Music Trade Review

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T H E
(Continued frotn page 15)
nating currents, either by the system of dif-
ferences (equivalent to the acoustic phe-
nomena of beats) or directly. There is no
difficulty in mastering their principles, which
can be grasped by any one who possesses
an elementary knowledge of radio technique.
There will be work some day to do on these
devices and tuners ought to know about them.
I shall not pause here to give any con-
sidered opinion upon the probability of these
instruments, in any of their forms, coming
to supersede the piano. I do not believe that
anything of the sort is at all likely, and
this for reasons which will be quite appar-
ent to any one who will take the trouble to
look into the matter.
TEACH PIANO—IN A NEW WAY
Meanwhile, something more immediate also
calls for attention.
Every practical man
knows that there is no question at all of the
piano's losing its indispensability as an in-
strument of music. The falling off in work
for tuners has been due principally to the
death of the pneumatic player. Those who
have once played the piano in the regular
way with any facility have not given up
the art. They are neither more nor Ies9 of a
minority than they were twenty years ago.
Tuners who wish to make up for kinds of
work now gone forever may, however, con-
sider the following facts, the existence of
which is well known to most of them.
The piano is the most nearly universal
and quite the most common of all musical
instruments. Professional players and teach-
ers of piano constitute the largest single
group in the profession of music. On the
other hand, as every tuner is aware, hardly
any of the teachers or the players know
anything about the construction of the piano
or about the actual mechanical connection
which subsists between key and hammer.
Now it has often occurred to me that in these
days, when both musicians and technicians
are justly concerned over the future of the
greatest of musical instruments, a better
understanding of piano construction and
piano tuning might be of the utmost value to
the first named, if only because the best
way to defend is to attack, and the best
way, therefore, to maintain interest in the
piano and in piano playing is to do better
playing and better teaching. To accomplish
this end, one of the first and the most defi-
nite needs is better understanding of the
construction of the piano, better acquaintance
with the mechanical workings of its action,
and better knowledge of the theory and prac-
tice of its tuning.
FOR THE EXPERTS ONLY
'Now I do not suppose that every tuner
who reads these words will be able to turn
them to practical account. On the other
hand, in every large city are to be found at
least some men whose technical skill and
local fame are great enough to give them a
definite standing in the musical colony. Each
one of such men can and, in my opinion, ought
to, undertake a new task and strike out a new
line. He ought to open a school for players
and teachers of piano. He might do this in con-
nection with an established conservatory or
college of music. I, myself, have experi-
mented during recent years with professional
teachers studying for advanced degrees in
M U S I C
T R A D E
WILL OF JOHN W. JENKINS
IS FILED FOR PROBATE
John W. Jenkins, Sr., head of the Jenkins
Music Co., Kansas City, Mo., who was
killed recently in an automobile accident, left
;iii estate of well over a million dollars.
His win, filed late last month, provided a
trust of all his shares of the stock of the
company in charge of his brothers, the income
over a period of five years to be divided
among various religious and charitable or-
ganizations. After these bequests are met
tue balance of the income goes to his widow,
las son, Paul W. Jenkins, and a daughter,
Mrs. 11. H. Patterson. At the end of the
five-year period the shares are to be divided
equally among these three. The home is
lett to Mrs. Jenkins.
Employes who have been with the Jenkins
house for twenty-five years are to receive
$500 each and bequests are also made to em-
ployes in the service of the company for
ten years or longer, the amounts ranging
from $100 up. Nieces and nephews also share
in the estate.
The chief beneficiary under the will among
organizations is the Y.M.C.A., which is to
receive $10,000 at once and a similar amount
two years hence to be used for erecting a
branch building.
NIEL GRAY FINDS THERE
IS A MARKET FOR PIANOS
R E V I E W ,
December,
1932
will be a sale of good used upright pianos
especially suitable for children to learn to
play. These pianos will be sold at extremely
low prices for one day. For particulars call
N. A. Gray, Hotel, etc., etc."
The results were very surprising and at
each stop some pianos were sold and for cash.
In cases where customers wanted to buy
on terms or planned to buy at a later date,
they were turned over to the local representa-
tives for following up. Among the Board-
man & Gray pianos that were sold were in-
cluded several grand and uprights for radio
station WOPI at Bristol, Va. This station,
by the way, sent out special announcements
over the air while Mr. Gray was in the
city and helped sales thereby.
EMICON, INC., OFFICES NOW
AT DEEP RIVER, CONN.
Emicon, Inc., whose product was described
in THE REVIEW last month, announces the re-
moval of its executive and sales headquar-
ters from New York City to the factory at
Deep River, Conn., where all correspond-
ence should be sent. This coordination of
sales and factory departments will greatly
facilitate the handling of the many inquiries
and orders that have developed following
the announcement of the new instrument.
F. E. LANE HEADS PIANO
TUNERS-TECHNICIANS ASSN.
That both new and used pianos can be
sold in goodly numbers and for cash was
demonstrated recently by Niel A. Gray, of
Boardman & Gray, Albany, N. Y., on a
recent wholesale trip through the middle
Atlantic states. Mr. Gray loaded a truck
with a number of pianos, including used up-
rights, and visited a number of towns in
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Vir-
ginia, Tennessee and other states. In each
town he placed an advertisement in the local
paper as follows:
"Tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock there
At the regular monthly meeting of the
Piano Tuners-Technicians Association, Inc.,
New York, held on December 5, the follow-
ing officers were elected for 1933: President,
F. E. Lane; vice-president, George Bullen-
camp; secretary, C. L. Schneider, and treas-
urer A. C. Kline. The board of directors
consists of W. C. Stonaker, A. H. Howe, B.
Berman, A. C. Greene and B. Brown. Sev-
eral applications for membership were re-
ceived and some ambitious plans discussed
for the association in the year to come.
music and have been struck with the com-
plete ignorance displayed by most of them
concerning the construction and the mechani-
cal operations of the instrument with which
they spend most of their time. I have been
even more struck with the extraordinary na-
ture of the ideas held by most of them
on the theory and the practice of tuning. On
the other hand, nothing has been more in-
teresting or more stimulating than their al-
most pathetic eagerness to acquire knowledge
on all these points. I can say that no teacher
could ever have had more attentive or en-
thusiastic students. Let no one suppose either
that these ladies and gentlemen were unable
to appreciate mechanical points.
I have
always insisted upon written answers to ques-
tions put by me at the end of the course
and have required students to make sketches
of the piano action, with descriptions of its
working. I have likewise insisted upon de-
tailed answers on the theory and practice
of tuning. And I can say from direct ex-
perience that no student, so far as I could
learn, ever left the course without at least
knowing how to judge the in-tuneness or
out-of-tuneness of his or her piano.
Although, as I said, not every one can do
work like this, nevertheless this is work that
needs to be done, and that would have been
considered ere this, by most of the important
schools of music throughout the country, if
they could have found suitable instructors,
or, at any rate, if some persuasive person
had prompted them. But it is never too late
to mend, and today the time is ripe for the
flowering of new ideas.
I do not exaggerate, assuredly, when I say
that the age of aloofness and of mystery in
matters musical has passed forever. No
longer can piano makers afford to keep up
the pretense that it is better for musicians
to know nothing about the construction of
their instruments. The policy of conceal-
ment was never sound. Today it has become
simply fatal.
There will be pianos to be tuned for many
a long day. The tuners will be fewer in
number, no doubt, but they will show a
higher average of skill and of manner. They
will have to, in fact. The survivors, indeed,
may very likely, as I have suggested, be-
come both teachers and colleagues of the
musicians. The two groups have for long
been alien, almost hostile. It is high time
they came together.