Know Any Harmonica Snobs?

Once upon a time, the harmonica, like the key of "C," was regarded as a musical instrument "of the people."

No one had to put on the least air of ostentatiousness or pretentiousness when buying one.

Everyday people bought it to enjoy to whatever extent they wanted. No one felt they had to follow anyone else's rules or style, to play "crossharp" or utilize "blow bends," or master "overblows." That's because, often, people, young people, especially, were being invited to discover music by way of the harmonica.

Because of its original lowly status, no owner was explicitly or implicitly required by anyone to do anything beyond plunking down the dough it took to buy the thing. Ownership was easy and, truly, a great value. And with it came the common pleasure of knowing that one had in one's pocket a real musical instrument.

Because one didn't over-invest the harmonica with all kinds of artistic pomp and circumstance, one was actually empowered with the liberating notion that one could darn well fiddle with the thing to whatever fair-thee-well one wanted.

As a result, the harmonica not only became pervasive, it became the subject of as many musical experiments as there were owners.

By virtue of it being affordable to almost anyone, nature took the harmonica on a fascinating musical course, putting it into the hands of more and more people, some of whom truly were musical innovators (but many of whom, weren't).

The many new artists' playing styles, innovating around the harp's tonal qualities and note layout, occurred around the same time the direction of the "American Sound" was being defined.

Then, something paradoxical but predictable happened.

With the harmonica's evolution, the instrument began to take on a new, higher level of status until somehow, one day, playing it actually became regarded a bonafide form of art.

After this status shift (from "Do Ra Me" to "Laaaa aa dee daa"), "harmonica playing" began to become more and more the domain of special players using certain kinds of styles in certain ways. I call this paradoxical because, certainly, many of the artists who helped define the direction of harmonica playing were indeed deserving artistic innovators. I call it predictable because real artists often attract followers, many of whom would attribute to the form traits that do not serve Art at all well.

In sum, I believe the harmonica's evolution has been a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it's been good to the extent that innovations like crossharp, bending and overblowing have come about. But it's been bad, too, to the extent that some would limit participation in the simple pleasure that "playing with it" can bring (which should include any- and everybody).

In my opinion, the formerly noble harmonica has today had its identity largely usurped by an ignoble new kind of musical snob (and this brings me around to the real reason I sat down to write this post today in the first place!). I was recently banned from certain harmonica discussion forums because some so-called "blues" purists there reported me for spamming. Which I was not doing; I was merely explaining what the FlashHarp® is; namely, a real, playable harmonica in combination with a perfectly useful flash drive. In ignorant bliss, the people who reported my alleged spamming simultaneously slammed the FlashHarp's quality, calling it, "cheap," "low quality," etc. In other words, without ever owning or trying to play one, they stated a range of ungrounded assertions that were wholly unfounded and untrue. (BTW, I explain FlashHarp's quality level and manufacture process in more detail in my previous post here. Suffice it now to say, the FlashHarp harmonica USB is made carefully, by hand, in the USA, using precision parts that are engineered to high specification and produced in low quantities, right here in the USA. Read more about it here.)

FlashHarp is a real musical instrument, one which any owner—no matter how highly trained, musically—is invited to experiment with, innovate upon and draw their own conclusions about (from both a musical and basic utility standpoint).

In that sense, the FlashHarp of today is closer in identity to the harmonicas of old. For FlashHarp gives back to the harmonica instrument its perfectly approachable, "Every Person" status. Which, after all, is what the harmonica was all about in the first place, before it became a snob-infested high-art form overrun by more followers than leaders.

FlashHarp puts the harmonica back in the hands of everyday people to do with and enjoy however they darn well please—no strings or artistic pretensions attached. Check out the FlashHarp® right now at: http://www.BackyardBrand.com. Prices start at less than $45 for the 2GB model. 4 and 8GB models are available, as well.