Music Trade Review

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News Number
THE
REVIEW
VOL. 86. No. 26 Published Weekly. Federated Business Publications, Inc., 420 Lexington Ave., New York, N. Y., Jnne 3 0 , 1 9 2 8
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Western Music Trades Hold
Fifth Annual Meetin
President E. H. Uhl Recommends Change of Name Including
Radio—Urges Continued Work to Impress Children
With Importance of All Types of Music
OS ANGELES, CAL., June 28.—The Fifth Annual Convention of the Western Music
Trades Association got under way most auspiciously on Tuesday morning when President
E. H. Uhl of Los Angeles delivered the opening address in which he stressed two impor-
tant points. First he recommended changing the name of the organization to the Western Music
and Radio Trades Association in order to embrace radio, which he characterized as one of the
most active lines in the musical instrument business, and, secondly, urged the inculcation of mu-
sical ideas and interest in juveniles by a course
of musical study in the public schools. Both of
the recommendations were placed in the hands
of committees to be reported upon on the final
day of the convention.
In advancing his suggestion that the scope of
the association be broadened to take in radio,
Mr. Uhl stated that the interests of the radio
and music trades association so overlapped that
in many instances the two organizations were
duplicating effort and virtually the same firms
were holding membership in the two bodies.
"When you return to your homes," Mr. Uhl
told the delegates, "get in touch with your
school board and tell them that the boy who
blows a bugle isn't likely to blow a safe. Music
constitutes an outlet for youthful energy and
supplies an objective. Let every delegate at
this convention do all in his or her power to
advance music in the public schools of this
country. Music has a place there, just as have
mathematics and history."
L. E. Behymer Speaks at Luncheon
At a luncheon held in the Cocoanut Grove of
the Ambassador Hotel on Tuesday immediately
E. H. Uhl
after the business sessions, L. E. Behymer, im- was held in the morning, but, following the
presario of Los Angeles, delivered an inspira- luncheon, the meeting broke into two gather-
tional address in the course of which he strongly ings, one devoted to bands and orchestras, and
endorsed Mr. Uhl's sentiments relative to music another to sheet music.
in the schools. "This country sooner or later,"
Sheet Music Division Meets
he said, "will be embarked on a great wave of
In the latter section Harry Neville, of Los
musical enthusiasm. It is bound to come when Angeles, pointed out that sheet music counters
virtually everyone will be not only a music in most of the big music stores are almost com-
lover, but a player of musical instruments. That pletely ignored in computing the day's business
situation will be a highly democratic one, due to activity. He urged that semi-annual meetings
the far-reaching and all-inclusive nature of the of the sheet music department heads and the
enthusiasm with which music will be accepted. song shop owners of every section of the coun-
Every board of education should be solicited at try be held, and particularly recommended that
once, asking that credits be given for courses in such meetings be scheduled for the immediate
music."
future on the Pacific Coast. "Conventions of
For the day the regular convention session this nature," he said, "may embrace several
L
States, as, for instance, California, Oregon,
Washington and Utah, and value of the inter-
changed ideas soon would mount to big figures."
The Band and Orchestra Division
Speakers before the band and orchestra di-
vision commended metal clarinets, and foretold
that an era of metal instruments soon will be
in vogue. F. A. Norton, of San Francisco, said
a Los Angeles concern, the National Musical
Instrument Co., now is manufacturing steel-
bodied guitars, and declared he had recently
seen a metal string bass. He declared the Los
Angeles factory now is engaged in experiments
on a violin with a metal body.
Earl R. Stone, of Los Angeles, reported that
the piano accordion is being accepted as a rec-
reation by many local business men. He de-
clared a ready sale has been found among physi-
cians, attorneys and executives who possessed
a knowledge of music, especially of the piano.
Such business men, he said, appreciate the har-
mony of which the instrument is capable and
gain bodily exercise at home from playing it.
Enlarge Scope of Store, Says Clay
The great enlargement of the scope of the
average music store, so it will include stocks of
everything that constitutes home entertainment,
was advocated by Philip T. Clay, of San Fran-
cisco.
Motion picture cameras and projecting
apparatus, he said, rightfully belong in the musi-
cal instrument store, for the purpose of the
music establishment is to bring about greater
home happiness and entertainment. As yet, he
declared, many musical instrument dealers view
radio as an element foreign to their business,
but radio, due to its musical background, is one
of the most logical of the recently adopted
musical instrument sales possibilities.
Mr. Clay, incidentally, repeated, for the most
part, the address he delivered before the Na-
tional Association of Music Merchants in New
York recently, on the operation of a retail
music store. This address, which created a pro-
found impression, was published in full with the
accompanying charts in The Review of June 9.
The registration was below. what was ex-
pected for the opening day, the total scarcely
reaching the 500 mark, according to A. G.
Farquharson, the Association's executive secre-
tary. Greatly increased attendance, however,
was evident on the second day, as large dele-
gations arrived from San Francisco and the
Northwest.
{Continued on page 4)