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PRESTO
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1884
Established
1881
THE AMERICAN MUSIC TRADE JOURNAL
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CHICAGO, ILL., FEBRUARY, 1931
Issued
.Monthly—
Fifteenth of Kuril Monlli
THE CHICAGO TRADE'S JOLLY DINNER
THE AUSTRALIAN WAY
OF PIANO TUNING
Speeches, Music and Fun Mark the Annual Party===E. B. Bartlett the
Quest of Honor
The Two Wandering Minstrels—Young Australians
Who Will Sing You a Song or Put
Your Piano in Order.
BY BESSIE E. PRIOR
(of Sydney, Australia)
In these modern days women adopt many voca-
tions, but none is stranger than the choice of a young
wife I encountered in central Queensland—that of a
piano tuner and mechanic traveling through the New
South Wales and Queensland backblocks. One of
Australia's oldest outback institutions, now vanishing,
is the traveling tuner, who is also a wonderful mins-
trel able to earn a welcome, "happy vagabond" fash-
ion, at lonely farms and stations by reason of the
entertainment he can provide his hosts. The old-time
tuner traveled on foot and depended on passing
vehicles, even bullock wagons, for a "lift." Nowadays
the traveler uses a light two-seater car.
I met my happy vagabonds through their seeking
accommodation where I also was a boarder. She
looked a mere slip of a girl, shingled, short-skirted,
powdered and lipsticked, with a very warm, brown
skin, the result of much bathing and an open-air life.
He was several years older than she, a happy-go-
lucky fellow, who was enough of a vagabond to
despise a hat. I concluded they were honeymooners.
He had been traveling as a piano tuner for fifteen
years. She was a Sydney, New South Wales, girl,
to whom housekeeping in a tiny flat or a Queen Anne
bungalow did not appeal—hated it, she told me—so
the pair started off on their married "career" in a
two-seater car, with a rumble seat at the back, where
tools, materials and personal needs could be stored.
She could teach the piano as well as tune it; she
played the ukulele and steel guitar, was a solo dancer,
and had a light soprano voice. Working with her
husband, she soon learned the inside workings of the
piano and could take down, re-lit, re-wire, and re-
assemble an instrument.
They had been on the road for nearly ten years.
They lived about five months of the year in Sydney,
where he had a tuning and repairing "round." The
other seven were spent traveling. Their range was
as far west as Bourke—some four hundred miles
from Sydney—and over the border into southwest
Queensland, and as far north as Rockhampton. They
stayed at boarding-houses as much as possible, but
it troubled them little to spend a night under the
stars. Their workshop did not worry them. If no
bench could be borrowed, the piano's mechanism was
fixed just as well on a hotel veranda, a house balcony,
or under a roadside tree, if need be, and no makeshift
job either. They undertook the most intricate work.
There was a little story-book touch about the way
Mr. Vagabond got his start. He was not always a
tuner, but a clerk, who saw possibilities in travel. He
employed an expert, from whom he learned the busi-
ness well enough to go alone. Later he taught his
wife to be his expert assistant. The pair used their
musical talent for publicity purposes, and Mrs. Vaga-
bond gave ukulele lessons in towns where they stayed
long enough. Mr. Vagabond wrote jingles, to which
Mrs. Vagabond attached tunes and dance movements
(they had the most complicated musical shorthand
system), and between them the couple could stage a
night's entertainment to satisfy rural centers. These
they gave for bush piano funds and the like. "It gets
us known," said Mrs. Vagabond, "and we get the
pianos to do up."
There was nothing of the amateur, however, about
their business. They carried cards, dodgers, and
humorous ticklers, and made use of country news-
papers. Personal canvass, however, brought the best
business. Mr. Vagabond went from house to house,
street by street, in townships, and called at every
house in the wayside settlements. It was a bad day
that did not bring $25, I was told.
Mrs. Vagabond proved a fascinating table-mate,
with an abundance of humor, and full of tales of her
experiences. "As little baggage as possible" was the
order, so she bought clothes as she required them,
and even wore them to their last rag. Even if she did
look rather ready-made, she managed to be very
smart. But what a happy life she led, the country
she saw and the people she met! No wonder the
thought of a flat appalled her.
"But," I said one day when her stories had almost
made me decide to give up my humdrum, common-
The thirty-second annual dinner of the Chicago
Piano & Organ Association, with the Chicago Piano
Manufacturers Association and the Piano Club of
Chicago, co-operating, on the night of January 29 in
the Union League Club, Chicago, was given in homey
surroundings---a "homogeneous" assemblage, as one
attendant described it. Anyway, it was like the com-
ing together of a large family—very few from outside
Chicago were present.
After a half-hour spent in social chat, formalities
were opened by Adam Schneider who said the general
meeting was called in order to pay honor to E. B.
Bartlett, whose first fifty years with the W. W. Kim-
ball Co. had been reached on October 18 last. Mr.
Schneider read letters and telegrams of regret from
several friends and members who could not be pres-
ent and all expressing friendship for the guest of
honor. These regrets came from Richard W. Law-
rence and C. Alfred Wagner, president of the Music
Industries Chamber of Commerce, New York, from
Col. F. B. T. Hollenberg, of Little Rock, Ark., and
several others.
E. B. Bartlett's Career
Mr. Schneider, master of ceremonies, biographically
sketched features of Mr. Bartlett's career in the music
business from the time he embarked in it at Rock-
ford, 111. Mr. Bartlett's father had known young
E. S. Conway while he was a student at Eau Claire,
Wis., and the elder Bartlett had been in the habit of
giving out odd jobs to boys in which Edwin Conway
was one of the participants. In this way he had
become acquainted with the young man and the two
youths—E. B. Bartlett and E. S. Conway, struck up
a friendship.
Some years later, when E. S. Conway had finished
his schooling and was engaged in selling organs, he
went back to Eau Claire to sell Kimball organs and
Mr. Bartlett, senior, helped him to a list of prospects
to whom he made several sales. Col. Conway never
forgot a friend, and this favor cemented his friendship
for the Bartlett family. He soon had young Bartlett
inducted into the music business, and after the first
step in it the period of his novitiate was soon passed.
Mr. Schneider introduced the chairman of the en-
tertainment committee, Eugene Whelan, who in turn
introduced the Harmony Girls, whose singing was
heartily applauded. Mr. Whelan said he chose these
young women for the part because the name of their
organization was so appropriate to this meeting and
the general harmony now prevailing in the trade in
Chicago, and their fine performance had proven he
had made a most happy selection.
Henry Weisert on Piano Playing
Mr. Whelan next introduced Henry Weisert, presi-
dent of the Chicago Piano & Organ Association, who
gave a very interesting talk on the study of piano-
playing by adults as against young folks' lessons taken
in their "teens."
Piano-playing with an adult often becomes a pleas-
ant hobby, for the grown-up could entertain himself
with it as well as to play occasionally for his
friends. It was no longer necessary for the average
person of mature years, or for children, to go in for
so much musical technicality from books and laborious
fingering. Chromatics and arpeggios for beginners
were a thing of the past; the player beginning need
not aim at virtuosity as his goal. Why? Because, for
ordinary playing, the joy of creating music himself is
all the beginner expects and everybody can play some
if taught a few simple notes and selections by the mod-
ern methods now being employed in the public
schools.
Music, Mr. Weisert said, is more interesting as a
pastime than golf or card games, and is, as it should
be; one of the most interesting hobbies.
Mr. Weisert introduced Miss Jane Clinton, of New
York, who has had special experience in teaching pu-
pils of a wide range of ages—from 18 to 65 years
old. The lady told the audience about a woman of
60 who had come to her for lessons and who took
them as enthusiastically as if she were only 18; of a
band and orchestra leader among her pupils; of a
music arranger and publisher who had come to her
for instruction, and others who had taken lessons
under her direction with most satisfactory results.
Miss Clinton has been doing some special work for
The Aeolian Co. and other big concerns.
In speaking of Mr. Bartlett's long period of fifty
years with the W. W. Kimball Co., Mr. Weisert
compared him to the man about whom George H.
Chickering told a story. "The company was in doubt
about hiring him," said Mr. Chickering, "telling him
that if they decided to drop him at any time they
would give him two weeks' notice. Well, that was
72 years ago—he's still working for this firm and he
hasn't had his notice to quit yet."
Mr. Bartlett was presented with a memento in the
shape of a fine traveling bag, with the advice that
every time he went traveling with it he must bring it
back to Chicago. He promised to do this and also to
stick to the piano trade. His first trip with the bag
will be taken soon, as he intends to visit his grandchil-
dren in Texas.
Baldwin House Has Piano Classes
Retail Manager Wagner, of the Baldwin Chicago
store, when called upon, said the Baldwin house had
started piano class playing at the headquarters at $2.50
per person for the course and already had a big class
of grown-up pupils enrolled, whereupon Fred Liihnow,
of the M. Schulz Co., arose to remark that he'd give
twice $2.50 if Mr. Wagner would get President Wolff
of the M. Schulz Co. to join that class.
Among those called upon for volunteer speeches
were W. W. Lufkin, vice-president and general super-
intendent of the W. W. Kimball Co.; Ben Duvall,
president of the Piano Club of Chicago, who expressed
his pleasure at being associated with Mr. Bartlett in the
Kimball offices; James V. Sill, who said he had gained
much from Mr. Bartlett's superior advice, and George
J. Dowling, president of The Cable Co.; who spoke of
the friendly rivalry that exists between the Kimball
house and his own. In a droll, humorous way, Mr.
Dowling told of calls that were made years ago by
dealers from out of town who had dropped in at
The Cable Co.'s headquarters to say "Hello," and
who had casually remarked that they had just placed
one of their customary orders for pianos at Kimball's
across the street. However, as a similar story was
one of the late W. W. Kimball's about his rival.
The Cable Co., this seems to be a pretty well per-
petuated anecdote of the friendly competition that
has long existed between the two houses.
It was proposed by one of the speakers that a
debate be arranged between Paul B. Klugh of the
Zenith Radio and W. E. Guylee of The Cable Co.
Anyway, this proposition arose from a desire to rehear
parts of complimentary addresses by these men at
previous meetings when Mr. Bartlett was the sub-
ject. Calls for some of this former oratory brought
Mr. Guylee and then Mr. Klugh, the oratorical gen-
tlemen, to their feet and they gave, in substance, part
of their former speeches that had been remembered
with so much pleasure.
Mr. Bartlett had been at one time president of the
National Piano Manufacturers' Association and at
another time president of the Chicago Piano & Organ
Association.
The meeting closed rather early, and as a jolly ex-
pression of farewell R. J. Cook, one of the "called-
for" speakers, proposed a toast to be drunk to the
health of Mr. Bartlett, which heartily ended the cele-
bration.
GOOD STARR TRADE IN THE WEST
W. E. Gillespie, Pacific Coast wholesale representa-
tive for the Starr line of pianos, whose headquarters
are now at 1934 Ninth avenue, Seattle, informs a
Presto-Times representative that he finds, as he puts
it, "a great deal of real, nice business now and will
have a good 1931 trade." He says that the Starr line
of pianos is meeting with continuing success and in-
creasing popularity in his territory and he finds them
an excellent line to trade in.
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