Three weeks ago, I put up a new acoustic album on streaming… “Lost in the Cosmos.” Today, Apple for Artists sent me play stats for the week of Oct. 10-16…0…that is, zero streams on Apple Music. “Crickets,” as they say in the music world.

But in its first week, it had 54 streams on Spotify – the platform my audience uses most. Half dozen people reached out and told me they enjoyed it.

Still, after seeing that email today, there was a frisson of discouragement. Until I remembered my motivation for including field recordings of cricket song to book end the album, and felt peaceful again.

One local friend asked me after his first spin, “I listened to your “Cosmos thing” on Spotify…Crickets and all, where did that come from?”

Two motivations. One is love a nature and I wanted to have people hear natural sounds along with the man-made sounds through devices. The source of the clips were made by me in my front yard at night and at the boat launch at Fox Lake, a mile from my house.

I have been fascinated in the last ten years with “Sanctuaries of Quiet,” something biologists and anthropologists are documenting more and more. Places where the sounds of the mechanical, built infrastructure are not heard.

I’ve always enjoyed it when bands use nature sounds on their recordings. Early for me was “You Are the Everything,” by R.E.M. Later for me, I admired how Neko Case put 30 minutes of New Hampshire night insects, recorded in her back yard, at the end of the “Middle Cyclone” LP.

Secondly, going on here is playful, self-deprecating “Dad-humor.” I know that very few people listen to my albums. It doesn’t bother me anymore like it used to 20+ years ago. The cricket field recordings are little bit of an inside joke. The album is out there with the millions of other titles, and when it finishes, the metaphorical auditorium is empty…crickets…literally and figuratively:)

My shelves are full of albums I love and enjoy, but I might only hear once a year or two. Do the artists mean any less to me? No.

What matters to me, what mattered to me, in making this project was how good it felt to make the sounds and layer them – how good it felt to organize and express the ideas and emotions the songs represent to me. I know people will hear it from time to time. It’s like a classic novel on the shelf of a library. When someone picks it us, their life will be enriched. But I’m in no hurry, and I’m not really counting, either, even if the Apple/Spotify bots are.

I have a high degree of introversion, by the way. Knowing that 54 people have heard the record is a lot of attention!!! Make me a little shy.

If you were one, thank you.