The talking machine world (Jan-Dec 1916)

46 THE TALKING MACHINE WORLD CONVENTION OF NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF TALKING MACHINE JOBBERS— (Continued from page 45) be overwhelmed by an embarrassment of riches — so many schools placing Victors, and not knowing enough of our ever-widening plans for their use — fail to derive the full benefit from them. A Victor in a school closet gathering dust and out of repair, for want of new records to keep alive the interest of the children to carry along definite plans for use in various fields, is the worst possible advertisement. If the Victor is being used intelligently and joyfully every day, the news filters into the homes and builds Victor prestige, but if the results are marred by improper adjustment of the reproduction, or if the number of records is so small as to defeat any real plan of use, or the same few are played so frequently as to weary the pupils, then the whole splendid plan falls into disrepute — through no fault of the plan, the material prepared, or the innate love of the pupils for the work, but simply plain starvation for lack of food — or stagnation because of a continual diet of the same thing. It is a matter of life and death to the whole plan of school work, which has now reached such astounding proportions, as well as to the business side of it, to keep the schools supplied with fresh records for the ever-increasing lines of service of the school Victor. This can only be done — if you, as Victor distributers, second our efforts in making these especially prepared records, by giving them a chance. If you do not order them and do not endeavor, by letters and personal appeal, to induce your dealers to order them, how can the school people have any opportunity to find out anything about them? We are mailing direct a large amount of. literature but this is not enough. There must be the more intimate personal touch of the local dealer, where all information may be had and at least a representative list of educational records may be heard. Again, the average clerks on the floors of a large number of the stores of our dealers are unfortunately not musicians, and great difficulty is experienced by school people and supervisors in obtaining any accurate information about educational records, or in fact any enthusiasm for and knowledge of any considerable number of our Red Seal records, which we use so freely in educational work. One of your number confessed to me a while ago that he had never read the educational page in the "Voice of the Victor," never read our circular letter nor a single one of our booklets nor "What We Hear?" nor had a single clerk or assistant ever done so. Do you not think that the time is ripe for the organization of educational departments in every single one of your retail stores and in the stores of your larger dealers to take care of this tremendously important branch of Victor business? Do you not think you would increase your record business enormously with a very valuable clientele of mothers in the homes as well as to the schools if you had at least one talented, bright musicianly young woman or young man on your floor who knows music as a whole and who will give the necessary time to finding out what records young children should hear, and what lines of work are to be carried out in the schools? Thousands of mothers, having a Victrola in their homes, have not the slightest idea what records to get for the children or what can be done toward their education by means of the right kind of records, and I grieve to say that hundreds of Victor stores are unable to enlighten them on the subject when they appeal for help. Hundreds of our schools having Victors have never heard of our many new lines of work until an educational representative comes along to show them what is being done. You, as Victor distributers, are vitally interested in all that tends to build up Victor prestige and I plead with you to recognize this imperative need to give better attention to this service to the homes and schools. The schools are vital to our future and every effort should be made to increase this value as well as to serve them better for the cause of education. A number of you have already organized educational departments — this is fine — the number should be increased before September first to practically every large Victor store in the country. This movement has grown so fast that it requires prompt and efficient measures to keep pace with it. We cannot get on with the equipment of four years ago nor even one year ago. The department has planned for greatly extended development, but we need your co-operation to the fullest extent to achieve the success which the field promises. Will you not send us orders for literature carefully adjusted Chas. F. Bruno and F. E. Evans Getting the Air to your actual needs? Will you not order more liberally the records especially prepared for service in one or another of the lines of educational work, and then let the homes and schools know about them? Will you not encourage your dealers to put somebody on their floors who can push this work intelligently and will you see ■that they are supplied with the fullest information and literature? This work is no longer an experiment nor an idle dream but has come to stay, as the stone that was almost rejected by the builders and has become at least one of the corner stones of the arch of Victor success. The next paper was that by C. G. Child, director of the Recording Laboratory. Your Opportunity to Create a Greater Interest in Music By C. G. Child Ladies and Gentlemen: A few days ago I was told by Mr. Geissler that I was again to have the privilege of saying a few words to you at your annual Convention. The program for Victor Day was shown to me, and I found that I was put down for what was termed, in a most complimentary manner, an address to you on the building up of the greatest musical catalog in the world. I asked if the subject heading of the few remarks that I would make might be changed, and that I might once more say to you something touching on your opportunities to further the interest in and to bring to the great public the' better music of the world. It will, I fear, be necessary for me to make some repetitions of my little talk to you of two years ago, but the matters which I then brought to your attention are even more urgent to-day than they were at that time. Some of you will perhaps remember the expression which I used here, two years ago as to taking our business "out of Coney Island," and may I say now that it rests almost entirely with you whether the business goes back to the "Coney Island" type or not? Your interests and the interests of the Victor Co. are so closely allied to-day that I feel I may talk of our interests together, and I hope you will not consider my remarks in the light of criticism. Having had, ever since the incorporation of the Victor Co., almost the sole" responsibility for the artists added to the Victor catalog and for their repertoire, as given to us in the records in the catalog, I perhaps am more closely in touch with the very difficult situation to-day than anyone connected with the business. You will remember that I called your attention to the fact that the present grand opera is more a musical dramatic production to-day than ever before. We rarely see anything that touches on the wonderful melodies abounding in the old operas of that time. We have gone through this class of music again and again, we have been compelled, on account of the repertoire of the artists, to make repetition after repetition from these wonderful old melodies, so that to-day there is scarcely anything in the "bel canto school" that is not represented in our catalog. This situation has been so thoroughly gone over time after time that there is not much left to be taken from these old works. It is so thoroughly exhausted that it reminds me a bit of a story that Harry Lauder told me about a year ago. A young Scotch lad came to Glasgow to work in a factory. He took up his abode with an old Scotch boarding house keeper, and during the first week he was with the old lady, she gave him for his breakfast a soft boiled egg, for his luncheon another soft boiled egg, for his tea in the afternoon after the hard work that he had done, a hard boiled egg, and at night so that he might have a complete change, she gave him a poached egg on toast. At the end of the first week when he had gotten his pay, going home at night .he passed a butcher shop and saw sausages hanging in the window. He went in and asked the butcher to give him a pound and a half of sausages. He wanted the longthin ones instead of the short fat ones, because there was more to them. He took the sausages to the old lady and said: "Mother, I thought I would like to have a change for my breakfast in the morning. Will you cook the sausages for me?" "Aye, Danny boy, but how do you . cook sausages?" "Why, mother, you cook sausages like you cook a sausage." "But I ne'er have cooked a sausage." "Why, mother, you cook them like you cook a fish." In the morning Danny came down to his breakfast fully expecting to have a real treat. He was met by the old lady who said to him: "Danny, lad, I fear you'll be sore disappointed. There's not much left to them when they're cleaned." By this I do not mean to imply in any way that there is not much to the melodies of the bel canto, but I do mean to say that we have so cleaned and exhausted this particular type of music that we have taken practically all the meat and good there is in it. But in music as in our own lives, there are many other kinds of food, and there is a field which is far greater and almost limitless in its scope of wonderful music, and that is the lieder and concert songs of a great number of composers, the principal ones being Schumann, Schubert, Brahms, and of the present day, Debussy, Chadwick and many others. If you gentlemen would take the time to study the programs of the concert artists, you would find this kind of music represented in a far greater degree and used much more frequently. It appeals to all classes, it is musically instructive and in your own hands lies the opportunity to increase the demand for this music and bring it to the public and thereby add greatly to your own profits. I am constantly told by our Record Ordering Department that dealers are worried about the size of the Red Seal list, and ask, can't we cut out this, can't we cut out that, and just as frequently I am asked by the artists, "Mr. Child, what are we to sing? Some of the best things musically we have done for the Victor meet