Presto

PRESTO
August 11, 1923
REMARKS FROM THE SIDE LINES
By HENRY McMULLAN.
A Kansas City piano tuner claims he has invented
a machine for measuring the degree of sweetness and
melody in the tone of a piano. The uses of the
machine will be limited, however. There are thou-
sands and thousands of pianos made every year
whose tone would jar a seismograph.
* * *
Jazz music chances to have a certain significance
in that it marks the flowering of blatancy throughout
the world. War is the flower of discontent; soviet-
ism, however, repugnant to long-established modes
of government, originated in an effort to repudiate
smug tyranny; a fight among small boys on a street
corner can be traced to the continued hectoring of
the school bully. Jazz is lively and inspiriting, a
welcome reaction from the tedious pounding of a
piano out of tune next door by the child pupil.
* * *
According to an irate missionary, American rag-
time music is being arranged to suit native Chinese
instruments and American smut songs are being
translated in large quantities for sale in China. At
last we are about to get even for chop suey.
* * *
Only a trifling example of defect in construction at
the factory, but oh, what a ruction it raised! For want
of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse
was lost; for want of a horse the rider was lost; for
want of the rider, who happened to be the general,
the battle was lost and the enemy took the country.
Deductively then, each piano must leave the factory
as nearly perfect as is possible.
* * *
George Bernard Shaw says that all Americans
gleefully evade their taxes. That's too sweeping. It
must be admitted though, that those flowery and im-
aginative mail order house adsmiths should be forced
to take out a poet's license.
* * *
The repair man in his manipulation of old mate-
rial sometimes runs across a rare instrument that has
been silent for years. Such an accidental find may be
a mere rarity of occurrence, as distinct from rarity
of quality, but when men like Mr. Bartholomee, of
Chicago, run across a real good old instrument they
never receive what it is worth when they part with it.
* * *
Thanks to the good Saint Gasolinus, country roads
are now in a good condition resulting from paving
them with something besides good intentions.
* * *
Looking ahead sometimes the road seems straight
and uninteresting enough. Nothing in sight prom-
ises anything. So we are inclined to feel when slowly
but surely an attractive curve comes into view, with
rich fields in the foreground and an attractive town
in the distance. It is just so in the piano business.
No customers in and a meager list to call upon. But
our business car is pushing on, until we add to our
quota of prospects and approach some very busy
times.
* * *
Sometimes a good pianist fools the newspaper car-
toonists by wearing his hair short.
* * *
There is plenty of room at the top so far in piano
building, although the roof-garden seems to be
crowded with master singers.
A little wild bird sometimes at my ear
Sings his own verses very clear;
Others sing louder that I do not hear.
For singing loudly is not singing well;
But ever by the song that's soft and low
The master singer's voice is plain to tell.
Few have it and yet all are masters now,
And each of them can trill out what he calls
His ballads, canzonets and madrigals.
The world with masters is so covered o'er,
There is no room for pupils any more.
* * *
To those who are sufficiently accomplished to suc-
cessfully practice it, a little camouflage now and then
may serve good purposes. In a selling talk an adroit
turning away from the direct subject diverts the pros-
pect from asking an entangling question, and then the
salesman can return to quality, price and terms and
close the deal with reasonable dispatch.
* * *
Piano making is an art. If it be of the essence of
artistic creation that the artist should conceal his
process, it is no less of the essence of esthetic enjoy-
ment that it should remain so concealed. Does this
not explain why every artistic piano is even better
than its forerunner?
* * *
Advertising in print sometimes shows the inequal-
ity between our powers of perception and our powers
of expression. Wholesale piano advertising is a de-
partment of activity requiring the judgment of ex-
perience rather than silky phrasing of hyperbolical
phantasmagoria. The writer must know his goods,
his market, his country, its crops, its financial con-
dition by sections, and the general trend of the trade
in various localities. And these are only a few of
the things that he must know.
* * *
The piano's lesson is articulate for all to hear and
understand. The dominant note is often hard to de-
cide upon, like that in the voice of a good friend who
has come on a long journey for a visit after many
years. But like the voice of that friend its tones are
very pleasant and soothing.
* * *
There is little sense in facing life with a solemn-
owlishness so complete that the great seriousness
sticks out of every lineament of the countenance.
No good piano man will do that. Leave that sort of
a face to some political editorial writer on a Ken-
tucky daily paper; to the gangs that talk politics in
front of the hotels in Indiana; to the soap-box ora-
tors of New York; to the legislator in Illinois with
the one-track brain; to the Michigan preacher who
wants sumptuary laws passed regulating the length
of women's skirts and making face-cream taboo.
* * *
Trust a man when you find a firm basis of thought
underlying his every act. "Why I trust nobody,"
said an acquaintance. And that explains why that
acquaintance is holding a secondary place in his little
world. A man who exerts his faculties in a chosen
line of work with a certain spirit of freedom, with a
certain breadth of understanding, will find all of his
friends rallying to him simply because he has trusted
them.
* * *
Success must never go without its qualifying adjec-
tive. Manufacturing companies jealously guard the
qualifying adjectives that are constantly used to de-
scribe their products, whether they be patented medi-
cines, airplanes or pianos. The American spirit is
shown in the use of apt adjectives. The long era of
muscular power has passed, and the era of mechani-
cal power has brought with it a new kind of civiliza-
tion.
* * *
The dull man is made so not by the nature, but by
the degree of his immersion in a single business.
Therefore the necessity of regular vacations. In the
United States, which is a hot country during June,
July and August, the majority of the vacations are
planned for part of those months. But any month
is suitable for a vacation. After the employe has
thought of little else for several days, it is just as
well to let him start on a vacation, for he will not
be worth much until "he gets it out of his system."
He may sigh for the mountains or the ocean; or he
may not be much of a traveler and will therefore be
content with a short trip to enjoy the quiet beauty
that is everywhere about him; beauty of sky and
plain and river, of field and forest, of ravine and wild
flowers, of butterflies and shining beetles, of sights
and sounds and perfumes that transport him far from
the grimy maw, grinding noises and poisonous va-
pors of the city.
SALT LAKE CITY ACTIVITIES.
The Glen Bros.-Roberts Piano Co., Salt Lake City,
Utah, will spend about $500,000 in the remodeling,
decorating and furnishing the Blackman-Griffin
building, which will be the new home of the com-
pany, about September 1. It is part of the expan-
sion plans of the enterprising Utah company, which
recently increased its capital by filing amendment to
its incorporation charter. The new capitalization is
for 150 shares of 8 per cent cumulative sinking fund
first preferred at $100 par value and 3,500 shares of
common stock without designated par value.
A CONTINUOUS SHOW.
There is now under construction in Chicago the
largest furniture exposition building in the world,
one solid block square, 16 stories high, to cost
approximately $8,000,000.00. Furniture is Chicago's
fourth industry. At the present time there are five
large furniture exposition buildings, which are used
exclusively to display furniture for the benefit of the
furniture dealers from all over the United States to
select their stocks for the coming season.
NEWMAN BROS. PIANOS
SOUGHT BY DEALERS
High Grade Workmanship Is Slogan of Chi-
cago Factory, Where Every Department
Is Busy.
Newman Bros. Company, 815 N. Dix St., has a
policy in its business which dealers will under-
stand. There is never a rush in the construction of
any piano, no matter how urgent may be the call.
At present orders are very urgent for the high-grade
instrument of the Newman Bros. Co.
Every part of the mechanism of the Newman Bros.
Co. instruments gets careful attention, no matter how
apparently insignificant the part may be.
The effort to put the very best material and work-
manship in every piano put on the market has not
only increased the sales but has won over a great
L. M. NEWMAN.
many friends. This has become very noticeable in
the last few months as quite a number of dealers
who are new to the Newman Bros. Co. have made
special inquiries about the line.
"A strong argument with the Newman Bros. Co.'s
dealer is that all Newman Bros, instruments are built
up to a standard and not down to a price," said
L. M. Newman, president of the company, this week.
"Each instrument is most carefully and individually
built and nothing is rushed through. Just now we
are busy in every department but dealers may be
assured they will be as proud of the instruments
shipped at this time as of the ones received by them
in a less hurried time."
TRADE MISSIONARY WORK
FOR SOUTH AMERICA
Comprehensive Scheme Advocated by Department of
Commerce in Special Report.
Practical trade "missionary work"' is needed in
South America today, according to the Department
of Commerce, which advocates the placing of Ameri-
can manufactures in the schools of that country, for,
it maintains, the scholars of today will be the buyers
of tomorrow.
The Latin-American field is large, its resources are
great, says the Commerce Bureau, and the constant
increase in the development of these natural resources
is augmenting the purchasing power of the people.
This is not the time for American firms to stand idle
because immediate sales do not promise large prof-
its; this is the time for missionary work—and then
more missionary work.
"Too often American firms have subordinated the
development of a permanent market to immediate
sales, and too often American exporters have failed
to fit their sales policy and methods to the buying
psychology of the Latin-American, which demands a
gradual building of interest, desire and confidence
rather than a sales argument based primarily on at-
tracting attention and stimulating interest," says the
report.
BRANCH DISCONTINUED.
PICNIC ADJOURNED.
This week marks the last week for the Oak Hill
branch store oi the well known Summers & Son
Music Co. Excessive high rent is given as the rea-
son of the discontinuing for the present of the local
store. Mr. Summers has conducted a music store
there for years.
"Owing to the lack of responses and the fact that
so many of our members will be away during the
middle of August we will not hold the picnic on Aug-
ust 15th, as previously announced," is the announce-
men of The Piano Club of Chicago, in a letter to
members signed by J. T. Bristol, president,
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