Singers in the Hands of an Angry Mob
Daniel Elder is a talented composer of choral music. Until the spring of 2020, he was respected within that tiny niche of the music world. His original compositions had steady sales and were well-regarded by those who performed them.
Then, as you recall, the world turned upside down. Covid was the big news of the day, but George Floyd also passed away while under police detainment.
I guess it was the perfect storm, creating motive for people with, shall we say, “less than honorable” intentions to create havoc in our society.
Daniel took exception to rioters and looters burning down and destroying businesses and public structures in his hometown of Nashville, TN.
He posted on Instagram that people were “losing themselves.”
Daniel probably anticipated some backlash for posting something radical like “maybe there’s a better way to express moral outrage than burning down the courthouse.”
What he perhaps did not anticipate was a single Instagram post leading to him being blacklisted from the industry he had served for many years, contributing beauty to a craft he loved.
Literally every business associate, potential or otherwise, even the publisher who holds the rights to his work, immediately disassociated from him.
A year after this, I heard about Daniel. I don’t recall exactly how, but I wanted to learn more about his story. So I contacted him and asked if he would mind being interviewed and share some of his thoughts on the matter.
He didn’t want to do a live interview. He preferred to write things down so as to have control over what he said, lest anything he say in a live interview be further used against him in the court of public opinion.
That’s a good plan.
So I conducted the interview via email, and published it on what was then a trumpet-themed podcast. Not exactly the best fit for something like that, but it was all I had at the time.
Now I’ve launched a new podcast that is more of a general interest show, which means I can talk about things other than mouthpieces and how to play a high F with ease. It’s called That’s What I Meant to Say. I’ve published a few things on it thus far, and it occurred to me with all the protests of ICE and No Kings we’ve seen this year, some of the same patterns are reemerging with this groupthink phenomenon.
Plus there is new technology available by way of AI-synthesized voices, which allows me to have the written interview sound like an actual conversation between two people!
Amazing technology, these days, right?
At any rate, this is the written interview with Daniel Elder, verbatim as written in June 2021 – and I was also able to connect with Daniel this past week to get an update of how he’s doing in the intervening time.
To sum up: he’s taking everything in stride.
That’s a good attitude to have.
Find Daniel Elder on the web at danieleldermusic.com
Follow James Newcomb on the web at jamesdnewcomb.com