Joseph
Schillinger
ollu
Joseph Schillinger, ivho ha.s
taught nwn.y of Americtls
Leading coriiposers, here plays
ltis Iia,nm.Qnd. Organ. in his
Park Avenue apart,nent. in
1Vew York. His latest book,
KALEIDOPHONE, has just
been published.

J

is perhaps
best known for his theory, "The
Mathematical Basis of the Arts,"
and through his previous collabor­
ation ,vith Leon Theremin during
which h,e made contributions in
the field of 1nusical acoustics, in
the organization of an electronic
orchestra, and in writing the first
composition for an electronic in­
strument "'ith symphony orches­
tra. This ,vas publicly performed,
the first performance of its kind.
He can combine such differen:t
occupations as Wl·iting a philoso­
phical treatise on "The Destiny of
the Tonal Art" and teaching musi­
cal composition to Benny Good­
man, ,vho later became the king
of s,ving. For l\1r. Schillinger is
as practical as he is theo1·etical,
and he kno,vs that his theory of
1nusical composition becomes part
of American life only ,vhen such
maestros as Mr. Goodman, Glenn
Miller, Jesse Cra,vford, Lyn Mur­
ray, Nathan Van Cleave, arranger
fox many noted orchestras, and
Leith Stevens, Director of the Ford
Summer Hour, to mention only a
fe,v of liis students, present com­
positions ,vith their orchestras or
on the radio. The late George
Gersh,vin's most important opus,
"Porgy and Bess," ,vas the xesult
of his study ,vith Mr. Schillinger.
Back in 1918 Joseph Schillinger
,vrote an article on the necessity
OS.EPH SCHILLINGER

fo:r electronic instru1uents. He is
keenly interested in electro-nic n1u­
sic because he believes music pro­
duced electrically surpasses in
clarity of tone that produced by
conventional instruments. "The
1nen ,vlio will be respo11sible for
the music of radio and televis.ion
in 1950," he maintains, ",vill b e
neither composers nor performers,
but a new kind of 'music engineer'
,vho ,vill operate the machines that
co1npose and perform n1usic."
Joseph Schillinger was born in
1895 at Kharkov, Russia. At the
tender age of five he became inter­
ested in design, dramatics and
verse, and at ten he ,vas experi­
menting in play-,\'l·iting. Upon
his graduation fro1n the St. Peters­
burg Imperial Conservatory of
Music he be.came bead of the music
department of the Board of Edu­
cation in the Uki·aine, later served
in a similar post in Leningrad.
Dui-ing this time he did valuable
research making phonogram,s of
the native folk 1nusic of the Georg­
ian tribes in the Caucasus. He
also orga11ized and directed the
first Russian jazz orchestra in 1927
which he says netted him. as much
fun as it did kno,vledge. In 1928,
Mr. Schillinger came to the
United States to lecture on con­
temporary music, and was so im­
pressed ,vith the life and vitality
he found here that he took out citPage 6

izenship papers, beconung a cit­
izen in 193.6. In Ne,v York he
taught in the departments of Math­
ematics, Fine Arts and Music at
Teachers College, Columbia Uni­
versity.
Mr. Schillinger's spacious apart1nent contains so many interesting
objects that the casual visitor
would like to linger for hours just
investigating the�t. For exaniple,
there is the rhythmicon, an elec­
trically operated 1nachine with a
keyboard of 16 keys. With the
rhythmicon Mr. Schillinger can
produce patterns of sound which
encompass every conceivable mu­
sic pattern from the ,valtz to the
rhumba or the minuet. One of his
most vivid examples of what the
rhythmicon can do is to simulate
the rhythm of African tom-toms.
lVlr. Schillinger's recording equip•
ment is hooked up to three huge
amplifiers, one in the studio, one
in the reception room and one in
the bedroom. Students can l1ear
their o,vn efforts played back to
them which is an invaluable aid
in musical composition. It is gen­
erally conceded that Mr. Schil­
linger has the 1nost completely
equipped p.rivate studio in the
cou,ntry, but in addition its mod­
ern simplicity of line ,vith soft
pastel colors predominating makes
it a serene and :inspiring place in
,vhich to study.
Joseph Schillinger considers the
Han1D1ond Organ the first practical
electronic instrument yet devised
and because of its ability to sus­
tain tones uses it constantly in his
studio to illustrate to his students
multiple harmonies and composi­
tion of various tone qualities.

Joseph
Schillinger
'k/0/lh
elf.u taught many of America's
/eliding composers, here plays
his Ha,1,nwnd Organ in his
Park Avenue- apartment in
Nero Yori,. Bis latest book,
KALElDOPHONE, has just
been p1,blished.

J

is perhaps
best known for his theo:ry, "The
Mathematical Basis o f the Arts,"
and tJ1rough his previous collabor­
ation with Leon Theren1in during
which he made cor1trihutions in
the field of musical acoustics, in
the organizati\>11 of an electronic
orchestra, and in writing the first
co1nposilion for an eleclro.nic in­
strument with symphony orches­
tra. This was publicly performed,
the first perfo:r1nance of its kind.
He can con1bine such different
occupations as wdting a philoso­
phical treatise on "The Desliny of
the Tonal Art" and teaching musi­
cal con1position to Benny Good­
man, who later became the king
of swing. For Mr. Schillinger is
as practical as he is theo1·etioal,
and he knows that his theory of
musical composition becornes part
of Alnerican life only when such
maestros as Mr. Goodman, Glenn
MilleT, Jesse Craw-ford, Ly,n J\llur­
ray, Nathan Van Cleave, arranger
for n1any noted o;rchestras, and
Leith Stevens, Director of the Ford
Summer Hour, to mention only a
few of his students, present com­
positions ,\Tith their orchestras or
on the radio. The late George
Gershwin's most important opus,
"Porgy and Bess," ,vas the result
of his study ,vith Mr. Schillinger.
Back in 1918 Joseph Schillinger
,vrote an article on the necessity
OSEPH $CHILLINCER

for electronic instrlllllents. He is
keenly interested in electronic m u ­
sic because he believes music J>ro­
duced electrically surpasses i.n
clarity of to't1e that produced by
c.onventional i:nstrut11ents. "The
tnen who will be responsible for
the tnusic of radio and television
in 1950," he maintains, ""':ill be
neither con1posers nor performers,
but a new kind of 'n1usic engineer'
,.,ho will operate the machines that
compose and perform tnusic."
Joseph Schillinger was born in
1895 at Kharkov, Russia. At the
tender age of five he becan1e inter•
ested in design, d.ra1natics and
verse, and at ten he was e:itperi­
menting in play-writing. Upon
his graduation from tJ1e St. Peters­
burg Imperial Conservatory of
l>1usic he becan1e head of the n1usic
depar1n1ent of the Board of Edu­
cation in the Ukraine, later served
in a similar post in Leningrad.
Du.ring tbis Lime he did valual)Je
research 1naking phonograms of
the nali\'e ·folk music of the Georg•
ian tribes in the Caucasus. He
also organized and directed the
first Russian jaiz orchestra in 1927
which he says netted hin1 as much
fun as it did kr10,vledge. In 1928,
Mr. Schillinger ca1ne to the
United States to lecture on con­
temporary music, and "'as so in1pressed with the life and vitality
he found here that he took out citPage 6

izenship papers, becoming a cit•
izen in 1936. In New York he
taught in the departn1e11ts of l\fath­
en1atics, Fine Arts and Music at
Teachers College, Colwnbia Uni­
versity.
Mr. SchiUinger's spacious apart1nent contains so many interesting
objects that the casual visitor
would like to linger for hou.rs just
investigating the1p. For exatnple,
there is the rhythmicon, an elec­
trically operated machine ,vith a
keyboard of 1 6 keys. \Vith the
rhytmnicon Mr. Schillinger can
produce patterns of sound which
encompass every concehrable n1.u­
sic pattern from the waltz to the
rhumba or the n1inuet. One of his
most vivid exa111ples o f what the
rhythruicon can do is to simulate
the rhythm of African tom-toms.
Mr. Schilliuger's 1·ecording equip­
ment is hooked up to three huge
amplifiers, one in the studio, one
in the. reception roo1n and one in
the bedroon1. Students can hear
their own efforts played back to
them ,vhich is an invaluable aid
in musical composition. IL is gen­
erally conceded that Mr. Schil­
linger has the most completely
equipped private studio in the
couutry, but in addition its mod­
ern simplicity of line ,vith soft
pastel colors predotui11ating makes
it a serene and inspiring place in
which to study.
Joseph Schillinger considers the
Hainmond Organ the first practical
electronic instrument yet devised
and because of its ability to sus­
t1,1in tones uses it constantly in his
studio to illusttate ro h'is students
multiple harmonies and composi•
tion of various tone. qualities.

•

•
•

March 1942

PLAIN TALK ON
MUSICAL GENIUS
by Joseph Schillinger
tt

•

y
M

He will be only seven
next month, and he has absolute pitch, and
can play a Mozart concerto from memory." This is
. the . usual claim made by thousands of parents
throughout the world, who are proud of, and some­
times mercenary with regard to, their own children .
One hears so much about "absolute pitch" that it
should be worth the trouble to make it clear once
and for all that there is no such thing as absolute
pitch. Absolute pitch has no ch.ance whatsoever to
withstand comparison with other absol�tes, such as
"absolute zero" temperature, or the boiling point of
such-and-such a liquid, or the melting point of such­
and-such a metal. Furthermore, as science progresses,
we learn that even these absolutes vary under certain
conditions.
Some people, having read books on physics, arrive
at the idea that there is an absolute "C" of 256
cycles, or an absolute "A" ("American concert
pitch") of 440 cycles. In reality, all these standards
are established by various international and national
conferences on pitch. The fact that a certain wave
frequency is called "A" is not a natural phenomenon,
but a mutual agreement of a certain group of ex­
perts, valid in a certain locality, and for a certain
period of years. The organ pipes of Halberstadt
(1495 A.O.) were tuned at 505 cycles for "A." On
the other hand, as recently as 1713 A.O. (Strassburg
Minster Organ), the sound called "A" was below
the "F" of today. Since then it has been gradually
r1s1ng.
In the course of two hundred years the "A," which
was attributed to 393 cycles, rose to 440 cycles and
more. And although the committee appointed by the
French government introduced the "diapason nor­
mal," the respective tuning fork ("A") oscillates at
439 cycles at 68° Fahrenheit and at 435 cycles at
59 ° Fahrenheit.
Yet with all this we still have parents claiming
that their children are born with the gift of absolute
BOY 1s so MUSICAL.

pitch. There must be some misunderstanding about
the meaning of the word "absolute." In science, this
word means a definite constant, or a definite 'limit.
Such absolutes are, for example, the speed of light
constantly making 180,000 miles per second, which
is the highest speed limit known, or, the "absolute
zero," the lowest temperature known. Then it must
be something else that proud parents call "absolute
pitch.'' And it is. The so-called "absolute pitch" is
merely one small portion of the manifold of me­
chanical memory, and the ability to memorize is
highly developed in all normal children. The reac­
tion of a child's hearing to a certain frequency,
particularly with successive repetitions which often
follow as a daily routine and this is especially
true in training young violinists-develops and crys­
tallizes auditory mnemonic reflexes, and becomes a
habit. The mechanism of a reflex conditioned to a
definite sound frequency is well known through the
numerous experiments on dogs in association with
food. Thus, vain and ignorant people are trying
to glorify an ordinary and normal physiological reac­
tion inherent in children, and in animals as well.
It is a well-known fact that the mechanical mem­
ory manifests itself in more than one way in a
normal child. Children easily memorize words,
events, circu.mstances, and can learn a new language
much quicker than grown-up people who have to
go through the effort of developing associations.
It is the imitative ability that is so strong in a child,
and quite rare in a grownup-particularly in a
mentally mature adult.
Musical memory, which is often considered the
sign of a highly developed musicianship, falls into
the same imitative group. Children memorize a musi­
cal composition, even of the complexity of a piano
concerto, by constant repetition until their musical
reactions form into a habit. It is no more remark­
able than the learning of speech by a child, in which
the vocal cords produce continuous reflexes of a
33

-

•

TOMORROW
different degree of tension in an attempt to repro­
duce definite pitches by imitation. These adapted
reflexes later develop into articulate speech.
Sometimes somebody's child has not only "abso­
lute pitch" and plays a Mozart concerto from mem­
ory, but on top of all this, can even sit at the piano
and improvise like Mozart himself. In such a case
no parents ever have any doubt that the child is a
born genius, while in reality he is seldom equipped
with the necessary prerequisites of a true composer.
Among the students of music schools and conserva­
tories it is a common belief that so-and-so will be
a great composer-just because his ear recognizes
43 5 .cycles when he hears it. Another common mis­
understanding about musical abilities is the assump­
tion that such abilities in a skillful performer are
necessarily coupled with the ability to compose as
well.
Often not only a parent, but also a musical peda­
gogue, is amazed at the fact that somebody can
write outstanding and original music without play­
ing any instrument whatsoever. All the faults of
musical critics, pedagogues, and laymen lie in the
fact that all the existing definitions of musicianship
are false ones. If the true diagnosis were given, we
would not-ha¥e-so ,many maladjusted-and disap­
pointed musicians. It is often tragically true that
people who aspire in their youth to become great
concert soloists are lucky if they land as third-desk
men in a symphony orchestra.
If we wish to determine honestly what musician­
ship really is, we have to analyze first the aspects
of our musical civilization. It is characteristic of our
musical civilization to cultivate performers, singers,
conductors, ana instrumental soloists. Many of our
listeners, even among regular subscribers to sym­
phony concerts, go to hear one or another conductor
performing �e same Beethoven symphony, with the
same sense as they go to the Olympic games: they
are merely interested in who will do it better in their
opinion, or in the opinion imposed upon them by
their favorite music critic in their daily newspaper.
It is typical of our musical civilization that nobody
dares to form an opinion on facts for which the
opinion has been formed for him. There is only a
handful of listeners who would doubt the superiority
of Toscanini, just because such superiority is widely
acknowledged. Most listeners are not particularly
interested in the work being performed; but when
they visit a picture gallery or a museum, they want
34

to see the work of such-and-such a painter-and
that they can observe immediately. It is different in
music. There is a per£ ormer between the composer
and the audience, and the performer is glorified as
a hero, though from the viewpoint of natural sci­
ences he should be classified as a parasite since he
develops his own success by usurping the result of
thought and effort expended by someone else, usually
long since dead.
Very few in our audiences are aware of the fact
that the important steps in musical progress have
been achieved not by the people they admire, but, in
most cases, by the people they have never hear_ d of.
For example, the greatest eighteenth-century sym­
phonies were written not by Mozart, as i t is com­
monly believed today, but by Johann Christian Bach
( 173 5-82), the youngest son of Johann Sebastian
Bach, not an unknown figure in musical history.
It is the imitative abi�ities characteristic of the child­
ish mind that led Mozart to adapt Johann Christian
Bach's schemes in constructing his symphonies, aping
them closely enough to make it a plain case of an
event of secondary importance. Some of the best
of Johann Christian Bach's symphonies were com­
posed thirty years before Mozart's, and Mozart went
to London to study with Bach in. order to adapt
Bach's achievements for his own benefit.
Have you ever heard of Guillaume de Machault?
In his time he was the greatest celebrity in all fields.
He developed certain types of musical technique

j OSEPH SCHILLINGER is

known to a large
part of the reading public for his theories
on the mathematical basis of the arts, and to
musicologists for his varied musical compositions
and for his identification with the development
of the electronic musical instrument, the there­
min. He began composing music when very
young; he has taught in several American schools
of music and at Columbia and New York Uni­
versities, and has lectured widely on many
phases of the arts. Since 1929 he has been a
member of the New York Musicological Society,
and later, since its organization, of the American
Musicological Society and the American Society
for Comparative Musicology. His hobbies and
recreations are phot0graphy, mountain-climbing,
and fishing, enjoyed between lessons with stu­
dents in composition· who come from all parts
of the country to his New York studio.

-

March 1942
(polytonal counterpoint), for which some of our
contem poraries take the credit. The latter claim that
it is t heir discovery that several melodies may exist
in different keys simultaneously. Machault, whom
l have just mentioned, lived and died in the four­
teenth century (1320-77), and if you want to know
how "modern" his music sounds, listen to his "Mass"
written for the coronation of Charles V. (It is now
available in a Brunswick recording). How many of
Johann Sebastian Bach's admirers know that other
members of this family produced equally outstand­
ing masterpieces; and that the · man to whom the
credit should go for Johann Sebastian Bach's style
is th:e man who was his teacher, and the greatest
composer and organist of his time - Dietrich
Buxtehude (1637-1707)?
Looking back into facts of past musical history,
we often discover that people whom we consider
supermen di d not possess the imitative abilities
which we usually call musicianship. If you believe
that there is anything worth while musically in the
productions of Richard Wagner, it may surprise you
to read in his own Memoires that he had to stop
composing his "Niebelungen" because the piano had
not arrived, and he could not compose any music
without pounding it out of the piano keyboard ..
On the other hand, a great per£ orming artist may
be a very poor musician when it comes to the art
of composing music: listen to the works of Pad­
erewski and Josef Hofmann (Dvorsky).
It may produce an uncomfortable feeling in those
who have made up their minds that a genius creates
through inspiration and with the greatest of ease
to learn that, in reality, Beethoven left manuscripts
full of scratches and continuous rewriting. It often
took him a long time to shape an 8-bar theme.
Doesn't i t make you feel just a little bit suspicious
with regard to the accepted status of music when
you hear that somebody's child can create with such
ease, while old man Beethoven and Wagner had
such a difficult time trying to realize their ideas in
musical sounds?
Some years ago I heard a girl pianist who was a
sensation. At the age of nine she made extensive
hundred comconcert tours, and had written•several
•
positions-many of which were published with the
money she earned as a pianist. Nobody has ever
pl�yed her music and nobody ever will. At the age
of thirty-two she studied composition without suc­
cess. In the past there were many composers in

Germany who were industrious enough to write
over two hundred operas in the course of a brief
lifetime, but they certainly have not made any
genuine contributions to the progress of music.
If Wagner, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Stravinsky can­
not boast of possessing "absolute pi tch," but all the
thousands of insignificant epigones can, the nature
of musicianship must lie not in mere mechanical
memory of hearing or in muscular habits of finger
agility, but in something else which has never been
brought to the attention of the general public. If
some day we succeed in freeing our civilization from
the admiration of publicity seekers who, in most
cases, distort the original intentions of the . true
contributors to progress-the composers-we will
realize that the valuable substance of music is not
in the hands of the people whom the public admires
so g reatly. If the real life of music is in the hands
of a creative composer, it is he who must interest
us, providing we have a genuine love for music, and
are concerned with its well-being.
What ma kes a great composer, if it is not his
mecha nical memory, or finger agility, or extraordi­
nary sensitiveness of hearing ? The musicianship
which makes a true musician the creator of music
is a group of abilities which are diametrically op­
posed to t hose usually claimed as the attributes of
musicianship.
The first prerequisite of true musical abilities is
an immunity to and dislike for other people's music.
It is dissatisfaction that stimulates the urge to do
better things, and a true creative composer produces
his music in order to satisfy such an urge. He wants
better music than that which is at his disposal, made
by his contemporaries or his predecessors, and that
is why he wants to make music of his own. A true
creative com poser usually is an individual endowed
with originality of thought and conception-which
is more important than whether ..A" is 435 or 440
cycles per second. A true musician is a molder of
sounds, and not a resonating chamber or a mirror
that merely reflects what comes to it. He is looking
for new ways of expressing either the things that
have perpetual significance to human beings, or bas
his own new and original thoughts which he shapes
into plastic forms by means of sound. While the
elements of music remain the same through the
course of many centuries-dealing with the same
type of intonations and using similar types of in ­
struments-it becomes important to possess the abil3�

TOMORROW

•

ities of producing new combinations out of the
m.anifol d of sounds, so well-known and so seemingly
well-explored that few people realize that all the
music of our c ivilization for the past few centuries
has not even seriously scratched the surface of the
possibilities and devices offered by our present tuning
system.
If a composer wants to say something of his own,
it could be only beneficial for h im to isolate himself
from any routine music which pours out at us
through all the concert, opera, and radio perform­
ances.
Often great composers produce outstand ing musi­
cal works by employing folk songs, and even street
songs. Many great composers, beginning with
Beethoven and ending with Stravinsky, follow this
old tradit ion. They do it intentionally, and if they
do so it throws a new l ight on the problem of
originality in music. The originality does not neces­
sarily lie in the thematic material, as it is usually
agreed. It is often the case that the thematic ma­
terial is merely the springboard for the diver; it
is the flow and continuity and form of a dive which
reveal the beauty of a human body in flight, and
not the springboard itself. The thematic material
of the most import�t works by Stravinsky derives
from Russian folklore, usually very little known
even wit hin the borders of Russia.
When Stravinsky made his first appearance as
the composer of "Rites of Spring" in Paris, he was
acclaimed as a wild and fascinating barbarian, while
the truth of the matter is that he merely attempted,
intentionally or unintentionally, to express himself
as a national Russian composer. He did so, in con­
trast to the routines followed by Tchaikovsky and
Rimsky-Korsakov, who were technically half-edu­
cated musicians (as compared to their German and
French contemporaries), and who, being impressed
by the mid-European harmony, dressed up Russian
folk songs into those harmonies in which the
Russian folk songs look no more attractive than a
Russian peasant in a tail coat. Thus, if anything
makes a composer important, it is the ability to get
away from the established rou tines, no matter how
respectable they may seem on certain occasions.
If our musical education would take better care
of the young generation and teach it facts of music
insteacf of myths about music, we woul d have to
turn our admiration for the gift of musicianship
toward an entirely different course.
36

The attributes of true musicianship are:
The ability not to be impressed too much by, nor
to remember too much of, somebody else's music. .
The ability to construct new forms of sound in
its flow.
The inventiveness and combinatory abilities in
handling any raw material of intonation.
The kinresthetic sense of sound in motion-the
sense which permits the composer to emphasize long
periods of musical flow without ever hearing them
before.
The sensation of tension and release as expressed
through patterns of musical motion.
The sense of proportion in its mathematical r;nean­
ing , with regard to the character and quant ity of
sound and the distribution of the latter.
The independent thought, initiative, keen observa­
tion, analytical sense, and freedom from prejudice
and routine imposed by the established forms of
musical education.
If a good dose of the physical study of sound,
mathematics, and mechanics were to be ad.ded to
such musicianship, we most certainly could antic i­
pate a great composer in a youngster endowed and
equipped with these above-mentioned ingredients, no
matter how awkward his form of musical expression
might be today.
If you know some young man or young woman
who, at the age of fifteen, is composing music which
is perfect, you can be sure that you have a musical
corpse be£ore you. And if this still seems paradoxical
to you try to recollect that Brahms wrote his first
symphony after he was forty.

The Call
Within the darkening world, no afterglow
No hem of sunset caught against the hill­
Within the dark we rise, and make to go
Our destined journeys, having but lain down
A moment by the path. What call came through
The heavy darkness, bidding us arise,
Though we are weary still?
It is the ca/,/
Of thine own spirit that will not wait on
Thy body's weakness. If the flesh should fail,
It is no matter: spirit cannct fa/,/.
by Willis Eberman

The Schillinger Story . . .
( Ever'flbOd'IJ'• Boohshell­

tn

; Teaeher of Modern
8 Musieal Maestros

The Story of
a 1Haster Mind,
Joseph Schillinger

�

u

�

Joseph Schillinge2. Russian-Born Geniu�,
Immortalized in tsiography by Wife

z
<

By Basil Woon
It will be a pity If a large popular edition 1s not printed soon of "Joseph
fll Sc.hlllinger,'' a biography of her l�te distinguished husband by France3
Sch1111nger, hla wife. The pre.sent edition-a collector's Item It ever
t.here was one-la limited to 2000 numbered and autographed cople.s, aoma
of which a.re available and can be ordered of the publishers, Greenberg,
tlirough your bookstore.
Joseph Schillinger. had perhaps a
1reater Influence on "modern" P.fO•
Bt. Petersburg it the Imperial
conservatory of Muslei apeclall1g r a m , muatcal
•
c o m p o s ltlon,
inr in CO!JlPo-'ini and conduQt!ng.
, Bel9rl! he was 25 he had a workand the Uvlng
a r ta renerally�
tnr knowledge of six' languages,
U1an anyone t.o
was deeply Interested In ph1166ophy
and religion and had practiced
live in this century. Gershwyn
Yoga. A' 25 he wrote a poem symwu flearly unbOUzinr the tuslon of senses an(l
known when· he
the arts .of the fu�re-=-an effort
first a t u d I e d
that would h&ve interested Eugene
under SchilllnJolas; Qt transition. Prom 1917 he
ger; when he
was re,penaible for a number of
,ymphonlc &nd other co!]lposlt1ons,
died he wasn't
"a very great
and until 1928, when he left the
H
Soviet Union at the ln�tation of
mualclan - according to �lllln�ohn Dewey, the ph110110pher, he
rer, as quoted by hla wife-but he
lleld man, professorial posta In
was rettlng there, Among students
ot the l:lchllllnger System then and nrleua unlveraltlea. Schtlllnaer was
later were Oecar Lev&nt, Leith a �lared antl�Communilt-a fa.et
-Btevi!na, Olenn Miller, Palll Law� h)Ui him amona the ADlffl•
nlle, Benny OOOdman, Carmine
ea� al'tl,tic I11t�nd freque?)tly
Qoppola, Will BradJey, Tommy •eu.t on record � an enthU&ifl.St
Dorsey, Mark Warnow and many for th•. Am,rt�a� way of Uf�. , on
arrival in, New York he rapidly
others. The "aystem" was baaed on
Sch1llln�••· bf!Uet that artlstio
oalf\.e to the fore u a te�oher,
CODlJ)Olliti� and parttcuJarly the
Attet tbe publication in 19� of
cotapoeStlon of muaic, 1a a ma.t� '"nlff Schllll11ier sy,tem of Music:al dompoett19n" there were more
of
aotence, not of
, mathematlca. and
tl]an 100 authb�d teachers of the
. pniu,," <� ii also the conte�
ays�m. lie dfed In 19f2,' of cancer,
tJ.on of Herman ltesae in bis Nobel
and hJa cteatest work, "The M&theJ)?ile•winniq n�l. "Ma,ister
matlcal Basia of the Art.a,'' wu
tudl.")
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published p01thumoualy.
In her preface Mrs. 8ch1lllnaer•
Ruaaft1n-Born
l&YI her book s. not a deflnltivt
But' Joseph ecbllllnaer was m.Qre
bilOf?aphy,
"which hu yet to be
than • teacher, he was a 81rioua
wrttt.en by a scholar and a writer!'
c:ompo,er u well. His "Sympl'li,-pto
Bhtt "la an. Qr'1tz}acy woman who
Rhapaodr,' �as ch�en as the belt
worlt t.o be composed in the first 10 had the Drtvttecit a11.d rre-.t happl­
neaa or betnr m"1'rl0<1 t.o . . a
zears of the Soviet -t"eglme. Hb
rreat man and a slmple ·one." Mrs.
Bollata RbaJ11ody" was £he onl1
piano compomtion ever pla� ID SchWlnger ia too mo written, very aimply but very well,
an ot.berwlatl all-aymphonlc pro­
,rm. Be w.u born ln Kharkov in a cb&rmlJ:lrly sympathetic atory of
ber life with. an ew.aordlnary per,
1885, hJa parent.a being prosperous
,cmallty w!loee C&l'eer she helped
upper middle class people; h1s an­
.,,,,.'wboee halU)lness she mftde,
cestors ,were Dutch. He studied tn

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"JOSEPH SCHILLINGER

A Memoir.'' By his wife,
Frances Schillinger, Pages,
224. Price (boxed ) $5.00
(limited autographed edi­
tion). Publisher Greenberg.

JOSEPH SCHILLINGER was a
pheno111enon-a pheno1nenon so
recent that still relatively few
people kno\v his name. His . uni•
versa} purvie,v wafJ so vast that he
is no,v looke<;l upon by many as a
ki11d of super-genius. Perhaps he
was.
His approach to all art-paint•
ing, sculpture, architecture, music,
everything-,vas essentially math­
ematical, but many of the coin•
posers he taught, including George
Gersh,vin, Leith Steven Glenn
Miller, Nathan van Cleave, Benny
Good1nan and others, ,vere defin­
itely best kno,v11 by their toe-tick­
ling Broad1\lay tunes, save for
George Gersh1vin, known for his
Rhapsody in Blue and other seri­
ous \1-:orks. There ,vas something
about Schillinger 1vhich made all
of bis students chauvinists in their
·extravagant praise o{ their teacher.
Born in Russia in 1895, he re­
ceived his education at the St.
Petersburg Conservato1·y and .be­
came Dean and Professor of the
Academy of l\ilusic, teacher of
Composition at the State Institute
of Music (Leningrad ) as well as
Conductor of the Ukraine Sym­
phony Orchestra. In every respect
he was amazingly precocious and
versatile. Seeking ne,ver and ,vider
fields he ca1ne to America when
he was thirty-four years old an9

was shortly appointed to a posi­
tion at Teachers' College (Colum•
bia University) as teacher of
mathematics, music and fine arts.
He was married in Russia to a
beautiful actress ,vho "'as jealous
of Schillinger's gro,ving prestige.
This led to a separation. In No­
vernber 1938 he 1narried his sec­
ond wife in Ne\v York. She ,vas a
divorcee ,vho had been an artist's
model and a . secretary. This
union was ideal. Frances became
an invaluable helpmate and a
devoted secretary for the re­
mainder of Schillinger's life. She
it was who n1ade it possible for
Schilfinger to put do,rn his ideas
in manuscript for1n for the press
and thus rendered an invaluable
service in preparing the publica­
tion of the Schillinger Systen1.
Frances Schillinger, despite the
hazardous literary undertaking of
attempting a biography of her ex­
traordinary 111ate, has presented
an unusually sincere and distinc­
tive portrait \\'hich at once 1nakes
it an historical doc'ument and at
the same tiine an intimate picture
of an inspiring dotnestic and pro•
fessional association. She reveals
to us the aesthetic, fastidious
Schillinger, n1eticulous in his dress
and in his household, quite unlike
the popular conception of a gen­
ius. His life "·as so deli herately
planned and so all-c-0n1prehending
that the couple led an almost
ecstatic, well-ordered existence.
They were exuberantly happy in
their life together.
Schillinger \\·as a deep thinker,
but had the gift of i1nparting his
theories ,vithout being ponderous.
He gave little ti1ne to politics but
laid do\Yn au outline for the reha­
bilitation of hun1anity. He felt that
religious and econo1ni' c philoso•
phies such as d10$e of }larx led
to the enslavctnent and unhappi­
ness of the people.

ETUDE- ,l!A RCH 1950

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Schillinger
Publications Now Available

Books
THE SCHILLINGER SYSTEM OF MUSICAL COMPOSITION
(2 vols., 1664 pp.) Carl Fischer, Inc.
THE MATHEMATICAL BASIS OF THE ARTS
( 706 pp.) Philosophical Library

KALEIDOPHONE: Pitch Scales in Relation to Chord Structures
(95 pp.) M. Witmark and Sons

Musical Compositions
MARCH OF THE ORIENT, Op. 11, orchestral study score. Leeds
Music Corp.

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FIVE PIECES, Op, 12, for piano. Associated Music Co.
EXCENTRIADE, Op. 14, for piano. Associated Music Co.
LITTLE WALTZ, for piano. Leeds Music Corp .
DANCE SUITE, Op. 20, for unaccompanied cello. Leeds Music Corp.

THE SCHILLINGER SOCIETY Is an orgaelzatlon for111ed
to spread and perpetuate the work of the late Joseph Sdlll•
linger, scleetlst, 111uslc leeovator aad tlleorlst of the arts.

TIie alms aed p■rpoM1 of the Society leclade p■bllcatloe
of varlo■s Scllllll■ter works ■ow la ma11■scrlpt, distribution
of lefor■atlo■ concernleg Scllllllnger aad Ills discoveries,
aed servlag as custodla• of 1111 lftae■scrlpt1, lacladlag 1111
m1slcal co11po1ltloas aed works of art.
Membership le tile Society Is opea to all tllose laterested
la Scllllllager's work, and lavolve1 ao fNs or d■es.
MRS. JOSll'H SCHILLINfrER

n,,,,,,,,,,, p,,,;,,,,,

ARNOLD SHAW
&,,.,;., Dh1flor

THE SCHILLINGER SOCIETY

340 East 57th Street

New York 22, N. Y.

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NEWSWEEK

MUSIC
Music by Slide Rule
At a composers' conference at the New
School for Social Research a fe,v years
ago, a Russian nan1ed Joseph Schillinger
demonstrated his theories of composition
by playing a -new work of his own. Of
what style, he ·asked his listeners, did the

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Schillinger s mathematical music • .

'

. . . paid off commercially as shown in chis outline
of the genesis of a Gershwin song, sketched for
NBWSWBEK by a Sch'i.llinger disciple, Lyn Murray

SEPTEMBER

.
25, 1944

81

82

NEWSWEEK

the organist, and Ted Royal, one of
piece seem reminiscent? After hearing
Broadway's best-k'IlOwn arrangers. There
that it had been inspired by everybod)
\.vas ample evidence last week, though,
from Mozart to Debussy, he told his au­
that� his name ,vill not be forgotten Io.r
dience that he had converted into music
some time. In Cleveland, where the new­
a newspaper graph of Wall Street stock
ly organized Society fo.r; Aesthetics met !ls
prices. The same thing, he told his fello,v
a part of the huge convention of the
composers, could be done with telephone
American Association for the Advance­
numbers or the silhouette of the Man­
ment of Science (see page 76), Dr. Je­
hattan skyline- it ,vas simply a matter
_ rome Gross, a prominent Cleveland sur­
of mathematics.
geon, concert violinist, and disciple of
"My belief," Schillinger once wrote, "is
Schillinger, gave a brief me1norial on l1is
that because music has been created by
late teacher's \.Vork.
intuitive or trial-and-error method and
Ancl in Nev.r York, where other Schil­
there has never. been any scientific in­
linger pupils were mafung plans for a
vestigition of the re~SO\trces, there is more
Schillinger Society, the composer-mathe­
new unexploited material in forms in mu­
matician's estate revealed that Carl Fisch­
sic than in any other field subjected to
er, Inc., ,vas publishing a two-volume
scientific. in\. set on the SchjJlinger System. To come
about the weather than about music."
out in the early part of 1945, the set will
Follo�ing this belief, Schillinger ap­
sell at $30. vVhether it will eventually
proached music as a pure science. He
revolutionize music-as its zealots claim­
drew graphs of passages by Bach, Mo­
is a question. Whether it can help you,
zart, Beethoven, and Wagner to deter­
too, to become a composer with the aid
mine whether reason or. ,vhimsy hacf dic­
of a slide rule is also a moot point. But
tated their compositions. He decided in
that's ,vhat you pay your $30 for.
favor of reason. He then proceeded to
expand and systematize their procedures,
feeling that the composer� had arrived at
them by coincidence and that their full­
est possibilities had never been explored.
ScbiUinger also applied these scientific
principles to art. He designed combina­
tions of geometric £gures, proportions,
and color so .successfully that be was of­
fered a job as textile designer. A fastidi­
ous dresser, he applied the same ideas to
his clothes. From the skin out, he ma.tched
in color harmony. Beyond this, and the
fact that he was an avid • photographer
.,,
...
and mountain climber, little else is known
about Scllillinger the· man. The Schil­
linger System was almost his whole life.
He proved his pudding commercially.
George Gershwin, for example, came tc
Schillinger in desperation. He had writ•
ten hundreds of songs; he feared he- had
run dry. FrOJ.:\1 Schillinger he got what
he needed: innumerable new combina• tions �d· uses for the same old notes.
"Porgy and Bess" was written during his
Schillinger period-a three-lesson-a�week,
four-and-a-half-year study which ended
only �t Gershwin's death in 1937.
Other Schillinger students ranged
from the tall, scholarly Rt. Rev. Msgr.
L. H. Bracken ( former conductor of the
Catholic Diocesan Choristers of BrookIyn) , to the short, jazzy Toots Mondello.
Lyn Murray and Paul Lavalle from radio·
\.ve.re also follo,vers, as were Benny Good­
man and Glenn Miller, who, incidental- •
ly, wrote "Moonlight Serenade" as ·a
Schillinger exercise. To those who had
to produce composition,s and arrange­
ments fast and in quantity, the Schil­
linger System was a boon. The permuta­
tions of some note combination like D,
E, G, A turned· out to be endless. Those
that sounded like a rusty riveting machine
could simply be thrown out.
But Schillinger died in 1943. What he
had taught personally ( at $10 a haH
hour) was left up to seven authorized
teachers who included Jesse Crawford,

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THE NE

IOHIL11BGER DBlD;
eDIPOSER, TEICHER

llaborated in Invention of
ttie Theremin, for Which He
IPeela.l
ENG
Wrote 'Air_phonic Suit,�
Mn. Dorot;

gures of Many
insley Rites
C-athedraJ
ED

:Mountain

OERSHWIN, LEVANT PUPILS
' • _____

Ex-D•an of Ukraine Academy
of Music Taught at Columbia
-Came to U. S. in 1930

FRIDAY
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St. Joseph's
- Spellman
,y Present

cam

Yon Ttua.
2S In the
t
"'::gl=:
• npreaen't!Dlbers of
seas, atlcal mass
�leIll' Card l&lt
3.
e Free
lkoraki,
ent m
, Sir
ndan
,:&ry
ere

JOSEPH SCHILLINGER

.

CHARLES WATTERS·,

AR HERO

WORLD W
___ _

Pharmacist at Kines County
Hosp·,tal Dies After a
Week's Illness at 51
_____

Cbal'les J. Watters, a pharmaclat
at Kmp County H08"{)ita1 and a
herQ of the First World War, died
at the hospital of pneumonia on
Monday after a week's illneu. Mr.
Watters lived at 3818 Avenue L,
Brooklyn. Bia age wu 51.
Born in Glena Fall8, N. Y., he
starred 88 a baseball pitcher and
baaketball forward in gnunmar
and high schoola there and at Coumbi& University. He waa preal•
t of hia clua at the Columbia
ersity College of Pharmacy,
which he wu graduated in
�tera aerved overaeaa as

with the 107th (Old
'{_lment of the Twentyn, American J!lxpe•
He wu cited tor
e and devotion
ng first aid to
der heavy enemy
•uah Lake Sector,
st, 1918. Another
his "except ional
f forward with
-eatabliahihg and
houri under
li<>llecttng and
\)le trencbea"
lndenburg

Joseph Schillinger, compoaer,
teacher of George Gershwin and
Oscar Levant $d coll&borator
with Leon Theremin in the lnven•
tton of the electric organ known
by the lat�r'• name, died at �i•
home at 875 Fifth Avenue early
Hia
!�:te��rier a abort illneea.
Mr. Schillinger wu born in
Kharkov, Rua,,ia, on Aug. 31, 1895,
He was graduated in 1918 from
th e St. Petersburg Imperial Conservatory, where he had special\zecl in composition and conductmg. He then became conductor of
a student orchest.·a in Kharkov,
and during 1920-21 of the Ukraine
Symphony Orchestra. In 1925 he
wu composer for the State Aca•
demlc Theatre of Drama in Lenin•
grad and later waa dean of the
Ukraine's State Academy of Music and taught in other ac:bools in
that part of Ruaaia.
In 1930 Mr. $chHUnger eema to
the United States, where he wu
connected with the New School for
Social Research as a lecturer and
the �erican Inatitute of the City
of New York. He taught mathe•
mattca, muaic and tme arts at
Teachers College of Columbia Umverslty and atao at New York Uni•
veraity.
The year before bill arrival here
the Cleveland Sympll� Orches­
tra had pefformed h1a •� of
the Orient," and later
Stokowakt gave hia ••$Jin
Rhapsody" with the �
:......
Orcheatr&. The So'Viet GOvent•,
ment cnmm•atonecl Mr, �
to write the latter work to Ciele­
brate the SOViet'a first ten yean
in Moaeew.
.
Mr. Schi1liDger compoaed hla
''First Alrphomc SUite" for the
theromin, with Mr, 'l'beNmm U
sololat. The entire IICOl"e of "Porgy
and Beu'' WU written. wider Ila
aupervtaton.
Others among Ilia puplla were
Paul Laval, Mark Wamow, .Te■■e
Crawford, Glenn Miller, "i'ommf
Doney, Hal Kemp and Benny
Goodman.
<

-FREDERICK D. SHELlON.

tlanta Joumal Artitt, W
any Prizea for. Ml♦. Pihl
rm t 1t',.
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Medical C
1&1t mp�
Dwight s.
tbe Mutual
pany of Ne
She �,t,t;.
Cante&n t011
Chapter and
her recent
for the ehaP.
bile �tee
Jut war ah
Red 0�
Sergeant
who won th
�:'ie �
Mn. Beebe
Bergen Coun
Center and h
�n for :inan
group charity
She had w
golf toumanien
and Quogue, L.
Mr. Beebe had
She belonged to
Countl'y Club,
Club, Englewood
the P'i�d Club an
Quogue.
• Born in Buffal
school here, and
of the Art Student.a
York. . Be!ddes he
leavea a 1101'1, Kenn
ther' Frederick H.

FRANC'I,'S £.
BANK £

:bit

_..'-°
nue,

ftom
181&, a:
�
·�
.
�
ea
�•
1'U
tege 1b 190elec
to _..u4 th
A�

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us for )11nch or dinner today!

N9mth Floor Ree­
OD before you lhopl
after day, week after
Jo,,.p:ieed laneheom

( they llaal at 6Sc) end oar arefal aervice. W.Jn
to, he:ndy to h-::1e1, tniM, trolley,. And it'• 10
eat where you do your aJaopplng! Joia • fer
Wedneeday or Friday, fw Juneheon any week day!

e "flair" in our Downstairs Fashion Stor
-priced under 011r Lowered Price Poli l

•
For your Euler lllit, an ind
eoft tweed! Tiny eheeke,

tone hound'• tooth eheek,
woolaf Tlaae are the towl
will look well for

nothing work+day
d■lh of ele11!c lin
tha• makE!I for

Lowered

we've offered

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26

RADIO

THE NEW YORK

SATURDAY, .MAY

11,

194-0

Music Maker
-

lor Summer Show.

e conclusion tomorrow
Schillinger Teach� Composition on Basis of rught
.Withofth
the series of Sunday con.
certs, broadcast by the Detroit
PUre MathematiCS.

,,,. ,,,_. �P·

ittfil'i�_(

Symphony Orchestra, under the di" rectlon of 11everal of the country's ,:U
.
,;·;,.:¥I
"The men who W1·11 be respons1"ble for the music of ra d10 best-known conductors, the hour . fi)WJ.,.�
and television of 1950 will be neither composers nor per- will change its format for the sum- �,�� '.�
mer. Beginning a week from to- !lM -�
· engine
· er, who Wl"ll oper- morrow,
formers, but a new k.1nd of •music
the Sunday night hour ,:' ..• ' '.<'!·;
from 9 to 10 on w�c, will be • "'" ';'\ 1 •:
ate the machines that compose and perform music."
Thua declares Joseph Schillinger, ing possibll\tles for a composef taken over by a muslcal variety
show featuring Jessica Dragonette,
noted scientist, inventor an d com- who ls equipped both In efficient popular radio soprano who has
technic of composing and orpos er, who more than any one else cheatratlng,
and who also has been absent from the air for the
in America, is the man behind the knowledge of the science of physi- last two years. Assisting her will
be Jamea Newru, a new baritone;
men who produce the music for the cal sound.
Linton Wells, explorer and corresmicrophone. Raving proved to his "Music can even be composed po
automatically and ,simultaneously ndent, an d Leith Stevena's Orown satisfaction that he can write perfor
�, "-'. 0.•
a
n Instrument, chestra.
med.
On
. for lea.ding symphony or- known as the ;R,hythmicon, built by -��
-music
.,
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. ntry and Eu- Leon Therem1n tor the study of (4Pt-Z�\'.'
chestras ot this cou
,'.»i1.J%0f):!":ij,1�fl�
i·
rope, he bas devoted bis time and rhythms, I am able to produce
'f
i�al wfth tho se '\t,ff, .,ii),,$. fff,-.,\Ji(.ffi,¥.',� t,, • ,,�
drum
beats
...
ide
n
t
energy for the last several years to
•.
any
o
ot
COlll.J)lex
or
vir
t
u
ff��"'/"
so
beats,
«
�
'1t
�
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�
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teachi ng musical composition ac. A H O comparable to the drumming . ['.>:,, ..fl�;,:@ �{i'!ft {t,
�
cording to a mathematical system. of African natives," he continued. ;g;i�Jl¾ .� ig}'_- :/:,• "-l
He is today the only scientist who Experts are unable, he says, t o '·,"· iW.• n�lsb between his records
18 applying science to music. By disti
ma�� 1n such a way an d the
means of his system an u ntalepted
ne recordings made in th e
musician can turn out meritorious genui
o by th� De::iis-Roose­
compositio ns and arrangements. In Belgian Co1;1gon
, which were used
lt Expediti
short' he exJ'.)lodes musical genius I ve
re, "Dark Rap­
aa a myth declares that the num- in the motion npictume
only
ber of pert'ormers exceeds the nu.m- ture." This I stru nt, the
ber of composers "because lt is one of !ta kind, h94 siXteen keys,
h, being pressed, produce auto­
easier to play an instrument in a whic
very mediocre way than to compos e mati�ally different rhythmic com­
blnations-sometlmes as many as
music more or less articulately.
''I believe that new professions sixteen.
develop because there Is a n eed
All Based on Engineering.
fo� th�m," he st�tes. "The ind�S- He has worked out t'he entire Sl'S·
trial side ot music, such as radio, tern of musical production on the
television, motion plc�ure-all the basis of engineering. Under his
media of our streamhne ag�wlll mathematical formula! he can, he
call for., new types of skilled says, pro·,ide for the development
w rk
of electl'onic instruments of a
� h�I;�·
sun Start Photo.
b 1 s1 h
given specified
on of Joseph Schilli nger and his Rhythmicon on which he compo ses an d'
the
producti
type
for
co:Si�e��t!:• t�o�g��
thS: future rhythm, har mony and �elody as
produces melodies for the analysis of the most complicated
of radio music. He predicta an im- well as 0ther mo�els which lncorprovement, in the quality, which, he porat the omb1nation of such -m,
- usical -rhythms.
.�
�
-----------------­
h
p
d
sa.ys, will be accom lishe throug functio1;1s.
--r
e
latter models a
the development of electronic In- an equivalentThe
of the total efforts
st·rumenta•
that wo uld be exerted by all the
More Music to be Meo�zed. Jiving, past and future composers.
Ae to the method ot production, In other words! such instruments
can create mu:nc In any desirable
radio
• music' h e declares' "will be st l e."
more and more mechanized, not Y
July, 1944
stru­
n
l
He
build
uch
s
to
plans
t
bu
a
ce
f
n
m
o
only in the field perfor
. not only compose
which
will
ments
welt."
a.s
n
positio
m
co
of
ib the fle)d
THE I N T E RN A T I O N A L M U S I C I A N
Schillinger waa usociated with but perform music while It la being
t
be
h
there
e
will
,
ed.
Thus
o
c
Leon Theremin when the latter was mpos
introducing hi s electronic lnstru- possibility of a direct broadcast of
Titled "First Airphonic a composition while It is being_com­l
ments.
Schillinger System
al
Su.ite," it wu performed by the posed. The sound production 1n
Walter Fischer, president of Carl
Cleveland Orchestra in Cleveland such Instruments naturally must be
Fischer, Inc., today announced that con­
and New York with Theremin as electl'onic.
tracts had been signed tor publjcation of
aoloist.
Etnsteln Likes Syst.em,
the internationally famous treatise on
He is firm in his belief that sound, Schilllnger's method incorporat­
musical theory kno,vn as the Schillinger
electrically produced, surpasses i n Ing his development of the mathe­
clarity of tone that produce� by matlca.l principles of music, has
System of Musical Compos!tion. Written
artists playing the conventional been studied and put into practice
and developed l?Y the late Joseph Schil­
instruments. "Whereas moat of the by a host of composers and arranglinger, scientific and musical genius who
• • ot whom are I en­
energy of i}le artist ,goes Into mak· era, the maJorlty
died last year, the <:ontents of the cele­
•
ing 'beautl!ul tone, electronic in- tif!ed with the radio world. Idncibrated manuscript are known at present
struments provide all the versa.tUity dentally, Prof. Albert E. Einstein
only to a limited group of outstanding
o� any desirable tonal qua.l!ty. It of relativity fame, though he a d­
composers and arrangers who studied
will become even more flexible In mits he ls not a skilled musician
,vlth Schillinger.
this re1:1p ect in the future. "
approves of the Schillinger mathe:
'l'he complete roster of Schillinger
And he adds that with their de- matical system of musical compo­
students reads like a "Who's Who" in
velopment there will be no question sition
American inu$1C. Big name bandleaders
ot.,competi�!on witb St��divarlus.
�
Am ng th�e who have written
include Benny Goodman, Will Bradley,
In 1929, he states, Dr. Traut- music
an worked out orchestra­
Jack Miller, conductor for Kate Smith;
weln ln Berlin developed an elec- tlons anddarrangements under his
Lyn Murray, Paul Lavalle, lel:!,der of the
tronic instrument which was u�ed tutelage ls Paul Laval, who con­
Lower Basin Street Symphony; Alvino
in concert performances and wh)ch ducts the Chamber Music Society
Rey. and Glenn Miller, whose song hit,
surpassed Jn tone quality all e�i�t- of -- Lower Ba.sin Street program
"Moonlight Serenade", was fl:rst wrjtten
Ing violins, yet gave a. true V1ohn on WJZ's network on Su nday aft.
as an exercise for Schillinger.
tone. The• so-called monotony or ernoons and who, with a twenty­
Among the song writers, George Gersh­
versatility of . a sound produced on six-piece orchestra now baa taken
,vln was a pupil of Schillinger for four and
an electronic instrument d?pends on over the Saturday night spot on
a half years. Vernon Duke, musical
the type of sound production. Some N BC formerly occupied by Tosca­
of the insruments on the market to- ninl and the network's symphony
comedy composer of the current army
day-for example, the Nova.chord•- orchestra Laval has been a stushow, "Tars and Spars", and Matty Mal­
_ poss���h versatility:.'.,'.
neck, ·wnter of "Star Dust", were pupils
dent for · five and a halt years.
of-<.the- theorlst.
Mark-Warnow, J es-s-e CrltWford;
-_
Syll)phonlcs to 1'e Obsolete.
Franklyn Marks, staff arranger
In its present form, the ,Schillinger
Schillinger believes . th!l-t in the at NBC Harold Mooney, arranger
manuscript consists of twenty-five vol­
nea.r future all-electric symphony for Hal Kemp· such musicians aa
umes of about 3,000 typewritten pages.
n
o
ne
s
the
only
tt,
will
be
,
r
r
e
! Nathan ·van cieave Paul Ste
orchestras
Book I deals with Scbillinger's Theory of
l
l
e- Lee Montgomery, George B. Lee•
n
b
es
wi
use, while the present o
Rhythm, which he regarded as basic to
come as obsolete as horse carriages. man, Harry Simeone, who provide
his system. Succeeding books cover eve.ry
"The number and type of instru- the instrumentations of innumer­
phase of mueical theory and practice, in­
tnents will depend on the. progress able, broadcast music, are on his
cluding melody ,vrltlng, pitch scales,
of electrical research and the com- roster.
counterpoint, harmony, evolution of musi­
petence of music directors who go Leith Stevens, composer and con•
cal styles, instrum.entology and orches­
Into such an enterprise. Ch amber ductor, who wUI lead the hour this
tration.
ensembles of electronic Instruments summer; Lyn Murray, choral di·
When he set out on his journey of dis­
have already become quite common rector, who ls now composing and
covery, Sch!llinger's first° effort was to
today-there are 'the Ferde Grote conducting the background music
fi nd whether or not the music of the con­
a.nsembles of Ham mond organa and for "The Adventures of Ellery
cededly great; composers- Bach, Mozart,
Nova.chords at the world's fair, the Queen," and such popular band·
Beethoven, Wagner- was constructed on
program11 of Jesse Crawford at _NBC leaders as Glenn Miller, BennY
rational principle$. To thousandi of
and others under the tiUe of 'Elec- Goodman and Tommy Dorsey are
actual works of these "greats", Schillenger
tronlc Orchestra.' Some partly elec- among his students. The late
applied the powerful instrument of ad­
trontc instrume.nts such as the vi- George Gershwin studied with him
V?lnced mathematical and scientific analy­
bra.phone, the vibraharp and the four and a hal.f years, taking three
electric guitar are so in conspicuous, lessons a week. The entire score
'sis. As a result Schillinger discovered
principles which, for the most part, ,vere
be adds, that they are used in al· of his "Porgy and Bess" waa writ•
ten under Schilllnger's supervision.
most every dance orchestra."
entirely unsuspected bY previous theorists.
for
t
t
n
ude
s
a
was
vant
L
All for the m usic for electronic Oscar e
Negotiations for the publication of the
Instruments, it can be written in two and a ha.If years.
Schillinger manuscript were conducted
ot
n
have
men
precisely the aame way u music The efforts of these
by Mr. Fischer h in1self and Mx. Arthur
for any other kind of Instruments, only reached the highest lll.l!thetlc
Hauser, sales 1nanager of Carl Fischer,
he states, but el6ctronlo lnstru- stan dards but have .proved com­
Inc. The ,vork is to be put into imme­
le.
profitab
y
merciall
amaz.
a
m
ments offer any new nd
diate productton.

��,\�Wl,,f'.J1•fJlw �f1d�

i�

Cbt � .15.m

•

.,·- -

___
.....,.,.,1;

•

•

'

•

,

•

----­

I

I

I

•

sabotage. For this reason they
have· arrested many German and
Japanese agents who, if only sus­
pected of subversive activitles,
might have gone unmolested.
Actually there is very little dif­
ference of opinion about the ac­
tivities of most Oe1·man and Jap­
anese agents in South and Cen­
tral America. Recently in Brazil
the secret pollce·raided a library
in the Ge1·man-controlled college
of Bahia. In the library were only
500 volumes. out of these 500 all
but one were Na� German books.
And, in thirty-one of these books,
the investigators found code writ­
ing on margins or jackets!

Spy Techniques

incident points up some of
THIS
the illustrations on this page. All
are supposedly borrowed from a
World War book. Actually these
pictures are part of a modern instruction campa,lgn.
One picture shows a fictitious
code. Actually this code is not fic­
titious. It is a direct key to �rlier
messages delivei:ed to Nazi agents
in South and Central America. The
sabotaged potatoes refer to the use
of vegetables and fruit for convey­
ing drugs.
Anot):ler picture shows a woman
agent hiding a chemical, which
she .has stolen, in her shoe. This
trick might be all very well-a sort
of :ABC of espionage practice­
were it not for the dodge of chem­
ically soaked stockings, mentioned

laden basket to chief of police, When a piece
rut in half it revealed hiding place for drugs.

3

mateur sleuths
1iosity. Carlos.
rained. There­
uch for having
teanwhile better
ut much more ln
,s did ln two days
heir findings to
and American

Program

program is
e to finance
ations. Ger­
other ar­
y by black­
ited States
countries,
itizens to
way. But
the drug
this traf-

I

f China

they deliberately spread the drugs
and encourage their consumption.
knowing that a drug-starved ad­
dict will do almost anything to get
his daily portion. At the
same time they collect
dl'ugs for import to oth­
er lands.
The European War has
helped this pian mightily.
It automatically cut off
'
supplies of drugs to be de­
livered to American ad­
dicts. The Japanese have
taken over these deliv­
These potatoes pictured in a
eries for the)x own profit.
By using their elaborate secret ser­
Nazi spy manual suggest to
vice, they have been distributing
secret agents in Central and
the large stocks of the drugs they
South :11.tnerica a means for
seized in China to tlie United
States and to the various Latin stop it. Because the Japanese drug
smuggling dope.
well
pays
trade
of
use
makes
and
Ameri9an countries. Carlos saw
one sma)l instance of this traffic. any Axis-Power agent in any conOther, bf'tter trained agents, have venient PCl't.
1 '·" in ar1 earlier article. Generali
Russians
White
erved
s
have
seen lt in operation on a largel'
wit
be�accepted
.,.__v ..tll
/$
l
U!
c_
,Cll:
:ll:
o
but
...;•11
anese
ten
-welL
r-..
not
,
f
·"'
••�;.scale. ut none has been able JO
t
""
ent
loyed D•

I

•

An optical composition of
woodblocks a n d minors
from the studio of Joseph
Schillinger, music scientist,

T

HE late George Gershwin
stepped off an elevator on the
13th :floor of a Park .(I.venue
apartment house and entered a 13room suite. Later, noticing the
numbers, he laughed, because this
visit proved to be one of his luck­
iest. But at the time he was only
interested in telling Joseph Schil­
linger his troubles.
"I.'ve written 100 songs," Gersh­
win said. "I can't write anything
new; I'm repeating myself. can
you help me?"
Joseph Schillinger 11aid he could.
And he did-so effectively that
Gershw�n turned out "Porgy and
Bess" under his supervtsion. Using
the same ideas and methods Schil­
linger helped Benny Goodman and
Ostar Levant and Glenn Miller,
Jesse Crawford, Lyn Mur1·ay, Leith
Stevens and scores of others. All
came to his 13-room laboratory
and workshop apartment on the
13th floor and all thought them­
selves fortunate.
Behind Joseph Schillinger ts one
main theory which has been used
so often and successfully as to be­
come a fact. It is that musical
compositions, classical or popular,
don't h$ve to be dreamed up J:>Y
exceptionally talented people in
periods of emotional activity. In­
stead you or anyone else can learn
to ,vrite songs just as certainly as
you could learn to build airplanes.

y OU

can first analyze or tear
down music to its contributing
parts. Then you can study these
parts until you know how they fit
together. After that it is simply
a matter of putting the parts to­
gethet· in different ways.
Naturally this ts an extreme
1lmp!Ulcation of the system Joseph
\..kl·
• 1,1ses to build musical

f

•

r
\

\

This book jacket shows how mathematics may be used. in
design under the Schillinger system. .

compositions. He teaches musical
composition through analysts. He
reduces music to its factors, then
uses these factors to build new
music. The whole system is based
on mathematics. His system re­
duces whatever - plus - whatever
equals music.
"Music," he says, "is a man-made
reproduction of an actuality, and
if you ean analyze it you are in a
better position to produce more of
it. The common belief that music
is emotional in its origin 1s wrong.
Music appears to be emotional only
because it moves, anti everything
that moves associates itself with
life and l!ving. Actually music is
no more emotional than. an auto­
mobile or an airplane which also
move. It ls no more emotional
than the Disney char1,1.cters ,vhich
rn.ake us laugh, but whose actual
existence ls a mechanical and not
an organic one.''

Analyzing
Emotion
'

SCHILLINGER'S ideas,
M R.broken
down into layman's

language, might appear something
like this: Music and poetry, design
and general art can be reduced to
a science. First you must study
carefully the contributing factors.
Then you must studY the mathe­
matical procedures behind them.
Gradually you will see that certain
factors contx·tbute to certain ends.
You will, supposedly, play on the
emotions you ,vish to be stirred. A
longing for home, for instance.
perhaps can be stll'red by analyz­
ing what makes up a longing !01·
home. The sounds common to a
home in this case �•ould be most
important. For the science of
music simply ir the. mechanics of
musical sounds. And the art of

s

music $lmply is the conveyance oI It \vas fitted.
the time and so
tl'lese sounds to the listener.
Bavarian waltz.
Mimicry First Step
use mathemati
DELVING deeper into this Schil- lar sad ,valtz to
llngei· science of music, you of new listeners
would find that mimicry is the first cry into their 1
step in art forms. "Thunder,
You \VOUld
animal sounds -and echoes are as that any melo
much a source of music as the birds t,vittering
forms and colorings of nature in tide. could be pu
rainbows, sunsets, bird's plumage, the bewiltjered
crystals, shells, plants and living clent song sifti
bodies are a source of the art of fretted moonlig
painting.
could be reduce
"Imitation Is at first uninten­ That the ho
tional,
such as the protective sav.·dust-strewn
'
shiapes and coloring in natural Bavarian inn q
camouflage; then . intentional all its music&
mimicry follows when a striking thick. JoyouE
pattei·n or coloring is copied for the who have
pleasure of it. Then the final step, through gene1
which is the scientific method of
art p1-otiuctlon ac.cording to defi­
Musical
n
ite
specifications,
that
becomes
.
possible only after the laws of art THESE things
along with
have been disclosed.
'.'This discovery of the laws of ises. loves and lo
art to kDo\v how and what to pro­ desires which p
duce has been 11,,n old dream of hu­ ed. These thin
manity. In the Li-K,i, or memorial into equations,
rites, of the ancient Chinese we that can have
read: music is Intimately connect­ taken in order t
ed ,vtth the essential relations of result. You ci
beings. Thus. to know sounds, but have a deep kr
not airs. is peculiar to birds and matics to sta.1·
brute beasts: to kno,v airs but not YOU know the
music is pe�uliar to the common cedures. the "
he1·d: to the wise alone it ls re­ music." you b
Mr. Schllli
served to understand music. That
is why sounds are studied in order the same ma
to know airs. airs in order to kno,v the field of
music and music in order to know very definit
of color in
how to rule."
"The ex
Returning to the Schillingel' sys­
tem. you would enter all of these proves tha
items in a mathematical balance nate sever
sheet. You would. for instance. scientific
make a marching song 111arch. in Disney. no
the tempo of the nation to which be projec

•

"Optical Elements in Rhythm," this study gives
�e idea of the geometric nature of music.

,u would analyze
t, sad chords of a
Then you \\'OUld
to build a simi;ea1· the heart out
ind to make them
11 beers.
nd. Iurthel'more,
y that suggested
sleepily at even­
on a graph. That
adness of an ang through palm­
t on a tropic isle
I to mathematics.
nailed-punctured,
ftool' of • some
kly could give up
ations. all the
s of peasants
their music
•

.:quations

:an pe translated
·ayers and prom­
gings, dreams and
st music has aid­
, can all be turned
into cold figures
;heir square root
make the desired
·t even have to
ledge of mathe­
is sclence. Once
hematical proutable laV1's of
a composer.
ho has applied
cal methods in
rmonies. has
bout the use
tures.
·Fantas ia·
can coordi­
s without a
says. "Mr.
music can
and colol',

I

resorted to the accessories of mu­
sic. He made a µiistake in seeking
a fundamental relationship be­
tween forms of musical sound and
the physical forms of musical in­
strwnents. Unity is absent from
the production in other ways. For.
even \Vith the help of Leopold Sto­
kowski and Deems Taylor, 'Fan�
tasia' failed to solve the problem of
combining visual images with mu­
sic.· This could only be done through
mathematical methods."
P ERHAPS l;>ecause the mathemat­
ical appeals less to women. Mr.
Schillinger has taugnt only one
feminine mu$ician his methods.
Sbe is Marjorie Goetschius, grand­
daughter of Percy Goetschius,
Dean of Composition at the Jul­
liard School of Music
for more than
\
twenty years.
The Schillinger studio which
produces this peculiar science l1as
various electrical instruments,
blackboards, lecture rooms and
show cases. Not dedicated to
music are those exhibits which
point the way to art • through
mathematics. and poetic writing
through mathematics and even
architecture through mathematics.
But all these sections have one
in common. They ignore
thing
•
the dreams a creative artist might
have. They point away from any
surge of feeling. Cold figures take
the place of emotion. Eve1·ything
is analyzed. Years of study and
training are pleasantly cut out.
Thus. as Joseph SchilUnger says,
ci·ea.tion iii ma.de a pleasant process.
"It. does not circumscribe the
freedom of an individual." lie adds.
"But merely releases him from
vagueness, gives him accurate
knowledge
and pe1·mits
,
. him' an inflnite number of solutions to satisfy the particular requirements."
.

"A Study in Rhythm": When
mathematics meets design in
the Schillinger manner.

Joseph Schillinger photo­
graphed at the keyboard of
his electric organ.

•

•

•

a

The agent
above is hiding
a
saboteur's
chemical in her
s h o e; at left
placing drugs
in her stocking.

Part of page from Gt,rman book
whose type holds coded messages.

By Richard Wilmer Rowan

Author of "Terror in Our Time:· "The
Story of Secret Se"ice," and
"Spie1 and the Next War"
( This is the twelfth of a se­
rtes of articles exposing sptes
and Fifth Column activities.)

T

HE Japanese freigh�et drowsed
at anchor in a west-coast Mex­
ican harbor. A white-cla ure appeared briefly on her bridge,
glanced anxiously shoreward, then
melted back into the white paint­
work of an officer's cabin Just aft
of the bridge.
Carlos, rowing his shabby,
weathered boat out to the ship,
didn't see the Japanese officer
squint at his passage through the
bright sunlight. . His back was
_....,.._..-.. to the ship and his gaze
ithout curiosity on the
ruit that made up bis
.s ac-

the odd Japanese might eat their
fruit.
Long practice had taught Carlos
to approach the port gangway of
foreign ships, the tradesmen's
doorway. But he didn't notice how
quickly his cargo was lifted aboard
or how many officers were on deck
to see it carried to the cabin of the
captain. In fact Carlos was not
curiO\.IS at all until the next day.
Then, perhaps because of chance,
perhapg because he was sheltering
himself under the shortening sha­
dow cast by the shed root as noon­
tide approached, he was called
again.
"The ship of the Japanese," a
stranger told him. "There ts some­
thing to come ashore."
This time Carlos earned not two
but four reales for his labors. And
this time he was curious. He was
curious for two reasons. First. be­
cau:\e he felt '"llat four rPr1 ·s ,"'°
..

a ruinous rate for a short
bumboat trip. Second, be­
cause, forced as he was by
his rowing position to gaze
at his cargo instead of look­
ing ahead, he recognized the
fruit he was rowing back as
the same fruit that he had
rowed out.
Later that night Carlos
walked from a cantina to the
·ottice of the police chief. He
explained his story. A piece
of fruit cut in halt revealed
the hiding place for a pack\ge of drugs. And later that
night Carlos died with a
knife sticking curiously out
of his ragged shirt. Chance and
furnish Carlos with the answer
to the question: "How does the
Japanese Secret Service finance its
expensive work?"
Since Carlos rowed his shabby,
sun-bleached bumboat through the
sparkling waters of that Mexican
bay and died because he was curi­
ous, a number of discoveries have
been made by more cautious men.
They have haunted the docks
where the blunt-nosed freighters
from the Orient come 1n. They
have hung around the roadsteads.
gazing speculatively at eaeh ship­
to-shore boat that crawls through
still water. They have been curious
because that 1s their business, in
San Francisco and San Diego and
on down to Acapulco and Salina
Cruz, they have seen drugs come
ashore from Japanese ships and
traced them east as far as Kansas
City.
This brtefiy ts how Japan meets
the tremendous expense of sup­
porting its vast secret servlce net•
,..
This, too, shows one of the

Carlos took

of fruit was

ways in which
help America by c
of course, was un
fore he paid too 1
?\­
been curious.
trained men find c
an hour than Carle
and live to report
interested Mexiq
officials.

Financ'
B EHIND this
the Japane,
its secret servf
many, as exo!
tioles, does t�
mail. Japan,
and most
lacks suf!ic
bleed in th
Japa,n cont
traffic and
fie to pay
In conq

ws •

M E TR O N O M E

Joseph Schillinger Finds
Mathematical Music Best

Noted Composer and Scientist Teaches His Method
To Many Already Famous Players and Arrangers

The phrase, "there is nothing new under the sun" is said more frequently
about music than of anything else in the world.
America is crowded with sharp-eared, self-appointed tune detectives who,
whenever a melody makes its first appearance, can be heard declaring
ornnisc�ently: "that's a steal from so-and-so" or "it always was a good
tune·• or "Strauss s.aid it :first but in 3/4 time.''
J' a mathematical study of music extending over a lifetime, finds an entirely
new outlook upon musical resources
and their use.
Through his scientific approach he
has discovered that, so far as music
is concerned, there is something new
under the sun. What is more, he is
showing some of the most famous
composers and arrangers in America
the fruits of his findings.
He makes the startling: statement
that music can be automatically
composed and performed and, as evi­
dence, he has phonograph records
which ai:e synthetically - made
rhythms of the drums of African
cannibals-produced on what he
calls a Theremin-Rhytliicon, an in­
strument specially designed to simu­
late drum-beats.
He has played these rhythm rec­
ords for experts at his studio, 911
Park Ave., New York City, and the
latter have been unable to distin­
guish between, the original beats
played on African drums and the
synthetic product.
Schillinger, using his mathema­
tical theory, also can present any
Joseph SchiUinger
number of variations from any
original piece of music, thus producing any desirable number of
compositions in the same style.
"My method," he states, "also per­
mits modernization, or, if need be,
antiquization of any existing music.
"For example, Bach was a great
master of counterpoint, and Debussy
produced some startling flavors in
harmony. It is possible to produce
the syntheses of Bach and Debussy
in the form of a fugue, with Bach's
contrapuntal craftsmanship and
Debussy's harmonic deftness."
Lest you doubt it, he then pro­
ceeds to play a recording of just
such a blend. First, he plays the
original Bach fugue; then, a De­
bussy extract. Finally, he adjusts
the phonograp}). needle to a record
on which Debussy's harmony has
peen grafted skillfully upon the
Bach melody.
With the ceaseless demand of mo­
tion pictures and radio for music
and more music, composers and ar­
rangers are approaching music
scientifically, not only to work out
new variations of compositions al­
ready produced but to create new
melodies.
Schillinger's roster of students
reads like a Who's Who in modern
American music.
It includes such names as Oscar
Levant: George Gershwin, who
studied four-and-a-half years with
Schillinger and whose opera of
Negro Life, Porgy and Bess, was
written entirely under the latter's
(Turn to page 46, please)

METRONOME
•

Joseph Schillinger

(Continued from pgge 30)

supervision; Benny Goodman, Glenn
Miller, Mark Warnow, Leith Ste­
vens, Paul Laval and Lyn Murray.
Also, such well- known arrangers
of radio, motion pic_ture, and stage
pro ductions as Paul Sterrett, Nathan
Van Cleave, Franklyn Marks,
Charles Previn, Edward Powell,
Frank Skinner, Irving Brodsky, Lee
Montgomery, Ted Royal, and Gus
Levine.
•
More band leaders and aFran.gers
have come to Schillinger for new
musical light than any other body
of n1usicians.
"It is because," he says, "they are
working in a• highly competitive
field and, being practical persons,
they are ccnstantly seeking new ideas
and new techniques which will en­
hance their popularity and thus
bring them greater financial returns."
During the course of their study,
many of the musicians work on seri­
ous compositions. Glenn Miller, for
exam1>le, composed Moon.light Sere­
nade during his study with Schil­
linger. It is an exercise in writing
melody to harmonic progressions.
Harold Mooney, arranger for Hal
Kemp, wrote a fugue after only four
or five lessons in counterpoint.
Schillinger's course in musical
composition requit·es three years for
the average studept, and the aver­
age student takes one lesson a week;
however, many take two and three
lessons a week. Gershwin, at the
time he was writing Porgy and Bess,
took three and sometimes £-our les­
sons a week.
Schillinger is proud of the prog­
ress of Paul Laval as a composer
and conducto1-. Laval at present di­
rects a double woodwind quintet in
chamber musjc a la jazz on WJZ
Sunday afternoons. Laval bas been
a student for more than five years.
At the time he began, he was a
rather obscur.e clarinetist in a sym­
phony orchestra.
Today, he is a staff conductor at
the NBC, composer of numerous
pieces, and occupies the first saxo­
phone chair with the NBC Sym­
phony. Recently, Toscanini singled
him out for special praise during his
Saturday night recital.
quintet,
Laval's
Incidentally,
through unusual treatme!ilt in back­
ground instrumentation, sounds like
a large orchestra and is one of the
sr-ie-..,,...._ novel programs in the modern
-:::--"l idiom yet present-ed.

-,

JUNE,

1940

IROOKLYN, N. Y.

HARRY FAINE

IAXOPaezo:, OLAR�T, l"L�TE
Ear Tnlotn� Da,mor,y ba&ed on
0. 0-0.a s Modern llarmou
SM-A 615th It., Brookl:,n WI. 6·2$13
CH&LSEA, MASS.

HINRY SYYANEN

TB.4CHER OF TRUMPET
c..t.a• s,n_
1815 Fourth 8t.
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T1ilepilone: Ollelae• Sl710
CHICAGO, ILL.

A N D Y

R I Z Z O

WtnlO&iOD ID Piaao-Acoordion

108 8. W.bMh ATenue. Salte ftl
Cbicaso, nano1' Tel. Webaler 98S6

PROF. LEO PIERSANTI

ACCORDION INSTRUCTION
Learn lo Play the ;Ri3'bt W�
Positions Guaranteed tor PuPilB
112 ,Y. North Ave.
Chlcago, DL
Tel. LlNcoln 3388
LOUISVILLE, KY.

. J.

IANCOLA

T"'9IA..- ,I
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S--11117 IIUI .lffensins
.llOI W. OU St�
£7.
N.W YORK, N. Y.

TOM TIMOTHY
HAUIONT--COUNTEIU'OINT

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OTTO (;ES.ti.NA

COMPOSER •nd ARRANGER•

Instruction in
Modern H•rrnony • Dence Arr111g­
i119 • Counterpoint . Form , Sym­
phonic Orchestretion • Conducting

Studio: AEOLIAN HALL
• Welt 81'th ft., N, Y, C,
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TIIOMBONII IN8TBOClTION
P-,,� 1.yr.,,,.4 Sdlool ,I Jl-.ie
let Ballt 89&11 8&.
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LUCA DEL NEGRO

TUBA - TRIDU'ET - ALL BRASS

Music Fqu"d(ltii,n Embouchiw1t Buildi1111
1842. H1111t Ave .. BNIIX, N. v. Ttl. WE 7.a,11
Studios, 11 W. 48 St., N.Y.C. Cl t-1541

COtln

ARTHUR H. CHRISTMANN
CL&BINBT

Pu.l.ly l•illiM4 Se1-I ,/ Mruk
Stelnwa:, Hall
f.61 Blffl'dale 4ft.

Stlldlo 816
Yonbrt, N. T.
Tel. Circle 7·2606 Tel. Yonken f.7ll6W

JUNE ,

•

1 940

Washington Invasion
By Outside Bands

Eliot Hoyt's New Men

are Ernie Foder at
piano and C. Ogel at bass. They
replaced Paul Erwin and Tony Espen, respectively, who joined Ernerson Gill. Don Smith ·1eft Hoyt also,
to join Tyle Gaffield.-TOLEDO, OHIO.

has local musicians
wondering why Local 161 doesn't do
something about it.
It's an MCA and ORA invasion,
which has landed most of the best­
paying spots and is depriving at
least 60 local men of work.
At present there are also nearly
75 men jobbing around town on
transfer cards and two more clubs
are negotic1ting with MCA for orks.
This problem is expected to be a
big 1$sue in the next election and
unless a lot of changes are made be­
tween now and election time, there
probably will be a lot of changes
made.-By Ca1·l Milman, WASHING­
TON, D. C.

F
otH
Pac
bu.i
Wi

•

Summer Chases Music

Away from Cleveland

when the Trianon ball­
rpom, one of the main sources of
name bands for this territory, closes
its doors £01· the season after fea­
tlu·ing Larry Clinton, Jack Teagar­
den, Harry James, and Gene Krupa
on successive week-ends.
With the Palace theatre also closed
fo1· most of the slU1}lller, the nearest
spot £01· dancing o:r; listening to
name bands will be at Cedar Point,
near Sandusky, about 75 miles
away.
In Cleveland, Euclid beach, Puri­
tas park, and the Aragon ballroom
will have local and traveling bands
but, with the exception of infre­
quent Palace bookings, none of the
big ,bands are e;x;pected to play here.
Best draws at the Aragon in re­
cent months were Bobby Byrne and
Glenn Garr. Byrne left with one of
the town's best trumpet men1 Chuck
Forsyth.
Vince Pattie, Gene Sullivan, and
Frank Gagen have been featured
recently at Puritas, and future book­
ings 'will have an accent on local
outfits.-CLEVELAND.

•

-- ·------

•
Una Mae Carlisle
Scores Solidly

as a terriffic jazz vo­
ealist and pianist at Lindsay's Sky­
Bar.
Una Mae dropped into town two
months ago to visit relations and,
after catching on at J.irn.mie Owens'
pl.ace -in Harlem, has- been wown
·,
�
cats with her brilliant jazz.
She has been featured in Paris
and London and was starred for a
number of months at the Hot Club
of France.-CLEVELAND.

•

•

Dick Stabile•s Saxists

and other well-known
players using Woodwind mouth­
pieces are pictured in a new booklet
just issued by the Woodwind Co. of
131 W. 45th St., New York City. It
will be sent upon request to anyone
mentioning MttRONOME.

I

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