I often talk with teachers who share warm memories of my father, John W. Schaum. They recall the special pleasure of meeting him at one of his workshops or their pride in joining him in a duet. They tell how his artistry, personality and musical philosophy touched them and ultimately, their students. Schaum Publications is the continuation of his work. Knowing the story of John Schaum is to know how our company was conceived and built, where we are now, and what we envision for the future to bring music to others.

My father was a saver. As a result, his office had an accumulation of things scattered over the top of every horizontal surface, including his antique Steinway grand piano. When visitors came, he liked to show a reproduction of an old engraving of Beethoven in his study, sitting among numerous piles of papers and manuscripts in conspicuous disarray.

Contrary to the appearance of his office, Dad was really very well organized. There was always a purpose for the things he saved. He saved clippings from magazines and newspapers. Among many concert reviews and articles about performers and composers were clippings reflecting his political and social interests. There were copies of occasional letters to the editor he had written when he had strong feelings. Also included were articles on dozens of topics from animals and zoos to railroads and astronauts that he felt might serve to stimulate ideas in his teaching, writing and workshops.

He saved copies of correspondence with publishers, pianists, teachers, insurance companies, and manufacturers whose products he found irksome or defective. There were copies of recital and concert programs beginning in the mid 1920's, along with souvenir programs from countless ballets, circuses, musicals, magic shows, operas, ice skating extravaganzas and wrestling matches. He also saved postcards, photographs, sight-seeing brochures and historical pamphlets from his travels throughout all fifty states.

Needless to say, he had a vast collection of music, mostly for piano (more about this later). Fortunately, he was able to hire a team of librarians who helped to organize and catalog the music along with all the other things. All of this brings to mind an appreciation of the wide array of interests that formed the background for his creative endeavors.

It all started when he decided to make a career of piano teaching in the late 1920's. Dad began working as a private teacher and after several years organized the Schaum Piano School in 1933. The teaching faculty gradually expanded to a point where the school had eleven teaching studios up on the third floor of an office building on the east side of Milwaukee, just a few blocks from Lake Michigan. The collective teaching experiences in his school became the fountainhead for his writings.

My father's struggle to earn a living as a piano teacher during the 1930's depression produced some remarkable results. His pioneer class piano teaching work is revealed in a yellowed newspaper clipping from the education section of the Christian Science Monitor dated Saturday, May 11, 1935. At the top of the front page is a photo three columns wide. It shows one of his classes with children seated at eight pianettes (small four-octave keyboards). He obviously was very proud of this national publicity since he had carefully kept six copies of the clipping.

One of his particularly successful projects was to compile an annual promotional booklet with photographs of his students at the piano in their homes. A professional portrait photographer was engaged. Copies of the booklet were mailed to hundreds of homes in the vicinity of his piano school. After several years, this booklet became a status symbol for socially prominent families. As a result, my father became one of the most sought after piano teachers in the city.

The Schaum Musical Star Co. was another enterprise. In 1936, there were no award stickers available for students other than plain gummed stars. My father designed gold and silver award stars printed with musical symbols which were packaged and offered to teachers nationwide.

He was constantly looking for better student materials, frequently visiting the three music dealers in downtown Milwaukee. His favorite music magazine was The Etude, published monthly by the Theodore Presser Co. It contained samples of their latest piano solos and duets along with articles about teaching.

My father often experimented by creating special arrangements, original pieces and studies for individual students. Many years of accumulation and careful cataloging of these ideas and works resulted in publishing several of his own books for use at the Schaum Piano School and served as resources for his later books.

A series of fortunate circumstances contributed to my father's success. Even his birthdate worked in his favor. He was too young to be involved the First World War and a bit too old for the military draft during World War II.

His first published works were piano solos in sheet music form, issued during the 1930's. Boston, Sam Fox, Presser, Summy, and Willis were among the companies who published his early works. The typical royalty at that time paid one or two cents per copy sold. As an alternative, some publishers bought out the composer's rights for a fixed fee. One of his arrangements, the "Marines Hymn," was sold to the publisher for $15. The time was 1942, in the midst of the patriotic fervor generated by World War II. The Schaum arrangement of the "Marines Hymn" sold over one million copies. Although my father never got more than the original $15 (a one cent royalty would have given him over $10,000), its success attracted the attention of Max Winkler, the president of Belwin Publications.

In 1941, Dad published his own first book titled, Piano Fun for Boys and Girls. In the foreword of this book he states, "In examining the other types of methods we have found that the majority ignore the interest factor of the student. They take it for granted that the student has a burning passion for music and will do any old dry piece of work just because it appears in the book. They forget that youngsters have to have interesting and enjoyable material or else they will quickly run out of enthusiasm. And so we present the Piano Fun Book for children to enjoy." This book was later refined and published by Belwin as the Schaum Piano Course, Pre-A Book.

My father's first major music commission was in 1943, when was asked by Max Winkler to make fifty piano solo arrangements to be issued as sheet music. Additional commissions would depend upon their success. A second series of fifty pieces followed the next year and in 1945 the "Schaum Piano Course" was introduced.

As World War II was ending in 1945, paper was in short supply. By a stroke of good fortune, the Belwin Co. was able to obtain plenty of paper to print the new "Schaum Piano Course" while publishers of competitive methods were hampered by shortages. This contributed to the rapid success of my father's course.

At that time, other method books were labeled by grade number. My father found there was great confusion and dismay among students and parents about Grade 1 in music and Grade 1 in elementary school. At Max Winkler's suggestion, the books were labeled by alphabet letters instead of grades. In addition, each of the early grades were split into two books. For example, the A-Book was Grade 1 and B-Book was Grade 1½. Another innovation was to use a different color for the cover of each of the nine books in the series.

With aggressive promotion involving hundreds of workshops all over the country, the "Schaum Piano Course" became very popular. Often, my father was gone up to six weeks at a time, giving three to five workshops every week. It was an exhausting pace. I recall accompanying my father and mother on some of these trips during my summer vacations from school. Airplane flights (before commercial jet planes) were noisy, expensive and connected only the largest cities. Rented cars were rare. However, even small towns were accessible by passenger trains at the time, so most travel was by railroad and taxi.

During the late 1940's and through the 1960's, my father gave hundreds of workshops for piano teachers. He appeared in twenty or more cities in each of the more populous states such as California, Illinois, New Your, Ohio and Texas. He often returned to the same music dealer for follow-up workshops a year or two apart. As his travels expanded, his goal became to appear before teacher's groups in every state. When he started there were only 48 states. In 1959, when Alaska and Hawaii were admitted to the union, he had to further expand his itinerary. Eventually, he achieved his goal of giving workshops in all fifty states.

As it became more practical to travel by airplane instead of train, my father had a little more free time between workshops. His travel itinerary sometimes had a free day during the week, and weekends were always free, except for an occasional Saturday workshop. But he was never idle during his free time. He visited as many music dealers as time permitted, always receptive to grass roots ideas and suggestions. He was influenced by what he learned from contacts with teachers as he traveled in different parts of the country. Occasionally, when there was time for sightseeing, he took in much of the local culture, history and traditions of the places he visited. He saved picture postcards, photos, pamphlets and souvenirs which were later carefully cataloged in his immense library. These experiences and visits influenced future music that he wrote.

A workshop trip to Hawaii was later reflected in the book, Hawaiian Music, published in 1965. Music of the American Indian, Latin American Music and individual pieces scattered in different books were also directly influenced by his travels.

The book in which he probably took the most pride was Fifty Songs Fifty States. The idea for this book came as he achieved his goal of giving workshops in all fifty states. It was the most time consuming book he ever produced. His music library staff wrote hundreds of letters to states and various sources to track down and confirm the status of the music, lyrics, facts and data. It took considerable detective work to locate all of the copyright owners and obtain the licenses needed to use the music. The copyright owner of the California state song, however, refused to grant a license to Schaum (or to anyone else). As a result, different music had to be substituted.

The original 50 States book had a full color US flag in the center spread with numbered stars, each number representing a different state. The book also provided white gummed stars for the student to place on the flag as each piece of music was learned. Unfortunately, this ambitious project proved to be an economic labor of love and has been dropped out of print.

June, 1959 marked the establishment of Schaum Publications, Inc. by my father, John W. Schaum. I joined the business two months later, upon completion of an enlistment in the Navy. During the forty plus years that have followed, this has remained a family business, with the Schaum tradition continuing in the years since the death of my father in July, 1988. My son, Jeff, is now involved in musical editing, teaching, administration and production.

During all of these years, we have always tried to remain close to our piano teacher customers and respond to their requests and needs. We have made many friends in every state. Our aim has been to make worthwhile contributions to the field of piano teaching and to continually improve and refine the materials in our catalog.

The Schaum Music School remains very active with a substantially increased enrollment during the past few years. Recent recitals have had overflow crowds. The School continues to be an inspiration and proving ground for the materials we publish.

My father's large private music library continues to be a valuable resource for many of the books and sheet music solos in our catalog. This library includes over 200,000 cataloged titles of music and periodicals.

All major aspects of production are located in our own building. This includes music engraving, typography, page layouts and graphic design, printing, bindery, warehousing and distribution.

We look forward to continuing our family tradition of publishing effective and attractive music for the piano teaching profession well into this century.