Evening star., 1937-08-06
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.
Nothing new under the sun?

Nothing new under the sun?
Why, of course, there is!
No more absurd old saying ever was
perpetrated, although every one knows
how it was meant, Of course
There is always something new CROP
ping Up, really.
One may have to wait for twentv
years for it, but If patience Is exercised,
and the mind kept open, it will eventuate.
Consider that old family phonograph,
of the acoustical type, really the most
wonderful of all, just as the crystal radio
set was, in some respects, the most
amazing.
The old phonograph was purchased
twenty years ago, in the days when there
were no radio receiving SETS
When radio, as the world now knows
it, came into the popular ken, it con-
signed many faithful disc machine to
basement or attic.
The instrument in question went into
the basement. 1t had contributed many
thousands of hours OF genuine enter
tainment to its owners. Now something
new, called radio, has come along,
and the old went into the discard.
Many persons, in those days, gave
away the family phonograph, or sold
it for "a song" as the saying was.
Who would want phonograph again?
1t was such simple affair, in COM
parison with the new electrical marvel.
Many of the records were slightly
"sour," or off key, to the sensitive ear.
There was always that bother of
jumping up and down to put on new
records, and needles to fool with. You
didn't even have to move, with radio
wasn't that the aim of all good Amer
leans never to move at all?
The making Of records, as the discs
were called, popularity, never quite went
out. New electrical methods Of re-
cording were being invented, these in
turn were being perfected
While the huge purchases of records
by the people went down and down, the
sales never let up entirely; the accent
by the makers was put on the classical
and upon sets Of records such as of
operas. and symphonies, sold in albums
Time brings all things, it is said; in
time the great mass of the people began
to see that they had given up good
thing, when they let loose of their
monographs too quickly and easily.
One of the greatest comebacks III art
and industry was beginning. but it took
several years for it to get going.
In time, however, people began to go
back to recorded music. A whole new
library had been built up; there were
amazingly perfect new monographs"
electrically operated with tubes and
speakers About the only things that
seemed unchanged, in appearance, were
the discs and the needles. But the
circles, usually of black material, were
new, too; one had but to put one of
them on machine to understand-hear
that the bass was there at last. Voices
and solo instruments seemed to be float
ing on a great sea of beautiful sound.
1t was there in the record, now, it had
never been there before.
These new records on the old acouS-
tical machines 'rescued from attic and
basement gave very good performances.
but the old machines could not bring
out that wonderful accompaniment that
was in the records. Still, the old boxes"
gave very good accounts Of themselves;
the music they put out was excellent,
as of old, with more of the accompani-
ment showing than in the old days.
One family rescued an old-type ma