Music and Radio: The Spirit of Music Livens Christmas Preparations

THE approach of the Christmas holiday season finds Music in one form or another playing an increasing part throughout the whole country in home life and public entertainment.

Not only are the facilities for enjoying fine music this season within the reach of greater multitudes but the desire among all classes to share in its pleasures and benefits is more strongly pronounced than ever before.

Captious critics may claim that this is the era of jazz exclusively, but the evidence is overwhelming that music of the highest grade has been and is making extraordinary advances in its appeal to the general public.

It would require too much space to mention here even briefly the many factors that have contributed toward the broadening and deepening of our national interest in worth-while music. Among these one that has assisted in no small measure has been the ways in which the love of music and the study of music has been stimulated by the makers of musical instruments both reproducing and otherwise.

This has been accomplished by improvements in the instruments themselves—especially in the reproducing field—and in helping to open and develop new channels of appeal to the masses both in the form of education and entertainment.

In this connection it is interesting to find the radio playing an important part and being used to increase the demand for the musical instruments and the musical entertainment that for a time some feared the radio would supplant.

It is an interesting story how the radio in its beginning dealt the phonograph what appeared to be its death-blow and then played such an important part in its revival, first through helping to develop a phonograph absolutely new in principle and second in providing a medium for popularizing new records by broadcasting them.

To-day, with their factories working overtime, the leaders in the phonograph industry instead of considering the radio as a competitor, use it as an aid to increase the sale of both phonograph and records. In the same way manufacturers of pianos and of other musical instruments have come to regard the radio as an ally in the sense that it helps to stimulate interest in worth-while music and in fine musical instruments of all kinds.

At the same time, great concert artists both vocal and instrumental and fine orchestral organizations throughout the country have found that the broadcasting of their programs, instead of diminishing attendance at their regular performances, has helped to increase it.

As the appeal of the radio embraces so great a variety of entertainment besides the transmission of music, it is easy to understand why in its present improved form the radio appeals strongly to those who already have one or more favorite musical instruments within their homes as well as to those who have none.

One thing sure is that finer phonographs, finer radios, finer pianos and musical instruments of all kinds were never made than are available to-day.

A happy selection and investment at this time will yield rich dividends in the way of delightful entertainment and multiply the joys of living, not only throughout the Christmas holidays but throughout the entire year.