Music: By the Numbers

"Now you too can play the guitar. Just turn the dial and strum. No fingering necessary . . . You can go on TV with your own guitar and your own entertainment." This invitation to the arts is part of an advertisement for the Dial-A-Chord, a $12 gadget that enables a fledgling guitarist to change chords at the flick of a plastic wheel and presumably to toss off a habanera at first strumming. Music merchants on their way home last week from their annual convention in Chicago went armed with dozens of such labor-saving and interest-killing devices designed to hook some...

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