view additional pages

Mickey Mouse Goes Classical

By ANDREW R. BOONE

MOVING sound has been added to moving pictures to bring greater realism to the screen. Accompanying Walt Disney’s newest Technicolor creation, “Fantasia,” in which Mickey Mouse and a host of new companions perform to the rhythms of classical music, this latest Hollywood invention made its first public appearance a few weeks ago at the Broadway Theater in New York.
Read the rest of this entry »

view additional pages

ANTIQUE JUKE BOXES

A rare find in a dusty attic led to Louis Kernstein’s role as an expert on old music machines.

TWENTY-FIVE years ago, Louis Kernstein found an old, dusty victrola in the attic of his family home in Freehold, N. J. The machine was in sad need of repair and Louis scoured his neighborhood for parts. He didn’t find the parts but he did discover all kinds of music boxes and machines which formed the basis of his present remarkable collection.

Beam of Light Carries Music

Powerful Ray Speeds Radio Program Across Half-Mile of City Buildings RADIO fans witnessed a twentieth-century marvel, the other night, when they listened to a radio program transmitted over a ray of light.

High in the tower of the Chrysler Building, in New York City, an orchestra played before a microphone. No land wire linked it to the broadcasting studio half a mile away. Instead, the blue beam of a 50.000-candlepower searchlight sped the music across intervening rooftops. Read the rest of this entry »

TESTS NOW SHOW IF CHILD IS TONE DEAF OR MUSICAL

Has Junior a natural ear for music? Or are his piano lessons wasted effort? It’s easy to find out at once, according to Prof. Harold M. Williams, of the University of Iowa Child Welfare Research Station. Tests he has devised show whether a child has a real sense of rhythm and whether he can keep a tune in singing.
Read the rest of this entry »

view additional pages

There’s Music in Everything

HAVE you ever been lulled to sleep by the musical click of the wheels as your train sped over steel rails? Have your fighting instincts been aroused by staccato drum beats or have you listened to tunes played on such improvised instruments as a musical saw, a length of pipe with a funnel in one end, a comb and piece of tissue paper, or a deflating automobile tube whose valve was fingered by the performer?
Read the rest of this entry »

I can’t imagine how this would help teach the piano. I think Dr. Johnen just got his kicks by strapping women into weird equipment.

This Instrument Will Register Body Reactions of Student Piano Player

A NEW device has been patented by Dr. Kurt Johnen, Berlin piano pedagogue, which records the motions and bodily reactions of a piano player to determine if the selection is being properly interpreted. A lady is pictured being examined by the device. A pneumatic belt records the change of the circumference of the chest, pneumatic cuffs about the upper arms control the changes of muscle tension, through a hose is recorded the rhythms of respiration and another hose transfers the strength of touch. Dr. Johnen expects this device will aid him in instructing his pupils in interpretation.

HIDDEN LIGHTS ILLUMINE MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

Musical instruments glowing in the dark with diffused light have been introduced to provide a novelty for theatergoers. As the musicians play, the moving light on their instruments offers a striking spectacle. This is enhanced by changing colors in the illumination, which is controlled from apparatus offstage. The photograph above shows how the scheme is applied to a violin, which is studded with concealed electric lights. The bow is also illuminated; a long tubular lamp serves as the frame. Trailing wires lead from the performers’ instruments to the switchboards where lights are managed.ac

GIANT SAXOPHONE IS SO LARGE PLAYER STANDS ON LADDER

Weighing 500 pounds and modeled accurately after smaller instruments, a huge saxophone was displayed not long ago in California. Securely bracketed to the outside of the manufacturer’s shop, the giant instrument formed an impressive advertising display, and to emphasize its tremendous proportions, a young woman who attempted to play it was compelled to mount a ladder to reach the mouthpiece.

SINGER CAN HEAR VOICE AS AUDIENCE HEARS IT

So that would-be singers may hear themselves as others hear them, a Los Angeles, Calif., voice teacher and former grand opera singer has invented and patented a voice reflector. Fitted around the pupil’s neck like a collar, as shown above, its convolutions carry a part of the singer’s tones back to her own ears. According to the inventor, his device will enable singers or public speakers to detect and correct faults in tone, volume, and diction during a few hours’ practice, since they may hear in this way exactly how their voices in singing or speaking would sound to an audience.

view additional pages

Let’s Play a Tune

Every Nation Has Music All Its Own Dressed in the full uniform of the Scots Guards, these experts on the bagpipe are ready to play at memorial or any other special services. The Highlander still clings to his pipes, though there are those who find them slightly less than musical.

There is no escaping the diligent ukulele player. Even in the heart of the Belgian Congo, the uke is strummed; that is, if this strange looking instrument can be called a uke. The player in the photograph is Congo’s champion, and he loves to strum and sing his native African songs.
Read the rest of this entry »

“Compact” is not the first word that comes to mind when I look at this picture, but I guess compared to most other pipe organs…

Electricity Runs New Player Pipe Organ for Home

Designed on the principle of the player piano, a compact new pipe organ for home and school plays music automatically from a flexible roll. Because of its unique feature, the “reproducing organ” will bring into the home an entire symphony, which, if played by hand, would require the services of a whole group of artists. All of their movements may be recorded upon a single roll. The organ is expected to be of especial value in schools. Pupils of music appreciation classes are enabled to hear the compositions of masters played by famous musicians and recorded for the purpose. Electric mechanism works the instrument.

Bugle Call into Megaphone Gets ‘em Up in the Morning

Reveille sounds painfully loud these days to the boys in camp at Fort Jackson, S. C. When the bugler sounds “I can’t get ‘em up in the morning” he steps to a huge megaphone that blasts his notes throughout the camp. Mess call, he finds, does not require so much artificial amplification.