"Robert Laughlin" wrote:
<I just hope that the "L" doesn't become merely a place to hawk one's
wares.
Robert, perhaps you ought to ask yourself where else in the world
harmonica players can find out about all the "wares" that are available to
them. At this point in time there are only a few independent publications
in the world devoted to harmonica players (at least to English-speaking
ones), such as the National Harmonica League's monthly issues, published
in the UK; like the NHL journal, the vast majority of these are
distributed mostly to relatively small, regional audiences. (Various
vendors, such as Hohner and Seydel, publish regular and informative
bulletins to harmonica players, but of course those vendors are not
"independent" in this sense.) In other words, there are practically zero
places where people offering goods and services tailored to harmonica
players can inform those players of offerings that are likely to be of
interest. Many of the vendors offering such goods and services are small
shops for whom the shotgun advertising approaches offered by tradition!
al media are ineffective and prohibitively expensive. If not for Harp-L,
most players would never hear about most of these vendors and the tools
they offer. That would be a bad thing for everyone involved, full stop.
The Harp-L list has always had a mix of advice on the art of playing the
harmonica and notices about various tools for harmonica players: amps,
mics, FX, books, records, videos, etc., etc. That's a good thing, not a
bad thing. Just about all of the people offering tools for harp players
also post regularly on topics unrelated to their offerings. I've never
seen anyone try to dominate bandwidth on the list with advertising. I'm
sure that doing so is a violation of the list rules, and I know for a fact
that posts are vetted to ensure that the rules are followed.
I think the balance is well-established at this point, and I think it's a
good balance that's in no danger of being overturned. If you disagree, my
bet is that there are a few lists out there that prohibit any
contributions from vendors, and others on this list can tell you where to
find them. (I can't, because I don't know where they are; I've been pretty
happy with Harp-l for a long time.) You might want to try one or more of
those lists to see whether they give you more of what you're looking for,
keeping in mind that there's nothing to stop you from subscribing to more
than one list.
It's a shame that harmonica players can't access high-quality monthly
publications like the ones devoted to bass, keyboards, guitar (ESPECIALLY
guitar!), and so on that offer readers a mix of how-to, advertising, and
objective reviews. Efforts to create such publications (including the
American Harmonica Newsletter and HIP) have been unsustainable, for
reasons that are unclear to me. In the meantime, I think it's a service
to the membership of Harp-L to make airtime available to the people who
supply harp players with tools, and I've personally benefited from that
airtime not only as a vendor but as a buyer.
Regards, Richard Hunter
author, "Jazz Harp" (Oak Publications, NYC)
Latest mp3s and harmonica blog at http://hunterharp.com
Vids at http://www.youtube.com/user/lightninrick
Twitter: lightninrick