Presto

PRESTO-TIMES
ISSUED THE FIRST AND
FIFTEENTH IN EACH
MONTH
September 1, 1929
PRESTO PUBLISHING CO.
Publishers
417 So. Dearborn St.
Chicago, HI.
The American Music Trade Journal
Items of news and other matter are solicited and If of
genefal 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.
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mercial Cable Co.'s Code), " P R E S T O , " Chicago.
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tion will be charged if of commercial character or other
strictly news interest.
Entered as second-class matter
Jan. 29, 1896, at the than
1
When electrotypes are sent for publication it is re-
Post Office, Chicago, 111., unto*! Act of March 3, 1879.
quested that their subjects and senders be carefully indi-
cated.
F R A N K D. A B B O T T
- - - - - - - -
(C. A. DAN I ELL—1904-1927.)
Editor
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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.
The last form of Presto-Times goes to press at 11 a. m.
Thursday preceding publication day. Any news trans-
piring after that hour cannot be expected in the current
issue. Nothing received at the office that is not strictly
news of importance can have attention after 9 a. m. of
Thursday. If they concern the interests of manufactur-
ers or dealers such items will appear the issue following.
CHICAGO, SEPTEMBER 1, 1929
THE TUNERS' CONVENTION
"The tuner alone preserves the tone" is the slogan used by pro-
fessional piano tuners in referring to the accomplishments of that pro-
fession. For that it is indeed a profession and an art of high degree
was emphatically adduced by speakers at the National Association of
Piano Tuners, Inc., annual convention in the Sherman House, Chicago,
last week. These speakers included C. D. Bond, ex-president of the
National Association of Piano Manufacturers, and Dr. Lewis Browne,
head of the musical department of the public schools of Chicago.
It was brought out at the convention that, due in a great measure
to radio, the number of young people studying music at the present
time is the largest ever known, which increases the demand for
tuning. However, it was declared, this is offset by countless others
radio has caused to give up attempting to perform, and because the
piano is not used, they cut out tuning to save money.
Points emphasized at the convention were that a piano should be
tuned two to four times a year. The tuners claim that there are
today in America over ten million pianos in use and it is a deplorable
fact that eight million of them are out of tune and regulation.
The convention urged cooperation between teachers and tuners,
so that the pupil may progress in a satisfactory musical manner.
UNCATALOGUED NEIGHBORS
That piano dealer who has not catalogued his neighborhood and
secured whatever information is available as to what pianos are
owned and in what condition they are, is hardly alert to his own best
interests. A wide-awake dealer knows who needs a piano in his
neighborhood. He has lists of the sub-debutante daughters in the
families ; he knows a little about their talent for music, their desire
for a piano and the honor of their parents about paying bills. He is
a good mingler, always polite and deferential, and in this manner he
has paved the way for an advance-preference for the makes of pianos
he represents.
UNMUSICAL TALKIES
People of culture Avho practice voice control and like good music
and who have been distressed by the strident raucousness of the
voices in so many of the so-called "talkies" may take heart and again
patronize the theaters very soon. For the photographers are about
PIANOS BURN AT BRISTOL, TENN.
The Clark-Jones-Sheeley Co.'s store at Bristol,
Tenn., caught fire on the night of Aug. 19, from an
adjoining building which was burning, the King-
Cochrane department store. This building with the
stock of merchandise and three others in the same
block, together with the piano store building with
stock of pianos, Victrolas, radios, records and other
musical merchandise, was a total loss. The company
is about 75% covered with insurance. This is the first
fire sustained by the Clark-Jones-Sheeley Company.
The company was established in 1898 and has been
Steinway representatives since 1902.
ready to put into practice their "third dimension" pictures, which will
permit the return of the silent "movies," greatly improved. The
new-style pictures will show distance and proportion back of the flat-
front screen, every object wherever placed looking natural and life-
size. What a relief that will be from the present monstrous Frank-
ensteins that have been appearing on the stage—each man with the
voice of an ogre, each woman mannishly unnatural and sounding
about as soft as a slab-saw in a stonevard !
BEAUTIFUL PIANOS OF TODAY
The beauty of man}' of the modern pianos is too subtle to be
reached by any formula. Nature's choicest patterns are chosen for
the veneers and the cases are put together in forms that reach a high
degree of skilled design, making them works of art. As there is no
more sure sign of a fine nature than the absence of self-consciousness,
so there is no more sure sign of greatness in art than simplicity. It
is not art to strive to make people stare, to do the unusual. The
object of the artist should be to make works as perfect as possible.
Into his work he puts the deepest and most unchangeable traits of
his character, the best of his native powers, thus creating his own art
ideal. In his struggles for achievement he will not attempt the slight-
est deviation from the standpoint taken, although the effort may be
as wearisome to him as climbing the face of a very steep mountain.
THAT BUSIER SILENCE
Being too abrupt in presenting selling arguments to a piano pros-
pect often upsets the apple cart: and so will over-sly caution or
pussyfooting. The man who hurries forth to vanquish the obstacles
in his selling path will frequently find himself vanquished instead of
landing in the lap of prosperity. Because a man is sitting quietly
alone at his desk is no sign that his mind is not engaged in that
busier silence that would cause him to resent the offers of any im-
pertinent salesman as earnestly as if the salesman had interrupted a
business conference. Such a prospect when dignified by high-wrought
meditation can not be disturbed with impunity. In proportion to the
violence of the salesman's efforts will be the keenness of his disap-
pointment. He will find himself fretting the languor of exhausted
hope into the torture of unavailing regret.
else is delightfully new. Body comes apart in four
sections. New type tuning device which you'll agree
is the simplest and most effective of them all."
FOUND STARR PLANT BUSY.
BALDWIN FOR GRAND OPERA.
The August issue of Opera Topics, the official
organ of the Chicago Civic Opera Co., bears on its
back outside cover a likeness of a Baldwin grand sim-
ilar in construction to those in active use by the
municipal opera company. It is indicative of the high
merit of the Baldwin's tonal quality that the instru-
ment should be chosen as the official piano of one of
America's foremost operatic organizations.
Following a trip to the piano factory at Richmond,
Ind., and on to Chicago where they visited the Zero-
zone electric refrigerator plant, Joseph DeHays, man-
ager of the Dayton, Ohio, store of the Starr Piano
Company, 116 North Main street, and his sales man-
ager, J. W. Sweeney, are back in Dayton. At the
OUTLOOK GOOD IN NORTHWEST.
Richmond plant, Mr. DeHays says he found a full
force working in two shifts making a total of 20 hours
C. R. Stone, of the Stone Piano Company, Fargo,
daily not only on Starr grand and upright pianos, N. D., in a recent interview with a Presto-Times
but on cabinets to supply the radio industrv.
representative, says that he anticipates a great re-
CONN ALL-METAL CLARINET.
newal of business this season. "All conditions indicate
"Until you've tried this marvelous clarinet you can
a much better trade in the Northwest than we have
LIVE LONG; PLAY VIOLIN.
have no conception of how perfect in tone and musi-
1
cal quality a silver clarinet can be," says C. G. Conn,
No one can join the Three Quarters Century Club , had for the past year'
Ltd., Elkhart, Ind. "This is an exclusive Conn cre- at Battle Creek, Mich., until he has attained the age
ation. New in bore, new in tone hole location, new of 75 years. One of the members is a violinist 92
The Ronald Sanders Co., which took over the musi-
in diameter and in height of sockets, new in design years old. The only person now a member who is
cal instrument factory of the S. F. Everett Co., St.
of keys and mounting. Lay of the keys, same as on over 100 years of age was a gentleman who could not
Mary's, Ohio, when it went into receivership, has
the wood clariiiet. The familiar feel is there. All attend the last meeting because, he was traveling.
begun manufacturing instruments at the plant.
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