. Weber, manager of the
courses. Last Spring, Mr. Weber was obliged
to turn away applicants for instruction in all
three of the short courses in gluing of wood,
kiln drying and boxing and crating. Within
two weeks of the first announcement of the
date, the September gluing course had been 25
per cent enrolled and inquiries and enrollments
for the other two courses were coming in at a
rate indicating that quotas would again be filled
or exceeded.
In order to make it possible to attend both
the gluing course and the kiln drying course on
one trip to Madison, these courses have been
set for consecutive periods. The instruction in
the gluing of wood will be given the week of
September 12 to 17 and the kiln drying lectures
and demonstrations September 19 to 30. The
short course in box and crate construction will
be in session September 19 to 24.
Wessell, Nickel & Gross
Report Better Demand
Entire Equipment of Factory Being Carefully
Gone Over in Preparation for Fall Season
The entire mechanical equipment of the Wes-
sell, Nickel & Gross factory, New York City,
has been carefully gone over and in some in-
stances reconditioned in preparation for what
will probably prove a very busy Fall season.
F. A. Wessell, president of the company, re-
ports that the number and size of orders re-
ceived has shown a marked improvement.
George Koenig, secretary of the company,
left with his family on Saturday on vacation.
He has gone to Lake Sunapee, N. H., from
which he plans to make several motor trips
through the White Mountains.
Arthur L. Wessell, vice-president of the com-
pany, is spending much time during the Sum-
mer months at Barton, Vt., when- tin- mills of
the company are located.
Investigating Federal Cut
WASHINGTON, D. C. July 25.—Turning the tables
about, the National Lumber Manufacturers' As-
sociation will consider at a meeting of its direc-
tors announced for San Francisco, August 3,
the question of whether the Federal Govern-
ment is cutting its national forest timber too
rapidly.
While complaints of too rapid timber cutting
are usually directed at lumber men and often
from governmental sources, it was explained
to-day by Wilson Compton, secretary and man-
ager of the National Lumber Manufacturers'
Association, that there is a considerable body
of opinion among lumber manufacturers that
holds that the supply of virgin timber owned
by the Federal Government is being lumbered
too rapidly. It is alleged that the putting on
the market at present by the National Forest
Service of large amounts of timber is not pro-
moting conservation. Owners of private for-
ests have to compete with the Government-
owned timber, with a resulting tendency, it is
claimed, toward overproduction at times and,
consequently, a waste of forest material.
Consult the Universal Want Directory of
The Review.
Future scanning projects are planned by the International Arcade Museum Library (IAML).