Which flash drive will be collectible 15 to 16 years from now?

Oh, they're going to be collectible, that's for sure. But not just any flash drive will do.  Beyond designiness, the collectible will need to demonstrate uniqueness and rarity. An authentic dual purpose will be nice, too. Most of all, artfulness, utility, craftsmanship and relevant content will be sought. All of which you find in the folksy old FlashHarp®. Jus' sayin'. See you in the future!

A Funny Thing Happened To The Harmonica On Its Way To The Heart Of The American Sound

In 1862, the harmonica came to the U.S and began a unique musical journey, starting out from the lowest of places--the fields, farms and plains. Turns out, tho, the harmonica had a Fearsome Foursome rooting for it from the start: Quality, Novelty, Portability and Price. These traits inspired broad trial. And trial soon led to experimentation. As a result, the new way of playing that's now called "crossharp" was born. (Crossharp is that style of play in which the 2 hole "draw" becomes the tonal center instead of the 1-, 4- and 7-hole "blows;" it's notorious for that "bent" bluesy sound.)

 As crossharp took hold, the harmonica's status as an instrument climbed. In the 1940s, the hand-held microphone was added for amplification. The loud-sobbing nightclub sound further propelled its legitimacy and popularity.

Around its 100-year anniversary, the harmonica found itself in demand. Blues harmonica soloists were needed to meet that demand, and soon market structures had become established to support the little rebel with the soulful, urban sound.

Meanwhile, the rebel Bob Dylan was carving out his own artistic and economic niche.

Dylan marks an interesting aberration in the harmonica's evolution. Because crossharp harmonica playing had become so prevalent by then, Dylan, for aesthetic reasons, intentionally sidestepped the crossharp path, deciding instead to play the harmonica straight. Though seemingly a step backwards for the instrument, a new pathway was ultimately created. Call this re-emergent "folksy" sound the "Roots" or "Americana" path.

Another important discovery emerged around the late 70s--"overblowing." By doing just that, a skilled player found he or she could "hit" previously missing notes on the basic 10-holed, Richter-tuned harmonica. In the right hands, the diatonic harmonica today can be played fully chromatically.

 Amazing!

This raises the question, though. What exactly are the "right" hands for the harmonica?

Rebels feel illegitimate when they achieve legitimacy. 
Along the course of its journey, the instrument seems to have become the tool of an "establishment," an establishment replete with elite artists,"publics," professional go-betweens, educators, publishers and promoters. In its transformation to a formal, serious, legitimate musical instrument, the harmonica has lost something vital; namely, its novelty. And this has cost it a large portion of its mass appeal.

The little musical rebel that marched up out of the marsh now appears positioned for a fate worse than obscurity; call it irrelevance. That is, unless something new its way comes...

Indeed, something new is needed, and now, to revive the harmonica's status as an instrument of the people.

This is where the FlashHarp® harmonica USB comes in... 
Certainly, with the addition of flash memory, the harmonica's novelty status is instantly reinvigorated. Trial, too, is encouraged, and not just among accomplished players and an existing following of "harmonica snobs" in biker garb; but among new players, players from unrelated areas--some musical, some not.

In a way, ironically, the higher-tech FlashHarp harmonica USB returns the instrument to the magical "hobo campground" where its journey originated--where nobody prejudged it or expected anything in particular from it, at all. The harmonica USB reactivates the Fearsome Foursome of Quality, Novelty, Price and Portability. And this time, the instrument's novelty aspect is upgraded to include something as valuable as music itself: usefulness.

WGN's Own Plays FlashHarp On-Air!

We interrupt normal blog posting to bring you this news story. WGN's own Steve Sanders was seen playing the FlashHarp® harmonica USB flash drive (very well, I might add) on his noon newscast today. Lindsay Roberts on the WGN-TV Midday News - WGN

The History of the Harmonica Tells a Horatio Alger Story.

The headline reads like this: "Small Pocket Instrument Moves West, South. Finally Gets Big Break in the 'American Sound.'"

The harmonica was not highly regarded in the beginning in the U.S. but rather was looked upon as of lowly status.

Paradoxically this caused widespread experimentation.

Following 1862, "serious artist" expectations (in dark glasses and biker garb) eventually crept in.

But success is a double-edged sword for all pop icons and our diminutive hero proved not to be impervious. As a result, many who picked up an old single-purpose harmonica gave up, only to put the thing in the back of a drawer.

Fortunately, the advent of the dual-purpose FlashHarp gives the harmonica a much-needed second wind. FlashHarp buyers are liberated from its high expectations by virtue of its USB/flash-memory utility (e.g., it can store digital documents, pictures, videos, music, you name it).

Instead of diminishing the harmonica, FlashHarp's dual purpose has turned out to return the instrument to its former glorious, popular, lowly status.

For hundreds of new-breed type user-players this comes as good news, indeed.

Buy a 2, 4 or 8GB FlashHarp now at the BackyardBrand store on Etsy, the "all things handmade" Web site. You'll find valuable links to demos and additional articles there as well.

FlashHarp and Backyard Brand are registered trademarks of FlashHarp Music LLC

The World's First And Only Playable Harmonica USB Flash Drive

Demo FlashHarp.

Carrying the playable, 3" FlashHarp improves more than your digital storage capacity. It boosts your cultural memory, too, in ways that far exceed the vacuous vibe you'll get from carrying a plain, soulless flash drive.

CONSIDER THE ORIGINAL MAN FROM THE LAND OF LINCOLN...
Lincoln himself, whose craggy facial features laid bare the conflict of an entire nation, found great comfort in playing his harmonica; so much so that during his presidency he reported it as one of his two favorite things.

No small feat for the diminutive harmonica.

IMAGINE, HAD LINCOLN'S HARMONICA BEEN A FLASHHARP...
He would have had no need for that "stovepipe" he wore (which toted copious notes atop his presidential head). Further imagine Mary Todd Lincoln giving her husband for his birthday a FlashHarp with "Honest Abe," "Rail Splitter" or "Great Emancipator" etched in gold letters on the side.

Personalization is available on every size of FlashHarp.

LEARN TO PLAY AT LEAST AS WELL AS PRESIDENT LINCOLN!
Buy a FlashHarp preloaded with my homespun, "Five Basic Steps to Playing," instruction video. When it arrives, simply remove the USB cap, take the FlashHarp out of its hard plastic box and plug the instrument into your computer. Next, save the QuickTime lesson video to your hard drive and remove the FlashHarp. Now you can play along to my lesson using the FlashHarp.

Shipping is included FREE on every lesson-loaded FlashHarp!

WHO THE HECK IS THE BACKYARD HARMONICA TEACHER?
The inventor of the FlashHarp, I originally preferred as my title, "Official Marriage Counselor Between The 'American Sound' And Everyone Who Ever Loved It." But one is not always at liberty to choose the name(s) by which one becomes known, so, The Backyard Harmonica Teacher will have to do. Make no mistake, tho, the "Official" moniker is not harping on the subject too strongly. After all, it is what I'm tootin' for! Hear The Backyard Harmonica Teacher's own story from his own mouth.

HITTING SINGLE NOTES ON A FLASHHARP IS A CINCH IF YOU ALREADY PLAY...
But if you're just learning, the Musical Combo may be for you, that is, if single-note mastery is your goal—which it may not even be. (Blowing big, fat chords on a FlashHarp may be all the musical satisfaction you require; in which case, one needs no training at all to do that!)

Anyway, the Musical Combo kit includes a lesson-loaded "C" FlashHarp plus a separate, full-sized harmonica, the Plug 'n Play, also in "C". (Again, single-note technique is easier to "pick-up" with the Plug 'n Play because of its larger holes.)

AT A LOSS FOR WHAT TO DO NEXT?
Look, even if you never make it onto "America's Got Talent," the FlashHarp is a great tool for expressing and storing soulful feelings. That's why it's the perfect flash drive for music lovers, especially harmonica music lovers.

FlashHarp is patented. There is no substi"toot!"

Learn more at: http://www.BackyardBrand.com

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.

The Backyard Brand® School of Backyard Blowin'

Here's why the playable, lesson-loaded FlashHarp® harmonica USB drive makes more sense than harmonicas that just make music.

A high-quality instrument handmade in Riverside, IL, USA, the FlashHarp uses specially-engineered stainless steel parts that are also manufactured in Illinois in very small quantities. In addition to these custom-designed and manufactured parts, FlashHarp's musical and flash-memory components are supplied by the world's market leaders.

There is no substi"toot" for a FlashHarp not just because it is the world's first and only harmonica USB flash drive but also because of what's inside. Namely, a harmonica lesson taught by the authoritative non-authority on "Backyard" Blowin', The Backyard Harmonica Teacher. You can hear this self-styled teacher's story straight from his own mouth if you search for the name on YouTube; but a brief summary of the school of thought follows below.

The Backyard School of Blowin' says anybody who can own a harmonica can set about to play the thing as well as or as poorly as they darn well choose. An independent, inventive and "nothin' fancy" approach that focuses on pickin' up your own style, Backyard Blowin' has no bias or barrier to entry whatsoever, other than owning your own first instrument. This is basically the same style of the original innovators of the instrument on American soil, i.e., the cowboys, hobos and newly freed slaves, all of whom picked out their tunes by ear under the tutelage of grandparents, general-store-style court-holders and farm-hand drifters more than 150 years ago. It's also the same one taken by Abraham Lincoln, Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid. That being said, all of the more formal, long-since well-established forms such as Blues, or Country and Western, or Folk, can be played on the FlashHarp, and you may well decide to head off in and commit yourself to one of these directions at some point after you've gotten your "C" legs on a FlashHarp. That's up to you; and that's the true beauty part of "The Five Basic Steps to Playing" instruction video that comes inside your FlashHarp. It covers in great detail the five key points you'll want to know to keep from getting tripped up by the harmonica, no matter which direction you decide to go.

Speaking of detail, you should know that every FlashHarp model can be purchased with Personalization (gold-etched letters are applied to the side opposite the blow holes). This is especially nice to know if you have a particular person in mind as a recipient for a gift.

All that being said, if you're dead certain Backyard Blowin' is just not good enough for you or yours today, that's your prerogative. In which case, your tastes are probably already too high falutin' for the decent yet serviceable instrument that is the harmonica part of a FlashHarp, which, again, is supplied to its handcrafter, Backyard Brand®, by the widely recognized world leader in the manufacturer and distribution of harmonicas.

In sum, the FlashHarp is intentionally designed as an instrument of the people, for the people, its dual purpose serving to effectively take playing out of the hands of "pros" and put it back in the hands of "Joes" and "Floes" and everyone in-between. And that's just fine with its inventor, The Backyard Harmonica Teacher.

Now, if you are a would-be "pro," you should probably just go on ahead then to your local music store and blow your dough on, well, whatever fancier instrument you see that tickles your fancy. Just don't come crying to me when you come to realize later that, in fact, you are not a "Pro" but are just another of us "Joes" or "Floes," i.e., someone in-between. (This realization, btw, will come to you slowly, about the same time that that old-fashioned single-purpose harmonica of yours begins wending its way to the deeper back recesses of your dresser drawer.)

On the other hand, if you know yourself well enough to be able to admit you have a life outside the harmonica and accept that you'll probably never be the next Blues legend (subject to all the stylistic rules such schooled "freeform" playing engenders), consider yourself accepted just as you are right now to The Backyard Harmonica Teacher's School of Backyard Blowin'.

And, really, when you think about it, who doesn't have a life outside the harmonica? Right? That's the real beauty part about Backyard Blowin'. Your playable FlashHarp will hang in there for you as a true pocket companion even if and/or when someday you give up on the idea of actually playin' it as a musical instrument! I'm just sayin'! Should that time ever come (not that it necessarily will!), you'll find great relief in knowing you still have a highly useful device because its functional, stylish flash drive will always be dutifully available to you for storing pics, tunes or video—whatever your heart desires!

If you find that a liberating safety net to know about, well, you're starting to get Lesson One in the Book of Backyard Blowin'! In which case you should definitely check out the FlashHarp at http://www.BackyardBrand.com. Prices start at less than $45 for the 2GB model. At least spend some time thinkin' about all this before you plunk down dough on an old-fashioned single-purpose instrument. Ultimately you should make the right decision for you, which, I know, won't be an easy choice to make.