Presto

PRESTO
The American Music Trade Weekly
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY AT 407 SOUTH DEAR-
BORN STREET, OLD COLONY BUILDING, CHICAGO, ILL.
Editors
C. A. DANIELL and FRANK D. ABBOTT
Telephones, Local and Long Distance, Harrison 234. Private Phones to all De-
partments. Cable Address (Commercial Cable Co.'s Code), "PRESTO," Chicago.
Entered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, at the Post
under Act of March 3, 1879.
Office,
Chicago, Illinois,
Subscription, $2 a year; 6 months, $1; Foreign, $4. Payable In advance. No extra
charge in United States possessions. Cuba and Mexico.
Address all communications for the editorial or business departments to PRESTO
PUBLISHING CO., 407 So. Dearborn Street, Chicago, III.
Advertising Rates:—Five dollars per inch (13 ems pica) for single insertions.
Complete schedule of rates for standing cards and special displays will be furnished
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.
Photographs of general trade Interest are always welcome, and when used, if of
special concern, a charge will be made to cover cost of the engravings.
Rates for advertising in Presto Year Book Issue and Export Supplements of
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 partH 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 ln-
jited and when accepted will be paid for. All communications should be addressed to
Presto Publishing Co., 407 So. Dearborn Street. Chicago, III.
SATURDAY, JUNE 9, 1923.
PRESTO CORRESPONDENCE
IT IS NOT CUSTOMARY WITH THIS PAPER TO PUBLISH REGU-
LAR CORRESPONDENCE FROM ANY POINTS. WE, HOWEVER,
HAVE RESIDENT REPRESENTATIVES IN NEW YORK, BOSTON,
SAN FRANCISCO, PORTLAND, CINCINNATI, INDIANAPOLIS, MIL-
WAUKEE AND OTHER LEADING MUSIC TRADE CENTERS, WHO
KEEP THIS PAPER INFORMED OF TRADE EVENTS AS THEY HAP-
PEN. AND PRESTO IS ALWAYS GLAD TO RECEIVE REAL NEWS
OF THE TRADE FROM WHATEVER SOURCES ANYWHERE AND
MATTER FROM SPECIAL CORRESPONDENTS, IF USED, WILL BE
PAID FOR AT SPACE RATES. USUALLY P1IANO MERCHANTS OR
SALESMEN IN THE SMALLER CITIES, ARE THE BEST OCCA-
SIONAL CORRESPONDENTS, AND THEIR ASSISTANCE IS INVITED.
ADVERTISING INFORMATION
Forms close promptly at noon every Thursday. News matter for
publication should be in not later than eleven o'clock on the same
day. Advertising copy should be in hand before Tuesday, five p. m.,
to insure preferred position. Full page display copy should be in
hand by Monday noon preceding publication day. Want advs. for cur-
rent week, to insure classification, must be at office of publication not
later than Wednesday noon.
THE PIANO TODAY
The piano is the uppermost thing in the minds of the music
loving public and it will remain so. All the other means to music-
making are collateral, or associate members of the "art divine." Of
course the violin, and some other of the so-called small instruments
will always be means to great musical attainment. Older than the
piano and, in a sense more personal in their possibilities of expres-
sion, they belong to music as almost nothing else can. But, in the
popular sense, the piano is the people's instrument.
And, for the reason suggested, the piano manufacturers, and
especially the piano merchants, should confine their enthusiasms to
the piano, and not divide their energies with any other forms of
music-making. It was a mistake when so many piano factories de-
voted a considerable share of their energies to the production of
cheap phonographs. Very few of them are doing it now, but un-
doubtedly for the time they helped along a competition—ephemeral,
to be sure, but hurtful to their own interests.
Today it is radio that is pushing itself into every possible place
of vantage. It is radio that is forming propaganda and seeking the
time and influence of the piano merchants. And former piano men
are often at the head of it and sacrificing their influence and their
skill in the piano business to the new-comer. It may be well for the
piano men to consider where radio may lead the piano, and wherein
they can possibly spoil a good business for a doubtful one.
Piano men should continue to develop the demand for pianos.
The fine old instrument which has steadily advanced since the day of
June 9, 1923
Cristofori is as fertile today as ever. It is better than ever, and its
possibilities are larger than before. The piano business of today
displays signs of such a revival as few other lines of industry can
show. It is altogether a question of dealers' energy and enterprise.
They can make the the piano business better and bigger in the near
future than ever before in the history of musical instruments. And
we believe that they are going to do it.
A GREAT EVENT
It was a big convention. We speak in the past tense although the
week is not yet over, and the visitors in Chicago have slowed down but
little since the formal proceedings ended. It is certain that no man
who has been in Chicago all this week will ever forget his experience
or the enthusiasms which have surged in and about the Drake Hotel;
the reunions of friends; the splendid displays of the manufacturers;
the throb and thrill of the music; the eloquence of the speakers, and
the delights of the banquets of which Wednesday brought the climax.
There are piano men who will say that at none of the earlier con-
ventions has the sense of satisfactory sequence of events, or of sub-
stantial accomplishments, been more complete. To some, of the
older members of the association, there may have been a feeling of
disappointment that quite a number of the Old Guard were absent.
But that is the inescapable penalty of time. The large enthusiasms
of the younger members fully compensated, and in numbers the
gathering was perhaps larger than at any of the preceding meetings,
though on this point there is discussion.
The pivot of interest, to most of the visiting members of the
trade was in the displays, of which there were 74 at the Drake. And
without exception the exhibits displayed an advance in the character
of the instruments exhibited over any earlier event of the kind. It
was a great piano exposition, larger than the famed Section 1 of the
greatest World's Fair the peoples of the globe had ever seen.
From first to last the formal proceedings of the convention were
of unusual interest. The addresses were characteristically instructive.
The meat of them all appears in this issue of Presto, and it will pay
any serious piano man to clip and preserve most of them. To active
members of the associations w r hich constitute the Music Industries
Chamber of Commerce, there may be pride in the treasurer's report,
in which the monetary stability of the trade is outlined. It would,
only a few years back, have been considered impossible to finance
an organization such as has now been developed by the enterprise
and liberality of the manufacturers and merchants. It speaks well
for the trade that so considerable a contribution to the general cause
of music as the reports indicate, may be credited to the business.
For $37,059.29 devoted to the advancement of music, as a stimu-
lus to public investment in the instruments of music, is not an in-
significant sum, especially as it represents but one branch of the
Chamber's activities. And the other official reports are scarcely
less significant of the determination of the manufacturers and mer-
chants to sustain their organization.
It has been a great week. The convention has done a lot of good.
It will continue to spread its influence far along into the twelve
months ahead until the time comes for another convention in New
York City.
THE AUTOMATIC PIANO
In offering an apology to the J. P. Seeburg Piano Co. for an
almost unpardonable mistake of a re-write editor in last week's
Presto, there is presented also an opportunity to discuss a some-
what remarkable phase of the music industry and trade. The error
was in referring to the progressive Seeburg industry as makers of
playerpianos in the ordinary sense, and also in locating the offices at
the old plant on Erie street, Chicago, which was abandoned two
years ago for the present plant at 1510-1516 Dayton street.
Of course, under ordinary circumstances there could be no spe-
cial harm in the mistakes referred to. But in a trade paper, the
annoyance to the industry, and to the retail dealers, may be con-
siderable. And, too, a publication devoted to any special line of
business is supposed to apply the rule of accuracy in such matters.
Certainly Presto tries hard to adhere to that rule, and it is rare that
mistakes of the kind occur.
The apology now presented to the J. P. Seeburg Piano Co. may
also serve to illustrate one of the difficulties by which all business
papers all papers of any kind, in fact—are beset. How such mis-
takes happen is something that no one can satisfactorily explain. It
is not lack of information, nor is it lapse of alertness, altogether.
It is more like the fate we find so elaborately discussed and analyzed
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