I am grateful for strangers

Douglas Wayne Ricketts
3 min readMar 14, 2023

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As a musical artist who is essentially shy and bad at self-promotion I am grateful for strangers. To be specific, I am currently grateful to the strangers around the world who gave my 2022 album “Music for a Dark Film (That Hasn’t Been Filmed Yet) almost three-million online listens over the past year.

HOW many listens? 2.75 million in a year?! WHAT?!

When I compose instrumental music I aspire to be a stock music provider, perhaps a film or TV show scorer. A lot of times the work comes from moments when I steel myself away from the trials of the world and focus on making sounds I want to hear. It is rare that I ever figure other people will enjoy them as well but I put the work out with little to no promotion in the hopes that modern streaming algorithms will find the pieces and suggest them to potential listeners.

Worldwide! But whassup Greenland? Did I offend you somehow?

It’s a very weird feeling knowing that someone in almost every country has listened to my music. I almost gave up on music. After showing promise as a chamber & jazz choral performer during high school in the 1980s I started to pick up drum machine programming, synthesizer work, and some guitar. But then life got in the way and I stopped singing after the age of 20. Too many things to detail here. But I always kept a toe dipped in the waters of musical creation & production. The fact that all four (!) of my released albums are instrumental is a result of my utter fear to start singing again. For one, I’m not sure I have anything to say. For another, I am vastly out of practice.

But I am grateful to a section of the world who have given my work listening time.

Top Tracks

I am also utterly fascinated by the tracks which are resonating with people. And by that I mean they are NOT my personal favorites on the album in question! It just goes to show you, music is deeply personal and connecting with another person’s ears has nothing to do with your own feelings about a song.

I am currently preparing a third album of dramatic music and will be distributing a 74-minute collection of royalty free stock music to various TV, radio, and film production companies shortly thereafter. I have no way to personally thank everyone who has supported me so far but I really wish I could. Thank you for giving me a positive outlook on my creative output! It’s just really really nice to be noticed.

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Douglas Wayne Ricketts
Douglas Wayne Ricketts

Written by Douglas Wayne Ricketts

I do things! Sometimes music or comedy is involved. Your mileage may vary. Contact me at douglasricketts@gmail.com

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