Music: Unions & Hammond

In two plays running on Broadway, offstage organ music is simulated by that versatile instrument, put on the market two years ago by Inventor Laurens Hammond, which produces organ-like sounds— and many others—by electrical vibrations (TIME, April 29, 1935). Last week the American Federation of Musicians, ever vigilant where mechanical music encroaches upon musicians' jobs, stepped in with an order that an orchestra of at least four men must be employed wherever a Hammond is played.

The Star Wagon, by Maxwell Anderson (who improvises on his own Hammond, and whose sons discovered that...

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