Presto

PRESTO-TIMES
PRESTO TIMES
^
The American Miuic Trade Weekly
Published Every Saturday at 417 South
Street, Chicago, Illinois.
Dearborn
PRESTO P U B L I S H I N G CO., Publishers.
F R A N K D. A B B O T T - - - - - - - - - -
Editor
(C. A. DANIELL—1904-1927.)
J. FERGUS O'RYAN
- - - - - Managing Editor
Telephones, Local and Long Distance, Harrison 0234.
Private Phones to alt Departments. Cable Address (Com-
mercial Cable Co.'s Code), " P R E S T O , " Chicago.
Entered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, at the
Post Office, Chicago, 111., under Act of March 3, 1879.
Subscription, $2 a year; 6 months, $1.25; Foreign, $4.
Payable in advance. No extra charge in United States
possessions, Cuba and Mexico. Rates for advertising on
application.
Items of news and other matter are solicited and if of
general interest to the music trade will be paid for at
space rates. Usually piano merchants or salesmen in the
smaller cities are the best occasional correspondents, and
their assistance is invited.
Payment Is not accepted for matter printed in the edi-
torial or news columns of Presto-Times.
Where half-tones are made the actual cost of produc-
tion will be charged if of commercial character or other
than strictly news interest.
When electrotypes are sent for publication it is re-
quested that their subjects and senders be carefully indi-
cated.
Forms close at noon on Thursday. Late news matter
should be in not later than 11 o'clock diT that day. Ad-
vertising copy should be in hand before Tuesday, 6 p. m.,
to insure preferred position. Full page display copy
should be in hand by Tuesday noon preceding publication
day. Want advertisements for current week, to insure
classification, should be in by Wednesday noon.
Address all communications for the editorial or business
departments to PRESTO PUBLISHING CO., 417 South
Dearborn Street, Chicago, III.
SATURDAY, JULY 28, 1928.
by means of theater music. The spread of
orchestras and bands are in a way attributable
to the encouragement of music in theater per-
formances.
Everywhere the motion picture theater may
be found and the ambition of the owners is
expressed in the extent and character of their
musical features. The movie theater with a
symphony orchestra has the greatest drawing
power. When the players in the orchestras
are replaced by the synchronized music of the
pictures, what will become of the musical in-
strument business ? That is something the
trade considers with little satisfaction.
The possibilities have aroused the profes-
sional musicians to action. The International
Musician, the official organ of the American
Federation of Musicians, sees a campaign of
protest against the new form of theater music
as a duty of the organization. This is said:
"It is the duty of our locals to solicit the
assistance of musical clubs and lovers of music
in general, to inform the public at large of the
pseudo and canned music offered them, as it
will hinder and restrict the development of the
art of music and hence its cultural value."
-*CJT
DEALER'S LOCAL EFFORT
Livery wide awake piano dealer realizes the
helpfulness of the advertising campaign which
The last form of Presto-Times goes to press the National Piano Manufacturers' Association
at 11 a. m. Thursday. Any news transpiring
after that hour cannot be expected in the cur- is so persistently and ably operating and he is
rent issue. Nothing received at the office that equally persistent in locally performing his
is not strictly news of importance can have own part in the scheme. Where the dealers
attention after 9 a. m. on Thursday. If they co-operate in giving local value to the national
concern the interests of manufacturers or advertising for the piano the results naturally
dealers such items will appear the week follow- are greater. In other words, the money in-
ing. Copy for advertising designed for the
current issue must reach the office not later vested in a national campaign to "popularize"
the piano idea, can not accomplish great re-
fhan Wednesday noon of each week.
sults unless the publicity of a general kind
is sustained and reinforced by the local dealers
A MENACE
everywhere.
The new development of the motion pic-
The nationally wide scheme to increase
tures, the synchronization of the human voice
and music with the screen plays, interests the uses of the piano is the opportunity of
everybody in musical art, the music goods the dealer everywhere. Where the effects of
manufacturing- industry and the music goods the national plan are augmented by the local
efforts of the piano dealer immediate sales are
trade.
The musical artist foresees the possibility made possible and the increase of piano in-
of a debasement of his art in the general adop- terest rendered inevitable.
tion of the synchronizing scheme. Music lov-
But all of this is too obvious to need discus-
ers are concerned and ask what will be the ef- sion. To make the piano promotion plan most
fect of the canned music on the art of music. effective, the dealers must also get in their
It is certain that the sudden transition from work by stirring up their communities and
personally supplied music to the machine kind directing attention to their own stores and the
would evoke loud protest. Musicians making opportunities they offer.
up the orchestras in theaters and other places
It is well, also, for the dealers to develop
dependent upon the public naturally dread the ideas of practical power with which to sustain
spread in the use of machine reproductions of the national publicity. Many other lines of
music and it needs no explanations to point out business are doing it whose possibilities of
the reason why manufacturers of musical in- positive results do not seem nearly as good.
struments, those who sell them and those who
teach them, should look with disfavor on the
synchronization of music Avith motion pic-
The show window, like the newspaper ad-
tures.
vertisement, creates the buying thought which
With the general adoption of the synchron- salesmen on the inside change to realization.
ized music and pictures, the music part of the The prospect must first be made interested in
shows will not have the same cultural value the thing he eventually buys and the show
it now has. Given machine reproductions of window provides the most potent means to
music delivered with weird loud speaker ef- sales. Inducing customers to come his way is
fects, the patrons will feel they are being of- the continuous effort of this ambitious and
fered only a counterfeit in place of the per- successful dealer. He does it in a variety of
ways, the most important being attractive-
sonal services of artists.
ness
in the store. And he impressed the fact
Apart from the poverty of plot and purpose
that
attractiveness
is a requisite quality out-
in some of the screened plays, the motion pic-
side
as
well
as
inside
the store. An attractive
ture industry has been of great value in ad-
arrangement
of
goods
in the show window as
vancing the cause of music. So it seems dis-
well
as
inside
are
necessities
for creating bus-
appointing that the great industry should now
iness
everv
dav.
be threatening to undo the good accomplished
July 28, 1928
THIRTY YEARS AGO
(From Presto, July 21, 1898.)
Attention is called to the following features of the
new war revenue law which went into effect July 1,
1898:
Bank checks and drafts require a two-cent
stamp; promissory notes require a stamp of two cents
for each note of $100 or less, and an additional stamp
of two cents for each $100 or fractional part thereof
in excess of $100. For example: A note of $18 will
require a two-cent stamp; a note of $118, a four-cent
stamp, and a note of $218, a six-cent stamp.
George W. Clark, the Syracuse, N. Y., music dealer,
is making an effort to recover payment for a bor-
rowed magniphone which was destroyed at the last
annual commencement exercises at the university.
J. H. Troup, the popular and enterprising music
dealer of Carlisle, Pa., is removing his stock into the
storeroom adjoining his present location.
The semi-annual directors' meeting of the Weaver
Organ & Piano Co. of York, Pa., was held on July 13.
The reports of the president, secretary and treasurer
showed 20 per cent more organs made and sold in
the first six months of 1898 than in the same period
of any year in the history of the business.
During a recent visit to the Starr Piano Co.'s fac-
tories in Richmond, Ind., a Presto representative was
introduced to three employes who had been in their
respective places for more than twenty-five years.
"What are the uppermost topics in New York, Mr.
Strauch?" asked a Presto representative of Mr. P. D.
Strauch, president of Strauch Bros., New York.
"Well, I suppose it is safe to answer—the war and
the misfortune which has overtaken the great house
of Dolge."
Interviewing Mr. Frank A. Lee, president of the
John Church Co., Cincinnati, O., a correspondent of
Presto remarked to that gentleman:
"Hard at it, as ever, Mr. Lee?"
"Oh, yes, there's no other way. To keep in trim
the many-sided affairs of such a house as ours, one
must keep hard at it, you know."
Preparations for the Special Export Edition of the
Presto are progressing satisfactorily. It is no easy
task to gather the data required for such a publication,
especially designed for a territory comparatively new
to the American music industries.
Estey happens to be one of the names that will
withstand a good deal of villification, -with damage only
to the villifier.
The dry kiln at the Schiller piano factory in Oregon,
111., is being enlarged to double its present size.
(From issue of Presto of July 28, 1898.)
Eliminating the manufacturing retailers, and there
are not so very many productive piano industries in
this country as at first thought, seems to threaten to
over-stock the market. Think it over for a moment,
and see how few, after all, are the great piano manu-
facturing concerns as compared with the vast terri-
tory securely theirs and the millions of intelligent
people who must be supplied with pianos; the great
household aids to music and domestic contentment.
The Schiller Piano Company of Oregon, 111., have
again arrived at the old standard of business they
enjoyed prior to the disastrous fire that wiped them
out the morning of March 10 last. They are now
working a force of men as large as can be done
profitably, but in a few weeks more, when the build-
ings now in the course of construction are completed,
the force will be added to and the output of the
Schiller factory made to keep pace with the orders
received.
H. D. Bentley, the Freeport piano stool and scarf
manufacturers, reports for July the best trade he has
ever known.
Mr. E. S. Votey, whose factory adjoins the Far-
rand & Votey factory at Detroit, went to New York
this week to attend the directors' meeting of the
Aeolian Co. Mr. Votey is getting his electric piano
ready for the market.
Mr. Rheinhard Kochmann, the perpetual motion
roadman for Krakauer Bros., was in Chicago on Tues-
day and made an electric call at The Presto office.
He came and was gone so quickly that it requires a
moment's reflection to fully realize that he really has
been here. He entered like a zephyr from off the
Kansas plains and was gone like a lake breeze.
The New York law against fake advertising may
help in the suppression of the multudinous "lady in
distress" with a fine $850 piano to be sacrificed for
$400, and other frauds of that kind.
Mr. Wm, Tittler, with Geo. P. Bent, has been
doing some good work in Northern Wisconsin and
Michigan points. He recently placed the Crown
agency with Geo. W. Conklin, now the only dealer
in Marquette, Mich.
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