The Edison phonograph monthly (Jan-Dec 1916)

10 EDISON PHONOGRAPH MONTHLY, JUNE, 1916 TONE, THE SOUL OF MUSIC THE most powerful argument that a dealer has when selling an Amberola is "tone," and a little discussion along this line may show the dealer why this is so and, by doing so, may enable him to explain to prospects the importance of this phase of the phonograph question. The greater part of the artistic appeal in music is based on tone quality. The greatest pianists and the most noted violinists of the world are not great merely because they have great technical ability. Of course they are all great technicians, but there are innumerable pianists playing in four-a-day vaudeville houses who are great technicians. The latter may be wizards of the key-board or finger-board, but they are not great in their arts because they either lack tone control or any conception of the meaning and possibilities of tone. Tone is somewhat of an intangible quality, but let a great pianist strike the key of an instrument and you will find something in the sound that is lacking when the key is touched by an amateur. It is just this difference that makes one player able to sway the emotions of the most critical audience, while another player, who is just as great a technician, cannot play so as to have any particular appeal to an audience. The lack of tone quality is what reacts most powerfully against the piano-player. It is impossible to make a mechanism that will take the place of the human nerves and muscles. A piano-player can be made to do technical stunts that eight men, seated at the piano at one time, could not begin to equal, but, nevertheless it does not attract any particular attention. The reason lies in the fact that it is not truly musical. Well, you claim, the phonograph is also a machine that simply reproduces music. It is, but there is a difference. The principle and theory that underlie the phonograph and the piano-player are entirely different. They are so different, in fact, that the first of them can reproduce the tone and the soul of music, while the other, at the present time, only gives a mechanical reproduction. Before the latter can produce tone it must be constructed differently than it is now, because wires and felt and wood can never be made to take the place of nerves and flesh and blood. But the sound and the tone that can be produced on the piano or violin by a living artist can be faithfully reproduced after it is transmitted to a record. It seems odd that such a beautiful thing as a violin solo by a master of the instrument can be reduced to the mathematical terms of vibrations. But such is the case; and in the invisible vibrations that emanate from a musical instrument that is being played the very soul of the artist is concealed. They contain every element of sound and tone, and if the most minute of these vibrations are recorded as they pass away and if they are properly revived after they have been secured, the instrument that gave them birth lives again. The difficulty in reproducing tone the soul of music, lies in securing a mechanism delicate enough to be used in impressing on a record every vibration that is set up in the atmosphere when music is played or when a song is sung; in securing a material that will receive and retain these invisible waves, and in perfecting a mechanism by which the ridges and furrows that are made in the record by the vibrations may be compelled to give up all the golden notes that are in them. In all of these particulars Edison has been successful in surpassing those who are competing against him, and the result is manifested in the superb tonal qualities of the Amberola. The dealers cannot dwell too much on the importance of tonal quality in connection with music when they are talking with an Amberola prospect, because a proper conception of the supreme importance of tone quality in music will invariably have an important influence upon the make of machine selected by the purchaser of an instrument for music's reproduction. PORTRAITS OF BLUE AMBEROL ARTISTS We have had a number of requests from persons outside the Edison organization for the gravure portraits of artists we furnish dealers. Of course these portraits were made for the use of dealers, but if you have any requests for them from your customers or callers at your store, we will furnish prints at 15c. each, mailed in a tube, postage paid. Gravure portraits of the following artists are now available: Alessandro Bonci, Tenor; Anna Case, Soprano; Thomas Chalmers, Baritone; Eleonora de Cisneros, Contralto; Marie Delna, Contralto; Julia Heinrich, Soprano; Marie Kaiser, Soprano; Arthur Middleton, Bass; Christine Miller, Contralto; Marie Rappoid, Soprano; Albert Spalding, Violin; Elizabeth Spencer, Soprano; Jacques Urlus, Tenor; Alice Verlet, Soprano. Remittance should be made in cash, stamps or money order. Address Thomas A. Edison, Inc., Advertising Dept., Orange, N. J. SPECIAL NOTICE It has just been discovered that Blue Amberol Record No. 1918, Lalani Hula's Hawaii, by Toots Paka's Hawaiians, was omitted from the list issued in the spring of 1915. It has been out of the regular catalog since that time.