Presto

PRESTO
April 4, 1925.
Recognition
Precedes
Success
TUNERS SEND OUT
A QUESTIONNAIRE
New Form of Activity of National Association
of Piano Tuners, Inc., Strives to Interest
Music Teachers in Unselfish Purposes of
the Organization.
SHARED INTERESTS
Teachers Requested to Aid in Object of Tuners' As-
sociation by Supplying Answers to a Dozen
Important Questions.
SEEBURG
DEALERS
HAVE DISCOVERED
THE KEY TO
POSITIVE
PROFITS
There are many styles
in the
COMPLETE
SEEBURG LINE
to interest you
RELIABLE REPRE-
SENTATION INVITED
WRITE
J. P. SEEBURG
PIANO CO.
"Leaders in the
Automatic Field"
1508-1514 Dayton St.
CHICAGO
The National Association of Piano Tuners, Inc.,
with headquarters at 22 Quincy street, Chicago, is
constantly active in acquainting the music trade with
the purposes of the organization and piano owners
with the responsibilities of the piano tuner. The
keener interest of dealers and independent tuners in
the tuners' national association, consequent on the
publicity activities, is one result; more interest in
their pianos by owners is reflected in the increased
number of requests for tuners' services to representa-
tive music houses.
Now the National Association of Tuners, Inc., is
directing a special series of letters to music teachers
who should be the most potent aids towards more
tuneful pianos. The following letter to music schools
and individual teachers was mailed this week:
Addressing the Music Teacher.
With your varied and exacting duties it would be
an imposition, ordinarily, to intrude upon your time,
but when an opportunity presents itself to make a
helpful and timely contribution to the great cause
of music in which you are so vitally interested and in
which you have attained such signal honors we feel
that you will regard it as a privilege, as well as a
duty, to lend your efforts to the eradication of a long
standing evil with its demoralizing influence on the
devotees of music in general and the music student
in particular—the untuned piano.
You know what the services of the faithful piano
tuner have meant to you and your art. These same
efficient services will mean much in a musical way to
the vast army of piano owners, numbering approxi-
mately ten millions, in this country when they real-
ize how vital and important piano tuning is.
Appeal to Good Judges.
No one knows better than you that good music
when played on out-of-tune pianos ceases to be good
music. Don't you honestly believe that the first step
toward becoming a musical nation lies in educating
piano owners to the necessity of keeping their pianos
always in tune?
With these thoughts in mind, we are enclosing a
questionnaire which we trust you will be kind enough
to fill out and return. And will you not please make
your answers as full and as complete as possible?
If you do not care to reply to all of the questions in
the order given will you not kindly answer in detail
those which you regard as essential and fundamen-
tal?
We have no selfish motive in making this request.
It is not made with the idea of boosting the tuner's
or the piano merchant's game, but it is made with the
hope that it will help the common musical good.
Will you therefore please be kind enough to let us
hear from you just as soon as you conveniently can?
Thanking you for your generous co-operation,
The Questionnaire.
Accompanying the letter was the following ques-
tionnaire with a request for a return with answer
filled out:
1—Does not the teacher do himself and his pupil
an injustice if he fails to ascertain directly, or through
some one competent to judge, the condition of the
piano on which his pupil is to do his practicing?
Ans
2—Is a pupil not seriously handicapped if he
begins his studies on a piano out of tune, below pitch,
or in need of action regulation? Ans
3—If practice is continued for a considerable length
of time upon a piano out of tune, does the pupil not
become tone-deaf, that is, will not all sense and pro-
portion of tone value and appreciation be destroyed?
Ans
4—Can good technic be developed on a piano the
action of which is out of adjustment, badly worn
or unresponsive ? Ans
5—Do not the parents make a grave mistake in as-
suming, as many of them do, that any sort of piano,
in any sort of condition, is good enough for the child
to begin his musical studies on? Ans
6—Should not the teacher protest against a pupil
using a piano of this kind? Should he not insist upon
the piano being put in good condition? If the piano
cannot be restored to a satisfactory condition should
he not insist, then, upon the purchase of a new one?
Ans
Tuneless Pianos and Decadence.
7—Can we become a musical people by playing on
or listening to pianos habitually out of tune? Can
there fail to be a decadence of music in general as
the result of pianos in the home being maintained in
an out-of-tune condition? It is estimated that sev-
enty-five per cent of the teachers of the younger
pupils pay no attention to ear training. Can such
teachers be classed as competent if no attention is
paid to developing a musical spirit in their pupils?
Ans
8—The violin teacher will not permit his pupil to
take a lesson on an instrument which is out of tune.
Isn't it equally as important that a piano student
should use only instruments that are always in tune?
Ans
9—If the voice student has a defect or impediment
in his vocal apparatus, the teacher sends him to a
throat specialist for treatment. If the piano is "ail-
ing" and unable to function properly, should not the
piano doctor, in the person of the piano tuner, be sent
for to administer proper treatment? Ans
10—As a pupil does not always know when
his piano is out of tune, should the teacher not
insist upon him having it tuned every four or six
months? Ans
11—As the teacher has not the time, and seldom the
opportunity, for knowing the condition of his pupil's
piano, should he not, therefore, appoint an official
censor whose business it would be to inspect the
pupil's piano and report to him its condition, with
recommendations as to what should be done? Nat-
urally, this person would be the piano tuner. In
doing this, would not the teacher be protecting him-
self and accelerating the progress of his pupil? A n s . . .
12—Do you not think that if there were some edu-
cational propaganda along the lines indicated above
among the teaching profession and the musical press
that the great cause of music would benefit very ma-
terially? Ans
ONE OF THE PIANO MEN
YOU OUGHT TO KNOW
Si. Popplar, of Grand Forks, Real He-Man of
Out-of-Doors, Who Is Also at Home
in Busy Store.
Know Si. Popplar of Grand Forks, North Dakota?
No? Well, you should. He's one of the young men
who can shoot, run, play ball or handle the "mits"
with the best of 'em. He is, in fact, a sort of rough-
rider, all 'round piano man. He has built up a large
business, with headquarters in Grand Forks, by rea-
"SI" POPPLAR.
son of his versatility, good judgment and that, as yet,
unsolved factor known as "personality."
Mr. Popplar is known to his friends and neighbors
as "Si."—just that, and he's the only one within miles,
even when there's a crowd around. He is the head
of the Popplar Piano Co., and the store in Grand
Forks is one that would do justice to any other city
anywhere. There is a story, well worth repeating, in
which Mr. Popplar figures in connection with an-
other popular piano man and personal friend.
It appears that the Grand Forks house sells The
Cable Company line. And in the Northwest that
means that Geo. W. Slawson covers the trail in that
country. One day a young traveller for an eastern
piano house stepped into the Popplar store. Looking
around he, of course, saw the Cable-made pianos.
Just to show that he was wise he remarked: "Well,
I see that you know Mr. Slawson."
"Know him? Rather!" replied Mr. Popplar, "George
Slawson has been travelling through the small sticks
of this country ever since Adam was a child and I
don't know when I haven't known him."
The remark, by Mr. Popplar, goes to show that a
man who sticks to a thing must become well known,
and that is one reason why The Cable line is im-
movably popular in the northwest, where the "small
sticks" have grown into great forests. The Popplar
Piano Co. is an active concern, and the all-round
athletic life of its head accounts for much of its
activity, for he sells pianos just as easily as he tosses
the ball.
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