: “Flappers”
In Jonathan Swift’s satirical novel Gulliver’s Travels, Gulliver visits the strange island of Paputa. On Paputa, if you wish to speak to the king you have to first speak to his servant. The servant carries around a “flapper”, which is bladder filled with dried peas or little pebbles attached on the end of a stick. If the king’s servant deems that you are worthy enough to speak to him, the servant will hit the king with the flapper. This gets the attention of the king – and he will then listen to you.
The servants are also called flappers.
“Gee Eric, this certainly is a fascinating piece of trivia. Why are you interrupting my busy day of worrying about the pandemic? (I hear you asking)”
– – – – – – – – – – – –
Composers want to hear their music played/performed – and they want people to enjoy/appreciate their creative efforts. Yeah, there may be some rare exceptions – some isolated hermit composers living in remote log cabins who create music for their own ears only and never want anyone else to hear their work. But for the rest of us regular creative types, it is a struggle to get your music heard by anyone apart from your close friends & family. There are literally 100s of thousands of us out there – all competing for an audience.
In my case, it’s doubly hard because my music does not fit into any clearly defined category. It’s sort of classical, but it’s not your standard European classical – there’s all sorts of stuff going on that you will never hear on a classical music station – rock & R&B & funk & African influences in there. And it also does not fit into any standard rock or R&B platform.
But there is a platform for my music out there on (of all places) NPR. New Sounds, hosted by John Schaefer, is an hourly show that has been on the air for decades now. New Sounds features all sorts of oddball music that does not quite fit into your standard categories – it is the ideal place for my music to be played. In adding, New Sounds now has a Live Stream on this internet thing.
So great – let’s send an e-mail to John and get cracking. Right? Nope.
You cannot get through to John. There are literally 10s of thousands of composers & musicians who would like to be on the New Sounds playlist and/or show. One person cannot possibly listen to 10s of thousands of recordings. Instead John has flappers who filter what reaches his desk.
So OK – send an e-mail to John’s flappers? Right? Nope. You still have the same problem. The flappers won’t listen to your music – there are only have so many hours in the day – and there are still those 10s of thousands of creative types clamoring loudly at the flappers trying to get their attention..
So how do you get through to the flappers? You need a “flapper whisperer” – AKA a publicist – who knows how to get the right people to listen to your music. I have just such a person working for me – Alanna Maharajh Stone – who is diligently working behind the scenes to get my music in front of the decision makers.
Now just to be serious and clear for a moment. I’m not disparaging Mr. Schaefer or the people who work with him – it is the nature of the beast – I doubt that I would run things differently if I were in that position.
Music is intensely personal – there is no computer algorithm that can pick out “good” music from “bad”. Ultimately a human being must listen & decide what works for them – and there are only so many hours in the day that a human being can listen. Finally, I have it on good authority that New Sounds is more of collective effort – and that the New Sounds team are all doing their best to bring a variety of interesting & different music into the public’s eyes & ears.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
In other news, my album just got another nice review: Take Effect