Music: Gadgets

In Chicago’s Stevens Hotel last week were the makings of a terrific hullabaloo.

On display were 50,000 musical instruments worth $2,000,000— stock in trade of 500 exhibitors at the 37th annual convention of the National Association of Music Merchants. In spite of a slump during the first half of the year, the merchants predicted that the total volume of business in 1938 would equal that of the banner year 1937, when $200,000,000 was spent in the U. S. for instruments, instruction and upkeep. Most popular instrument as last year: the accordion. Outstanding trend in the trade, although unit sales have been small, is in the field in which the Hammond electric “organ” pioneered.

This year, five firms showed new electronic pianos, priced from $600 up, in which the volume is controlled electrically, and which may also house radio and phonograph equipment.

Most remarkable gadgets displayed were unnamed contraptions, basically pianos, to be marketed by Rudolph Wurlitzer Co.

and Krakauer Bros. The Wurlitzer, which will sell for less than $1,000, has two keyboards, one for piano strings, the other for any one of twelve electrically produced tones—tuba, cello, violin, flute, etc.

The supplementary keyboard is a strip of flexible material, played by depressing it with the thumb and forefinger, the pressure determining the volume. The Krakauer creation, using piano strings for its fundamental tones, has no sounding board and (like the Hammond) imitates other instruments, or invents new tone colors, by electrically mixed overtones. By pushing the proper combination of its ten buttons, it can even be made to sound like a plain piano. It contains a radio and phonograph. Price: $1,150.