The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1891-10-31
DUMMIES lN rHE nANp.
)ne of tho Tricks of tho Musician's Trade
Revealed by Musical Barber.

)ne of tho Tricks of tho Musicians Trade
Revealed by a Musical Barber.
lie was engaged in cutting my hair,
md with the affability of his race he
,trove to entertain me, says a writer.
His conversation ran upon his own
power as a musician His "main-hold,"
ne said, was the cornet, but he was
equally good at swallowing the piston
rod of the trombone, and wouldn't take
a rear pew for the next man at scratch
ing sentry-box fiddle or coquetting
with the diaphragm of the baby violin.
"Why, then" 1 ask ed don't you OBJ
tain place in some band?"
ut doesn't pay" he replied, "there
are too many dummies in the field. A
good musician can make big pay If he
can get steady job, but there are only
three or four of them in each band. The
rest of them are dummies. This of
course, doesn't apply to the prominent
bands, but good many of the smaller
ones are made up in that way. O., no!
None of 1t for me. I'd rather scrape a
customer than fiddle, and prefer to
blow my own horn than to blow a
brazen one.
Take the picnic-excursion bands,
chowder bands and target-company
bands-at least ten per cent of them
are chuck full of dummies" He con-
tinued: Suppose you want to hire a
band for any purpose You hunt up
a leader and ask him how much he'll
charge for, say, twenty pieces. Hell
tell you ten dollars for the leader anC
five dollars head for the others-a
total of one hundred and five dollars
Now, how many musicians do you sup
pose you get in that band?"
"Twenty."
"Minus eight or ten. Do you sup
pose that the leaders going to pay rea
musicians five dollars when he can ge
dummies for one dollar apiece?"
But what is dummy"
"Why, any tramp can be dummy
A grocery clerk or a bargain-counte
fiend very often makes good extr;
wages by playing in band during hi
off hours. The leader has eight or ter
good players always at his command
They are regular members of his bant
and he always knows where he car
place his hands on them. They get full
pay and can make as much music a
twenty. The rest are dummies. The
uniforms are furnished them, and al
they have to do is to swell out thei
cheeks look as if they are choking =
death, wiggle their tigers and turf
over the leaves of their note book
whenever they see all the rea
musicians do so. There isn't SCUM
comes through the fue of the horn
Once in awhile they make a bad breal
and do blow. Then there is an ur
1 earthly screech, and the dummy is fine
his day or nights pay. You see he i
paid for not playing, and fined if h
loses his grip on his breath. Some in
struments are made expressly for dun
mics, and you couldn't knock note on
of 'em with a cyclone hitched to tn
blow end. Others are stuffed with rags
: and no matter how absent-minded o
7 excited a dummy may become, he can
Y interfere with the harmony. Oh, it's
great scheme"'
t ''But that applies only to wind instrr
ments; it couldn't be worked wit
stringed music?"
Couldn't, eh? What's the matte
with greasing the bow? Did you eve
try to play a fiddle with the bow resine
with lard?"
"Never did"
''Well, you try it. You won't get an
more music out of your fiddle than yo
would out of q dead cat. The dummie
. are supplied with fat or tallow done IL
like resin. When the strings emit
noise out comes the fat and the bow
creased so that no squeak may bur'
u out upon the symphony of the concer
know what I'm talking about, an
l you'll find that it's true if you take tn
trouble to investigate the matter"
Investigation proved that there we
= some truth in what the barber had salt
!, One or two leaders admitted that sue
thing has been done in days gone b,
but they said that upon the organic;
ton of musical unions the custom b.
came obsolete. In some instances
might be done now. Dummies wei
sometimes employed merely to lear
J. the business and actions of the profe
sional musicians, they said, but the
e services were never charged for. IS
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