Harmonica Net Surfing Presented in the Kantou Harmonica League No.13(2001/1）.(Japanese only) People who play harmonica must be hungry for information about harmonica. If he finds any article about harmonica in a news paper or a magazine, he must be absorbed in reading it. Unfortunately there are only a few chance to find such articles. Harmonica is still a minor music instrument. However, there are many many harmonica enthusiasts in the world. Such people send messages through internet, a modern media. If you have a PC connected to internet, you can immediately look at such message the enthusiasts are sending. The amount of the information is enormous so that you can't look at them in a day. You may easily spend more than a week to look through them. A method to get them is quite simple. You enter the key words such as "Harmonica", "Tremolo", "Chromatic" and "Diatonic" to the search menu of Netscape or Internet Explorer, then you will get enormous amount of information in a short time. May be too many. Looking at them one by one, you get various topics about harmonica. You can spend as much time as you want if you have time. There is an another method. You first look at the site Harmonica Common Time introduced in the magazine. You will of course see many harmonica information listed in the site. After you enjoy most of them, please click the "LINKS". Now you will see the links to other sites such as various vendors, university bands, and many personal sites. You will spend a full day to look at these linked sites. In addition, these site again has their "LINKS" to other sites. The information expands vastly. This increasing information about harmonica is one of the fun points of internet. This is called "Internet Surfing". I started internet surfing one month ago, and I feel full with harmonica information. What a difference from hungriness before then ! Now you should click "Bass Harp" in the links of Harmonica Common Time. Then you are linked to the oversea harmonica information. You need some English, but as long as you like harmonica, you read them. You can obtain all the harmonica information open to the world. As the result of my internet surfing, I introduce some topics that was very interesting. First, you can obtain pictures of American harmonica players after 40's when harmonica is its top popularity. Simply pressing "print" button, you get very clear pictures of trios, quartets or gangs. They are all "treasure" items. Eddy Manson, Jerry Murad, Don Res,Rascals, Harmoncats, etc. Pictures of people only known by name until now will be yours in a few hours of net surfing. Next, there are many vendors who sell a hand crafted harmonicas. Some of them with strong impression to me are: ・ 10 holes harmonica with Hard Wood cover plate and body ・ Titanium Body for 10 holes harmonica ・ 3 octave silver made chromatic harmonica ( there aretwo in addition to Hohner） ・ Gold or Silver coverplate chromatic harmonica(2.5, 3, and ４ octave) ・ CX-16（Note Hohner only sells CX-12） ・ Variously tuned CX-12（whole tone scale, diminished scale, Irish scale, etc.） Other interesting topics are: ・ Battery moved tool for harmonica repair, reed replacement tool kit for sale ・ Tiny screws and nuts for reed attach（reeds can be used for long by easily replacing to new ones) ・ Price comparison of internet shopping sites ・ Review of various harmonica ・ Guide book for bass harmonica, guide book of chromatic harmonica ・ Harmonica repairer（exist in each state, it could be a good business） ・ Players sites（self advertise,CD list, sample music, etc.） ・ LINKS to National Federations for each country（There aren't any federation site in Japan yet, I found only personal sites.） ・ Free music sheets for 10 holes harmonica（Irish Folk Music） As I found an old friend during net surfing, who is a member of harmonicats and whom I met 10 years ago during stay in USA,I E-mailed him "Hello !". Then I received the response the next day. He said "All others had passed away, and I am now the last harmonicat. I"m fixing a bass and a chord harmonica. It's late in the midnight. I'm sleepy, good-bye". What a convinnience ! While net surfing, I wish I would have my own site. I'm now planning about my site. I better write in English too so that people in the world can visit my site. I better have a counter for visitors. Better have a BBS, but it will make me busy. What should be the contents of the site? To be special and to make difference from others, I better introduce my arrangement of harmonica musics. I have 400 hundreds of such arrangements. Better make them possible to order. I'm wondering and enjoying. While the idea is increasing, I actually do not know how to make an internet site, although I work for computer company. Today, I bought a book titled "Easy way of making an internet site". From now on, I will build my site during new year vacation. I will see you, readers, through my internet site in the 21st century. |
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