Presto

PRESTO
PRESTO
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY AT 407 SOUTH DEAR-
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C A. DANIELL and FRANK D. ABBOTT
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Entered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, at the Post Office, Chicago, Illinois,
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on request. The Presto does not sell Its editorial space. Payment is not accepted for
articles of descriptive character or other matter appearing In the news columns. Busi-
ness notices will be Indicated by the word "advertisement" In accordance with the
Act of August 24, 1912.
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Presto will be made known upon application. Presto Year Book and Export issues
have the most extensive circulation of any periodicals devoted to the musical in-
strument trades and industries in all parts of the world, and reach completely and
effectually all the houses handling musical instruments of both the Eastern and West-
ern hemispheres.
Presto Buyers' Guide is the only reliable index to the American Pianos and
Player-Pianos, it analyzes all instruments, classifies them, gives accurate estimates
of their value and contains a directory of their manufacturers.
Items of news and other matter of general interest to the music trades are in-
vited and when accepted will be paid for. All communications should be addressed to
Presto Publishing Co., 407 So. Dearborn Street, Chicago, III.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1920.
TO CORRESPONDENTS.
PRESTO IS ALWAYS GLAD TO RECEIVE NEWS OF THE
TRADE—ALL KINDS OF NEWS EXCEPT PERSONAL SLANDER
AND STORIES OF PETTY MISDEEDS BY INDIVIDUALS. PRESTO
WILL PRINT THE NAMES OF CORRESPONDENTS WHO SEND IN
"GOOD STUFF" OR ARE ON THE REGULAR STAFF. DON'T SEND
ANY PRETTY SKETCHES, LITERARY ARTICLES OR "PEN-PIC-
TURES." JUST PLAIN NEWS ABOUT THE TRADE—NOT ABOUT
CONCERTS OR AMATEUR MUSICAL ENTERTAINMENTS, BUT
ABOUT THE MEN WHO MAKE MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS AND
THOSE WHO SELL THEM. REPORTS OF NEW STORES AND
THE MEN WHO MAKE RECORDS AS SALESMEN ARE GOOD. OF-
TEN THE PIANO SALESMEN ARE THE BEST CORRESPONDENTS
BECAUSE THEY KNOW WHAT THEY LIKE TO READ AND HAVE
THE OPPORTUNITIES FOR FINDING OUT WHAT IS "DOING" IN
THE TRADE IN THEIR VICINITY. SEND IN THE N E W S -
ALL YOU CAN GET OF IT—ESPECIALLY ABOUT YOUR OWN
BUSINESS.
PAUL B. KLUGH'S LETTER
It has been a long time since anything as meaty, in both fact a*nd
suggestion for the piano trade, has appeared as the letter by Mr.
Paul B. Klugh which appears in this issue of Presto. The letter was
not sent in for publication and we are not quite sure that we are in
line with Mr. Klugh's desire in giving place to it. But what Mr.
Klugh says so perfectly coincides with the views in part expressed in
these columns that there is in it a sense also of satisfaction of almost
personal nature.
There has been a feeling among some prominent piano manu-
facturers that the better plan for the retailer in his store is to give em-
phasis to the fact that prices are not only not going to drop soon, but
that they are liable to make another leap upwards. We have had
the idea that it is better for the salesman to side-step that part of the
argument and stick more closely to the merits of his instruments and
the necessity of every intelligent household having one of them. The
constant talk about high prices of things has a tendency to curb the
ambitions of the very class of people who can afford pianos and should
have them. They are the kind who dread the thought of extrava-
gance and strive to control their laudable desires until they can be
sure that they are buying at the lowest possible prices. And that kind
are not the ones who seek to hammer prices down, but usually pay
whatever the merchant considers right and do it in the most approved
manner—iwth cash.
But still more to the point, it is a good thing to have the facts
concerning future piano prices so clearly stated as is permitted by
Mr. Klugh's facility of expression. He leaves little ground for argu-
ment and makes straight some of the most misunderstood features
of the price problem. There is no more convincing argument than
that of wages and why they can not, and often should not, come down.
Nor can there be any question about the advisability of the piano
dealer getting out after his prospects. As Mr. Klugh says, the "easy
November 6, 1920.
days" are past. The clamor for pianos has subsided, and something
like the pre-war activities of the dealers and their salesmen are again
required, or will be needed in the very near future. It is no longer a
matter of taking the orders and promising to deliver as soon as pos-
sible. It is again becoming a question of finding the customer and
convincing him that the pianos you represent are all that they should
be and more than your powers of description can picture them to be.
In all lines of trade salesmanship is again required. It is not
salesmanship to sit in the store and listen to the appeals of customers
for the goods that can not be supplied. That condition has prevailed,
and it was an unfortunate condition no matter how much a few mer-
chants may have enjoyed it because of their happy possession of large
supplies. From this time forward it will call for salesmanship to sell
pianos, and the dealers who study what Mr. Klugh says this week, in
his letter to a Chicago merchant, may be greatly benefitted.
SMALL GRANDS
It is suggestive that the call for small grands is the feature of
the trade. In response to the demand, and of course also one of its
stimulating influences, is the fact that the number of exclusive small
grand industries has grown steadily of late. In New York City the
Bramhach Piano Co. has made an exclusive specialty of the dainty lit-
tle instruments for several years; the Lindeman factory made good
headway along the same line, and the newer Premier Grand is win-
ning fine progress in the same field. We also know that several very
strong ewstern industries are now preparing to speed up their small
grand departments.
The operating, a few years back, of an exclusively grand piano
industry would have been considered almost foolhardy. The grand
has been considered the highest attainment in piano creation, and of
such costly character as to preclude its popular sale. Most of us can
remember when it was not carried in stock by any but the largest
piano houses and never shown for sale except to professionals and
multi-millionaires. Today the small grand is in greater demand in
some communities than the upright. In the Far West there has been
developed a call for grands which has challenged the factory capacity,
and in all of the big city stores, East and West, the display is usually
as large as it can be made.
When the square piano was still with us—after the late Joseph
P. Hale had "arrived"—it had become so cheapened that many dis-
criminating music lovers, with the means to gratify their tastes, re-
fused to consider the "square grands." That was the beginning of
the effort to erect grands of lesser dimensions than those upon which
Gottschalk and Thalberg had performed. The parlor grands appeared
and met with a good sale. Then the upright began to run its way
and finally crowded the square off the stage entirely.
Today the "straight" upright has to a large extent, given way
to the player-piano, and the growing popularity of the player and
small grand promises to kill the so-called "middle-grand" upright en-
tirely. People who still prefer the piano, as a means of their indi-
vidual interpretation of good music, will buy the little grands, and
those who want music without the labor and study necessary to its
manual performance will have the player-piano.
And so we have come to another era in the piano industry. It is
again a fork in the road, with the small grand pointing the way. It
illustrates the fact that the player-piano, with all its fascination and
its marvelous powers of interpretation, does not fully satisfy the
highest demands of the ambitious world of music. The small grand,
as it is now produced, fills a want that has not been fully expressed.
It has come, not as a compromise, but as something distinct and per-
fect in its response to the needs of the large class of musical people
who want to express themselves independently and freely. They
have found satisfaction to a degree in the upright but the player-piano
has not fully appealed to them. And they find what they most want
is the small grand because, in addition to its admirable characteristics,
it comes within reach of their financial possibilities or even con-
venience.
It is said that some of the great American piano industries are
devoting the larger share of their ample facilities to the grands. This
applies, we are told, to Steinway & Sons, William Knabe & Co., Mason
& Hamlin, and others in the East, while in the West the same con-
dition exists with the Acoustigrande, Starck, Chase Brothers and
more. In Cincinnati the Morrison-Waters Piano Co. is making only
grands. The condition is one that has been greatly encouraged, too,
by the necessarily increased prices of pianos by which the better
grades of uprights have been brought within hailing distance of the
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