The talking machine world (Jan-Dec 1917)

THE TALKING MACHINE WORLD 69 No wonder! We have the right instrument and the right range of prices ; we have the artists and the right records. The dealer has the right discount and every day the public demand for Columbia product grows. (Write for "Music Money," a book "full of meat" for those dealers interested in quick and frequent turnover of capital.) Columbia Graphophone Co Wool worth Building, New York THE WONDERFUL MISSION OF THE TALKING MACHINE Walter W. Sellew Discourses on the Remarkable Success of the Talking Machine as a Factor and Gives Timely Illustrations That Add Force to His Remarks Musical You'll find a Swede named Olsen up on the mountain, with a whole raft of white-headed kids. They don't talk any United States, but they don't need to, 'cause there's no one but themsel's t' talk to. What for he ever took out a homestead way up there is past me; but there he is, and he must be making good. He packed in a washing machine and a canner last week; had a sewin' machine an' a phonygraft a long while ago." The speaker was a forest ranger directing a government inspector to where he might spend the night, in a trip over the mountains, provided the inspector didn't lose his way, says Waldo W. Sellew in the Nation's Business. The directions were plain, and the inspector had only to follow a telephone line and some well-blazed trails. But he thought he was lost when a little after sunset he heard some children singing in unmistakably pure Italian "La donna e mobile." He thought it was queer that the generic "Swede" should be applied to persons so unmistakably "Wop," but when he came to the circle of light from the dining room window he saw the "raft of white-headed kids," and knew they were not Italians. They weren't Swedes either, but Danes; and they couldn't talk English, except a very few words of welcome by the oldest girl, around whose skirts the smaller ones clustered when the inspector rode up. That night, after a bountiful supper, the inspector heard from the talking machine, the selection from Rigoletto, which the children, parrot-like, had repeated with all its shadings of inflection and respiration, though they did not know a word of Italian. Then he realized as never before, the wonderful value of recorded and reproducible sound. In his own home, back in Washington, he, too, had a machine, by which his own children danced, and from which he had derived many an hour of pleasure. But it Name Plates Made in V. S. A. MAXIMUM of Appearance MINIMUM of Spoilage FAIR PRICES We own and operate the largest and most complete decalcomanie iactory in the United States. Write us for samples and prices PALM, FECHTELER & CO. 67 Filth Avenue. New York had not occurred to him what such an instrument must mean in carrying civilization into the back country, though he had often marveled that his four-year-old boy, on hearing the first bar of any of thirty or forty classical selections, could name the piece unerringly, and would always know whenever or wherever he heard it. This is the keynote of making good music popular, because popular music is familiar music. The so-called classical music, then, becomes popular as soon as it becomes well-known. The growing audience of lovers of real music is a sure indication that more and more of such music is being heard by a constantly growing cirele. There is a greater interest in concerts; opera performances bring out the "Standing Room Only" sign, and all of the better type of musical productions are well patronized. America is no longer unmusical. Germany has long been known as the great musical country with musical genius in unbroken line from Bach to Wagner. Germany deserves the crown of honor it has won through centuries of painstaking effort. Music is an integral part of the character of that nation. This was brought about by centuries of careful training and conscious fostering of musical expression. What Germany took many years to do, America has done in a measure, overnight. Not very long ago America was musically a barren ground. Good artists could be heard in the larger cities only, and if they ever got to the smaller towns, there was little inclination to pay the prices asked as admission. The people did not know what they were missing. But the overnight changes came when the best music was brought into the home by the talking machine. It is hard to believe that no place in the country is unreached by a machine which had its first crude beginnings less than forty years ago. Educators, scientists, musicians, business men in their daily and indispensable use of the talking machine testify that it has passed from precarious infancy to efficient maturity. In the field of education there was originally some abjection to the talking machine, just as there is to-day an objection to the "movie" as an educational adjunct. Some of the older generation maintain that too much is done for the student of to-day, that we tell him instead of teaching him. Educational leaders of an outworn day have degenerated into common scolds in their denunciation of the modern devices of the talking machine and the motionpicture machine as giving a machine finish to the art and science of teaching. It seems strange now that most of the opposition to the talking machine in the educational field came from music teachers. Yet vocal students use the phonograph to study the phrasing, expression, and enunciation of the great singers. Olsen's white-headed kids, through the imita tive instinct, learned this without realizing it. Operatic stars employ the phonograph to criticize their own singing. Titta Ruffo, the great baritone, is said to have declared that he learned more from his talking machine than from his teachers. Now the school value of the phonograph is everywhere acknowledged. More than three thousand cities in this country have them in their public schools. New York alone has 459 to use in connection with physical training, and this does not include those bought by individual schools. They keep time in marching to assemblies, they lead concourse singing, add to entertainments; folk dances, drills, calisthenics are all conducted with their aid. Music is given its place in psychotherapy, or the treatment of sick souls. The phonograph is the only source for any and all types of music at will. The wounded in Europe's war hospitals have reason to be thankful for it. One French soldier, wounded at Verdun, wrote back to an American benefactor "I could not get the pounding of the guns out of my ears until I heard the old folk songs on the phonograph." The captain of the German underseas merchantman "Deutschland" told how the talking machine helped while away the time when they were submerged in the danger zone. It civilizes the ignorant Igorot; it aids the American business man — it is here to stay and its manufacture is an established industry. In 1899 the product of this industry was worth two-and-a-quarter millions; in 1909 it was worth cleven-and-three-quarter millions. To-day twenty millions would measure the value of the output, and the prosperity of the talking machine business is founded on the ruck of combined musical value, educational purpose, and commercial use, which, in current slang, is "going some" for the nursery-rhyme toy of comparatively few years ago. Don't treat your jobber as if you distrusted him. Remember he is probably as anxious to bold your trade as you are to keep one of your customers. CABINETS All styles of Talking Machine and Disc Record Cabinets for Manufacturers and Dealers. Standard and Special Designs :: PROMPT SHIPMENTS GUARANTEED LET US FIGURE ON YOUR REQUIREMENTS FRANZ BRUCKNER MFG. CO. 405 Broadway New York