Presto
Issue: 1924 1984 - Page 24
24
PRESTO
EASTMAN SCHOOL OF MUSIC
How George Eastman, Its Founder, Conceived the
Idea Told by Himself.
George Eastman, millionaire industrialist and
philanthropist, and founder of the Rochester School
of Music, reached his seventieth birthday July 12.
As well as can be ascertained he celebrated the event
in Alaska, far from the little town of Waterville,
N. Y., where he was born, and from the city of
Rochester, where he won his business triumphs.
The wide world is a playground now for the man
who entered that city as a six-year-old boy, the son
of poor folk, long years ago.
The Eastman kodak and the kodak film owe their
parentage to the boy who got his first job in an
insurance office at $3 a week.
The School of Music he founded at Rochester
cost him $9,500,000. His great fondness for music
led him to build it. But apart from his personal in-
terest in the art, there was a human interest that
prompted the gift. He believes a people are formed
by the things they do in their leisure.
"It is necessary foe people to have an interest in
life outside of their occupations," he said, in speaking
of this project. "A very great deal of work is
drudgery. Leisure is unfruitful because it is not
used productively. We do not know how to use it
fruitfully. Do not imagine I am a reformer—far
from that. I am interested in music personally.
And I am led thereby merely to want to share my
pleasure with others."
Out of this grew the Rochester School of Music.
But he did not for a moment let himself be fooled
by the idea that all he had to do was to give the
people good music, and they would flock to hear it.
Hardly.
He did what the wise physician does. He sugar-
coated his pill. The Rochester School of Music
made its appeal to the people of that city because the
best motion pictures were shown there. To them
it was a new type of "movie" house, beautiful,
strangely and satisfactorily different, yet a "movie"
house. The music they got with the program was
better than that of the old rickety pianos. That
much they understood, but how much better the
new music was they didn't know at first. Before
long, however, they came to the theatre and waited
for the musical numbers with as great interest as
they waited for the feature on the screen. More,
they even stood in line to get tickets on those days
of the week when only musical programs were
given.
It was the desire to give his workers something
fine and constructive for their leisure hours that
primarily prompted the idea, but from it has grown
a temple of art for the City of Rochester.
NEW BOOK FOR STUDENTS.
A new handbook covering music theory for piano
students has been issued by the Oliver Ditson Co.,
Boston, and is described as a manual of fundamentals
and keyboard harmony. "The Music Student's Piano
Course" is the title and Book I just out covers the
years one and two of music study. It has been pre-
pared by Clarence G. Hamilton, Dr. Percy Goet-
schius, John P. Marshall and Will Earhart. The
manual opens with an introduction covering the pur-
poses of the series which, in complete form, covers
the first four years of "The Music Students Piano
Course." These manuals, however, are not confined
to the course, as they will be found equally available
for use with any other type of piano instruction. The
contents are brief, clear and well illustrated.
NO JAZZ FOR SWEDES.
Jazz music has a limited popularity in Sweden,
and dealers state that they are afraid to purchase
any quantities of this type of music, because it may
very quickly lose its demand. In that country jazz
music has a limited degree of popularity, the well-
expressed preference being for the classical kind,
according to U. S. Consul Walter A. Leonard, at
Stockholm, who says: "The average Swede is of
artistic temperament, and hence classical music and
selections, in general, from operas are popular. Al-
though most of these artists' records are supplied
from Europe, a small number come from America."
New York has a Jewish population of consider-
ably more than three million. The subway cars con-
tain Jewish advertising signs, and a fair proportion of
the people who ride in the subway trains are reading
newspapers printed in Hebrew text.
But there are few Jews in the piano business.
Why?
August 2, 1924.
IN SMALL GOODS DEPARTMENT
Growth of the Musical Merchandise Business Shown
by New Stores and Extensions.
Ehrenfried & Staff, pioneer music merchants of
Buffalo, N. Y., moved recently from 1645 Broadway
to 1070 Broadway.
J. R. Drake, of Rushville, Ind., took charge of the
Starr Piano Store on West Seventh street, Conners-
ville, Ind., June 1.
The Richard Spaniard Piano Company, of Mays-
ville, Ky., has opened a branch store at West Union,
in the same state.
The Bland Piano Co., Winston-Salem, N. C, has
opened a branch store in the Huntley-Hill-Stockton
Co.'s building on West Fifth street.
The Bungalow Music Co. has leased a room in
Taylorville, 111., and has opened a music store, sell-
ing pianos, talking machines, etc.
GOOD TENANTS.
It pays landlords to have music stores for their
tenants. There is a quaintly fine old building on
West Fourth street, near Vine, in Cincinnati, which
bears the fourth or fifth "For Rent" sign within as
many years. And yet that same building was at one
time occupied by a music house for at least twenty
consecutive years. It was the place where the late
John Church and his partner John B. Trevor made
their fortunes and built up the great business of John
Church & Co. And the great music house began to
decline when it moved away from the familiar place.
H O T E L SERVICE.
The vast improvement in hotel management and
service has made it difficult for some of the best of
them to keep up. A piano man who went straight
from the Pennsylvania, New York, to the Sinton, in
Cincinnati, barely escaped a Dempsy-Firpo argument
in the latter hotel last week.
The traveler had been used to pushing the knob
for ice water and watching the limpid flow at the
Pennsylvania, whereas at the Sinton he had sounded
the gong four times and received nothing but the
meek voice of the "operator."
He was finally pacified by the information that the
manager is somewhere in Ireland.
T
HE commonest challenge by many advertisers concerns
the paper's circulation.
It is with them a question
altogether of quantity. But the best things about piano
advertising, from the manufacturer's point of view, have other
arguments besides quantity.
In a trade paper quality circulation is more important than
quantity circulation, for bulk of circulation is not what sells pianos
at wholesale. Nevertheless, Presto is certain that in quantity, as
well as quality circulation, it will compare favorably with any of
the piano trade papers.
Presto produces results for its advertisers. It does not ask the advertisers to
pay for waste paper or mere bulk. It covers the field, and its advertising rates are
as low as any trade paper, with anything like the same circulation, can accept.
PRESTO
The American Music Trade Weekly
417 So. Dearborn St.
CHICAGO
Carries Advertising For More Live Piano Manufacturers Than Any Other Trade Paper
Enhanced content © 2008-2009 and presented by MBSI - The Musical Box Society International (www.mbsi.org) and the International Arcade Museum (www.arcade-museum.com).
All Rights Reserved. Digitized from the archives of the MBSI with support from NAMM - The International Music Products Association (www.namm.org).
Additional enhancement, optimization, and distribution by the International Arcade Museum. An extensive collection of Presto can be found online at http://www.arcade-museum.com/library/
PRESTO
EASTMAN SCHOOL OF MUSIC
How George Eastman, Its Founder, Conceived the
Idea Told by Himself.
George Eastman, millionaire industrialist and
philanthropist, and founder of the Rochester School
of Music, reached his seventieth birthday July 12.
As well as can be ascertained he celebrated the event
in Alaska, far from the little town of Waterville,
N. Y., where he was born, and from the city of
Rochester, where he won his business triumphs.
The wide world is a playground now for the man
who entered that city as a six-year-old boy, the son
of poor folk, long years ago.
The Eastman kodak and the kodak film owe their
parentage to the boy who got his first job in an
insurance office at $3 a week.
The School of Music he founded at Rochester
cost him $9,500,000. His great fondness for music
led him to build it. But apart from his personal in-
terest in the art, there was a human interest that
prompted the gift. He believes a people are formed
by the things they do in their leisure.
"It is necessary foe people to have an interest in
life outside of their occupations," he said, in speaking
of this project. "A very great deal of work is
drudgery. Leisure is unfruitful because it is not
used productively. We do not know how to use it
fruitfully. Do not imagine I am a reformer—far
from that. I am interested in music personally.
And I am led thereby merely to want to share my
pleasure with others."
Out of this grew the Rochester School of Music.
But he did not for a moment let himself be fooled
by the idea that all he had to do was to give the
people good music, and they would flock to hear it.
Hardly.
He did what the wise physician does. He sugar-
coated his pill. The Rochester School of Music
made its appeal to the people of that city because the
best motion pictures were shown there. To them
it was a new type of "movie" house, beautiful,
strangely and satisfactorily different, yet a "movie"
house. The music they got with the program was
better than that of the old rickety pianos. That
much they understood, but how much better the
new music was they didn't know at first. Before
long, however, they came to the theatre and waited
for the musical numbers with as great interest as
they waited for the feature on the screen. More,
they even stood in line to get tickets on those days
of the week when only musical programs were
given.
It was the desire to give his workers something
fine and constructive for their leisure hours that
primarily prompted the idea, but from it has grown
a temple of art for the City of Rochester.
NEW BOOK FOR STUDENTS.
A new handbook covering music theory for piano
students has been issued by the Oliver Ditson Co.,
Boston, and is described as a manual of fundamentals
and keyboard harmony. "The Music Student's Piano
Course" is the title and Book I just out covers the
years one and two of music study. It has been pre-
pared by Clarence G. Hamilton, Dr. Percy Goet-
schius, John P. Marshall and Will Earhart. The
manual opens with an introduction covering the pur-
poses of the series which, in complete form, covers
the first four years of "The Music Students Piano
Course." These manuals, however, are not confined
to the course, as they will be found equally available
for use with any other type of piano instruction. The
contents are brief, clear and well illustrated.
NO JAZZ FOR SWEDES.
Jazz music has a limited popularity in Sweden,
and dealers state that they are afraid to purchase
any quantities of this type of music, because it may
very quickly lose its demand. In that country jazz
music has a limited degree of popularity, the well-
expressed preference being for the classical kind,
according to U. S. Consul Walter A. Leonard, at
Stockholm, who says: "The average Swede is of
artistic temperament, and hence classical music and
selections, in general, from operas are popular. Al-
though most of these artists' records are supplied
from Europe, a small number come from America."
New York has a Jewish population of consider-
ably more than three million. The subway cars con-
tain Jewish advertising signs, and a fair proportion of
the people who ride in the subway trains are reading
newspapers printed in Hebrew text.
But there are few Jews in the piano business.
Why?
August 2, 1924.
IN SMALL GOODS DEPARTMENT
Growth of the Musical Merchandise Business Shown
by New Stores and Extensions.
Ehrenfried & Staff, pioneer music merchants of
Buffalo, N. Y., moved recently from 1645 Broadway
to 1070 Broadway.
J. R. Drake, of Rushville, Ind., took charge of the
Starr Piano Store on West Seventh street, Conners-
ville, Ind., June 1.
The Richard Spaniard Piano Company, of Mays-
ville, Ky., has opened a branch store at West Union,
in the same state.
The Bland Piano Co., Winston-Salem, N. C, has
opened a branch store in the Huntley-Hill-Stockton
Co.'s building on West Fifth street.
The Bungalow Music Co. has leased a room in
Taylorville, 111., and has opened a music store, sell-
ing pianos, talking machines, etc.
GOOD TENANTS.
It pays landlords to have music stores for their
tenants. There is a quaintly fine old building on
West Fourth street, near Vine, in Cincinnati, which
bears the fourth or fifth "For Rent" sign within as
many years. And yet that same building was at one
time occupied by a music house for at least twenty
consecutive years. It was the place where the late
John Church and his partner John B. Trevor made
their fortunes and built up the great business of John
Church & Co. And the great music house began to
decline when it moved away from the familiar place.
H O T E L SERVICE.
The vast improvement in hotel management and
service has made it difficult for some of the best of
them to keep up. A piano man who went straight
from the Pennsylvania, New York, to the Sinton, in
Cincinnati, barely escaped a Dempsy-Firpo argument
in the latter hotel last week.
The traveler had been used to pushing the knob
for ice water and watching the limpid flow at the
Pennsylvania, whereas at the Sinton he had sounded
the gong four times and received nothing but the
meek voice of the "operator."
He was finally pacified by the information that the
manager is somewhere in Ireland.
T
HE commonest challenge by many advertisers concerns
the paper's circulation.
It is with them a question
altogether of quantity. But the best things about piano
advertising, from the manufacturer's point of view, have other
arguments besides quantity.
In a trade paper quality circulation is more important than
quantity circulation, for bulk of circulation is not what sells pianos
at wholesale. Nevertheless, Presto is certain that in quantity, as
well as quality circulation, it will compare favorably with any of
the piano trade papers.
Presto produces results for its advertisers. It does not ask the advertisers to
pay for waste paper or mere bulk. It covers the field, and its advertising rates are
as low as any trade paper, with anything like the same circulation, can accept.
PRESTO
The American Music Trade Weekly
417 So. Dearborn St.
CHICAGO
Carries Advertising For More Live Piano Manufacturers Than Any Other Trade Paper
Enhanced content © 2008-2009 and presented by MBSI - The Musical Box Society International (www.mbsi.org) and the International Arcade Museum (www.arcade-museum.com).
All Rights Reserved. Digitized from the archives of the MBSI with support from NAMM - The International Music Products Association (www.namm.org).
Additional enhancement, optimization, and distribution by the International Arcade Museum. An extensive collection of Presto can be found online at http://www.arcade-museum.com/library/
Future scanning projects are planned by the International Arcade Museum Library (IAML).