Dear Harmony Central Reader,

When Wilson and I started Harmony Central back in 1994, I don't think either of us expected things to have gone as far as they did. Needless to say, a lot of hard work has gone into Harmony Central, and while we have certainly come a long way, we certainly have not achieved everything we wanted to do on the site.

In an effort to take Harmony Central to the next level, we have spent much of our recent time securing a round of venture funding of more than $10 million for the company. And as if that wasn't enough, we have also merged with zZounds (www.zzounds.com), an online retailer. (see the press release) This is rather dramatic news and a very big change from how Harmony Central started, and just as we did before we took our very first advertisement, I wanted to take this moment to talk about where we are headed and get your input.

First of all, the publishing aspect of Harmony Central today will remain an independent department of the new merged company. I am continuing on with the company as VP of Content & Publishing and I am committed to maintaining our editorial independence, as well as going to great lengths to improve the amount and quality of the content on the site. And even though Harmony Central and zZounds are parts of one larger parent company, the two web sites will be run and produced independently.

So why merge with zZounds at all? Together, we will have much more extensive resources to build Harmony Central into a better site with more features for you. Our connection with zZounds will also provide us with unprecedented access to products, information about the products, and the manufacturers themselves, which will then help us produce more and better content for you, the reader.

We are really excited about our primary investor, Vulcan Ventures Inc., as well. It was founded by Paul G. Allen (co-founder of a fairly well known software company - you can visit his web site, www.paulallen.com, for details), who is himself a musician (according to his web site, his favorite gear includes a Sunburst Strat, Marshall amp, Crybaby, and UniVibe), and has a number of investments in other music and audio companies.

My job here, plain and simple, is to ensure that Harmony Central has the absolute best content and maintains its position as the leading resource for musicians. We have had a lot of ideas for things we'd like to implement on the site, but we haven't had the resources to make it all happen. Now that is changing.

However, I don't think we have all the good ideas yet and we are very interested in hearing what you have to say. We are here to serve you, the musician. If there's something cool you would like to see on the web, I'm interested in creating it here.

You are always welcome to speak your mind and let me know what you are thinking. You can email me directly any time at slehman@harmony-central.com. Forgive me if I am unable to reply promptly, but I do get hundreds of messages daily.

Think of the Harmony Central today as the starting point. With your input and ideas, it will become a much, much better place.

Sincerely,

Scott Lehman