It took place on the Isle of Man. A highlight of the day was a tram that was hired out exclusively to transport us all to the peak of snaefell mountain. A bagpiper joined us. Together with food and numerous bottles of champagne.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, and was glad for the both of them that the event went so well.

I eventually got around to recording a few cover versions. This one is another Coldplay tune called “Amsterdam”. It was from their album “A rush of blood to the head”. This one is in my top 5 Coldplay songs. The video is just a slideshow of images. I didn’t spend that much time making the video. The song is quite important to me, and perhaps it only needed some images

See what you think

There are a number other things I’ve been getting up to in the past month, though I’m not going to bother writing about it. It would fill several pages. I’m just update the Youtube stats.

Well. I may not have been doing much on Youtube, but the figures have been increasing very well on their own.

I now have 806 subs. I was hoping to get to the 1,000 by the end of the year, but at this rate, it looks like it’s going to pass that sooner.

Channel viewings are now up to 18,423. They are rolling along well.

Finally the overall video views have moved up to 291,498. Very close the the 300k mark.

I have prepared another cover version, and I am hoping that i can spend some time making the video amusing. It is another song from the “Crash test dummies”. I’m hoping I can put that up quite soon. Rather than wait another month

The biggest problem with my composing is on the music side of things. I think that I pen good songs, and that has been confirmed by many musicians and industry pro’s.

I am satisfied with my lyrics, and the general melodies, and hooks etc. The problem comes when I try to get the song out of my head into musical form. Because I only play a bit of guitar, I cannot seem to get the expression I want out of the instruments. Like I can with the vocals. I’m quite sure that I will be more capable of that in time, but I would really like to release the album before the end of this year.

I was talking to a mate of mine who goes to occasional karaoke, and I found out that he was in a band. He asked me several times to come with him to an open mic night. So I did on wednesday.

I ended up getting up and doing 2 numbers, with the help of a guitarist.

I must admit that I really enjoyed the night. The venue sort of reminded me a bit of the cavern club (of beatles fame). It was underground, and all arches. The acoustics were fantastic because the long arches acted like funnels for the sound.

Before I left, A few of the musicians came up to me and asked me to come back and perform again. So I agreed that I would gen up on one of the songs they perform, if they would learn one of the songs I like. There were no objections . So it seems I’ll be up under the arches again soon.

All of this gave me an excellent idea. I could go to various open mic nights and get to know a number of local musicians. Then find out if they are interested in helping me develop my album. I will run up CD of a number of my original songs for them to check out. If they like what they hear, then we will talk

I’m going to be putting more about this in my blog, as it happens. I found 2 potential musicians on wednesday, though nothing is in concrete until they are sitting in my studio, recording with me.

OK. So what’s been going on on my Youtube channel. Youtoube are constantly overhauling their interface, and I’ve just discovered that they have taken away the total video views. So I had to add up all the individual video viewing figures myself. Here’s the lowdown:

Subscribers have climbed to 746.

The channel viewings have climbed to 17,049.

After a long counting process. I can tell you that my total viewing figures are 262,877.

You can visit my Youtube channel at the following link:

Jeffstunes Youtube channel

Right. I’ve got to go and learn “Afternoons and coffee spoons” for the next open mic night

some consider that it’s not very professional to cover songs with backing tracks, but I always find a way of learning something in most things I do. One of the things I want to get really good at is production. It’s great to record all the musical parts perfectly, but if the mix isn’t produced properly, then all that work means very little.

I’ve recently been trying to match the vocal production in the last few songs, to the original songs. I think it’s made a big difference in the result, and it’s teaching me how to produce my own voice in relation to the different types of music.

I’ve used a vocal boost on this one. Plus low to moderate plate reverb in the verses. I’ve used the Chorus effect and a heavier plate reverb in the choruses.

This is the result. Viva la vida.

Now for the statistics digest for my Youtube channel.

I’ve had a few subs come and go, but yesterday I woke up to 6 new subscribers overnight. The total now stands at 727.

Channel viewings are currently 16,529.

The overall video viewings have made it! They’ve gone past the quarter million views. All of this within a year of putting up my first Youtube video. At the last check, the number stood at 254,512.

Hopefully I can now go back and do that old Coldplay album track

I had several Coldplay songs lined up to cover, and I chose this as the first of the batch. I really struggled with the falsetto in this one, so I had to take the music down a key. Even then I still struggled, but I just about managed it.

It’s been a bit noisy above my village this past weekend. I live quite near to a place called Goodwood. One of the annual events they hold is called “The festival of speed”. So whilst it was in progress, I took a few pictures of the aircraft from my rear garden. I’ve put those in the video. All I will say is that one aircraft in particular got extremely close, and it wasn’t the smallest flying object in the world!!!

Have a listen to my rendition of this great tune, and check out my photos:

The Youtube numbers are still rolling along like a steamroller.

I’ve now got 721 subscribers.

My channel viewings are now up to 16,254.

The overall video views are so close now. 249,532. Barring disasters, it will pass the quarter of a million tomorrow

It’s quite likely that my next song will be another Coldplay tune. I’ve got my eyes on an album track from a few years ago

This song was also co-written with Mick Paul. I finish off with details about what mick is up to now in his music career.

If you saw the video in my last post, you will no doubt have discovered that Mick played bass on a hit single for David Hasselhoff in the UK. I don’t think there’s many individuals who don’t know who the Hoff is. After being in such shows as “Knight rider”, “Baywatch” and “America’s got talent”.

This is “Winner” by Mick and I:

Mick is quite busy doing the touring thing at the moment, with an outfit named “The David Cross band”. David Cross used to be in a band called “King Crimson”. They had quite a big following. If you come from Italy, you might have heard of David Cross. He’s quite popular there, and hence the reason why Mick does most of his touring there.

Now for some youtube statistics news.

My subscribers have seen a really good jump in the last few days. Racing past the 700 barrier to 717.

The channel views have rolled along to 16,017. Another barrier broken.

Last but by no means least. The total video views. They are 246,003. I hoped that they might possibly get to the quarter of a million by the 17th July. Which is the 1st year anniversary of my the first vid I uploaded on Youtube. At this rate, it looks like it’s going to get there on the 15th!!

I’d like to get a few Coldplay covers done for my next videos, and I’m hoping to bring some more news about my forthcoming album release.

I’ve set up a mailing list for first hand news about progress on the album. I will only be using the email addresses for that purpose. It’s so I can inform interested parties about events regarding the album, before I post the info anywhere else.

If anyone wants to to join it, they can go to the homepage on my website and register. Here’s the address:

Jeffs music

Bye for now

The song is about a very dark subject, though I’m not going to tell you here. You’ll have to watch the vid to find out. I reveal the meaning near the end of the video. It gives a completely new angle on the words.

Returning to Mick. Here is some information on the history so far of this very talented guy:

He performed on 2 singles in 1970.

Joined “The Hotshots” in 1973. They had a number 4 hit.

Joined “Union express” in 1974 and toured Europe for 2 years.

From 1978, did session work for the BBC and various publishers.

He was also an in-house bass player at Abbeydale studios in West London.

He co-wrote the Labour Party campaign song in 1987.

Joined “More tea vicar in 1990.

He wrote and performed on a single called “Aquarius” for Yello records, produced by Tyrrell.

He played bass on the “David Hasselhoff” single “If we could only say goodbye” (Yes. It’s The Hoff).

and there is more..

I’ll give a web link to his recording studio in West Worthing, southern England:

Froosound Recording Studio

Mick is the person doing all the music in this song. He also did the music for the song in the previous post, and the next post I do.

Anyway. This one is called “Losing my mind”. I hope you enjoy it, and the Bass

Now for the Youtube stuff.

A rise in my subs to 692.

Channel views are now at 15,540.

The overall vid views are 237,970. Still on target to hit a quarter of a million by the 17th of July. climbing at about a thousand views a day.

Next up is the third and final upload of my three old original songs.

I’m still working hard on the album. I had a song in my head, as I was waking up yesterday. A strange way to discover a song, but I thought it was very good. So I’m going to put it together to see what it sounds like, and if it makes the grade, then I’ll consider putting it on my album.

Several years ago I penned and recorded nine songs in roughly 2 weeks with a very talented musician going by the name of “Mick Paul”.

Mick is an excellent bass player and has done a lot in his career to date. He also runs his own recording studio, and the nine songs I recorded with him, were done in that studio.

I’ve selected 3 of those 9 songs to put on youtube, and this one is the first of those choices.

The title of the song is “Amber falls”. The meaning is quite dark. Let’s see if you can work out the theme of the song, before the video informs you close the end.

Here it is:

I’ve included some information about Mick in the video, and I will be putting more information in the following 2 videos from that collection. There may be a name or two that some music lovers might recognise.

I added a warning in the video description of this particular song, because the song has what is known as “Speaker busters”. They are very deep and loud bass hits, that can possibly cause some damage to a bass speaker when it’s on high volume. I just thought I’d let you know that.

Now for a youtube update.

I only need another 10 subs to get to 700. So the current figure is 690.

My channel views are now 15,424.

My total video viewings are 235,621. At this rate, I might get to the quarter of a million by the first anniversary of my first video upolad to youtube.

Coming next is the second of these three old original songs.

I pointed out that the email address will only be used for album updates, and will not be given to anyone else. I’ve also put that same registration on another website.

So now I can finally give out my website address. I’ve had it for a few years already, but it’s just been sitting there

So here it is. My own website:

Jeffs music

You will find a player on there that has a number of songs that I’ve written over the past 4 years. I could have removed them, because the recording quality is not very good on some, and the vocals are less than perfect on a number of them. However, I want them to stay there for a while to show how everything started. Including all the mistakes and flaws.

The next bit of news is really interesting. A friend messaged me on Youtube, who had created a live internet TV channel, and he asked me if he could use some of my original music in his shows. I said yes of course. He reported to me that when the first show went out, it got over 1,000 viewers within the first 3 hours!!!

This is a link to that channel:

Music for you - Live channel

He needs some more original music videos for his TV channel, so if you compose your own songs, and want it aired on a live internet broadcast channel, then go to the link above and contact him via his email address. It could get you some good exposure, just like me

Last but not least. The Youtube number counts.

I gained 2 subscribers, but then I lost 2 So it’s still 681.

The channel viewings have increased though. They are 15,146.

Another increase of a few thousand on my total video views. The are now 229,501.

It was performed by “PetesBehr” on Youtube. His recording of this song is a bit like an unplugged version.

This guy has covered another one of my songs in the past.

I think that this differs quite a bit from the original song, but I quite like what he’s done with it. It’s interpreted in a completely different way, and that is something I really like hear people having a go at with music. Especially when it comes to my music. Engraving their own signature on it.

First of all, here is the original version:

Broadcast Fantasy - Jeffstunes

So now you know how the original goes. This is his cover of my song:

It feels good when other people like your songs enough to want to record their own versions. It makes me think that I must be doing something right

Now, the regular Youtube digest:

I have now got 681 subscribers. Only another 19 to go to get to 700.

My channel views have raced forward to 15,037.

The overall viewing figures for all my videos is 227,028. Only another 23,000 to the quarter of a million, and it’s going at roughly a thousand a day.

I’ve been working on my own website recently. I thought that if I’m going to release an album, I might as well bring my site up to date. So I’m changing the info on there. I’ll be pumping out the URL when I’m happy that it’s ready, for anyone who may be interested

The video I made for it was pretty simple. I’m just sitting in and out of a shadow, through the entire song. The video to the original is just the singers head, nit what looks like a space helmet to me, filling up with some water. There’s no water in my video though

Instead, I concentrated on bringing moments of my life to mind that have strong emotional connections, so my facial expressions would go through subtle changes.

Here is the result:

The latest numbers on my Yotube account.

677 subs.

14,891 channel viewings.

224,885 overall video views.

I suppose I’d better get back to album making

I’ve decided to select 4 tracks from my Youtube uploads. I’ve selected three already, and these are the three:

Broadcast fantasy - Jeffstunes

Don’t wish it away - Jeffstunes

Sight Or Sound - Jeffstunes

I’m going to make a short list of three other songs and put them to a vote. So effectively, the fourth will be chosen by voters.

I’ve now completed 2 other songs so far. They are “You think it’s all over”. Which is an adaptation of a song I wrote 2 years ago. The original version of this song was played on Spirit FM several times, which covers West Sussex in the UK. The second of those songs is “Soaked to the bone”. I finished that one yesterday.

So just 4+ songs to go. I’ve got some tracks in mind. Some of them have been half developed so hopefully they wont take too long. I would like to have them ready by the end of next week, but it will probably take longer.

OK. Here’s that tip for Youtube.

For those of you who upload songs in stereo to Youtube, and get disappointed when the audio comes out in mono, and lower quality. You might find it interesting to know that Youtube do have a higher quality version of your video.

When you make links to your videos, you will normally use the video URL. To get the higher quality version, all you have to do is add “&fmt=18″ to the end of the URL. I suppose you could do that with the embedding too, but I haven’t tried it yet.

Check these examlples out. This is a link to one of my original songs. Just the normal URL:

Don’t wish it away - Jeffstunes

Now the same song, but I’ve added “&fmt=18″ to the end of the URL

Don’t wish it away - Jeffstunes

Notice the difference?

Now for my regular statistics update.

I now have a total of 670 Subscribers.

The channel viewings are progressing quicker now, and currently stand at 14,702.

My overall video views are moving forward at over 1,000 a day now and are 221,328

More updates on the album progress coming soon

It allows you to add linking text or hotspots to your videos. I know from experience that when I go to view videos on Youtube, I pay little attention to what else is on the page. As a maker of videos myself, that is not very encouraging. With this little toy, I can put a link on my video, and there’s a good chance that it’s going to be noticed.

So I went through most of my videos and added annotations that link back to my channel. It took me a long time. It’s early days, but I’ve already noticed a jump in traffic. Especially in my channel views. So it seems to be working.

Here’s a link to my Youtube channel:

Jeffstunes Youtube Channel

So here are my latest Youtube figures, followed by some news

I now have a total of 662 Subscribers.

My channel views have jumped up to 14,509.

The total video views are now at 216,799. It’s looking like the quarter of a million figure will be passed before the end of July.

Now for some news. I’m finally releasing an album!

It’s going out on digital release only to start with. If things go well then It will also be released on CD.

The album will contain some songs I’ve uploaded to Youtube, and a good number of new songs that haven’t seen the light of day yet. I’m feeling quite excited by it all. Just the fact that it’s being released. I’m going to be updating my blog with the album progress, as I lead up to the release date. Giving info on selected tracks etc

The honours I got for this video were more than I could hope for, and there were a couple of firsts too. Literally.

Youtube runs an honours system. Which calculates on a daily, weekly, monthly and all time basis. They have top 100’s for Most viewed, Top rated, Most discussed, Top favourites, Most responded, and a few more on top of that. There is a collective set of top 100’s that are global, and then there are those that are broken down into countries. These are also broken down into categories. So you could have a video in the top 100 Most discussed of all videos in the world, or you could have one in the top 100 most discussed Music video in the UK.

It’s easier to get into the top 100’s of some countries because there are less people using Youtube in those countries. The U.S. is the most difficult, and the U.K. is quite difficult as well. Which makes my achievement better in my eyes

I normally get a batch of honours for each video I upload, and this is because I have a fair amount of subscribers and friends on my channel, but the last video I uploaded topped them all. I got my first number 1. Not just one, but two!

#1 - Top Rated (Today) - Music (United Kingdom)

#1 - Most Discussed (Today) - Music (United Kingdom)

That was on the 4th June. I was so pleased with them, that I put them in the video description.

Here’s an update on my Youtube statistics.

Subscribers - 651

Channel viewings - 14,196

Total video views - 211,513

I’ve got some interesting news coming up in my next few posts. Something I’m getting quite excited about

I’ve finally racked up a year on Youtube, and I thought this would be a really fitting song to upload in celebration of my first year. The song is an amusing poke at addiction to television. As Youtube is all about videos, it seemed the perfect choice.

The style of this song is again different from my previous compositions. I think this one sits more in the pop arena.

Check it out here:

This video was uploaded less that 24 hours ago, and the response so far is very good. Lots of lovely honours

So it’s down to the stats again. Here’s the latest.

I’ve now got 639 subscribers on my Channel.

The channel itself has been viewed 13,842 times, and the combine viewings of all my videos are now 205,218.

I’m hoping my next upload will be the song I was originally working on. Though I have a habit of changing my mind at the last minute

I watched the Eurovision song contest yesterday evening. My main reason was to be entertained by the commentary of Terry Wogan.

Those of you outside Europe may not know this competition, but within Europe, it’s always been a big deal.

The overall result was of little surprise to me. With neighbour countries having a habit of casting votes for each other. None more that what I like to term as Eastern Bloc Europe. So Russia were the victors this time around. How surprising!

I had to laugh when one judge said “The best song in Europe”, and one of the judges unknowingly got very close to the truth when they said it was a “Great concert”, because a concert is pretty much all it was. It’s not what I would call a fair competition any more. Terry Wogan said something like that. He is even considering not commenting on the competition next year, I mean concert

Am I sore that the British entry came joint last with votes from ony 2 countries? No, I’m shocked though, because it was in my top 5, and I know a bit about cutting edge music.

It’s even more astounding if you look at all the European music charts. There’s always British and American songs in there somewhere. And why is that? Well, because it’s cutting edge.

I thought it was a toss up between Turkey and Norway for the title. Turkey’s song was modern sounding, and shared similarites with a great band called Muse, and for great songwriting skill, I had to go for Norway. Well at least those two got into the top 10. The British song was a pretty good song, and also deserved to be in the top 10. My sympathy to Poland and Germany too (The Polish entry was pretty good) who were holding up the table with us. I wonder when Europe started seeing them as politically close to the UK? Political, you hear me cry?

That’s what I said. I’ve come up with a new name for the competition. The Eurovision Political Popularity Contest. Well, it’s certainly not about the merits of the compositions. I think that was made blindingly obvious last night.

So what do I think of Europe?

I adore it, and would love to travel to all the European nations in my life, and enjoy time with indigenous population. I’m just a regular guy who enjoys meeting people and doesn’t colour them for the actions of their fellow citizens.

You can accept or refute my views. I’m not really qualified to comment on such an event. After all, I’m just a Songwriter

Basically, I’m a singer/songwriter. I write what I consider to be good songs, and that’s been backed up by good friends and industry professionals. I consider that at the age of 42, I’m not a teenager anymore. So I’m not aiming to be a performer. The obvious path is to be a songwriter, and then promote my songs to signed bands. In the hope that they would like them enough to want to record and release them. It doesn’t matter what age you are. As long as you write good songs that people will want to sing.

This reflection came about from watching the Jonathan ross show last night. The main guest was Neil Diamond. This is a man that started out as a songwriter. Writing such classics as “I’m a believer”, which was made famous by “The Monkees”. I’d be more than happy with 1 percent of Neil’s success. Out of all singers in this world. My voice has been compared the most to Neil Diamond.

So I’m not throwing in the towel yet. It’s true that the longer you make an effort. The more credible you become to the music industry. The more songs you write, the bigger the chance of someone picking one of them up. I’ve recorded over 100 songs now, but I’ve only put out about 20 of them. I’m even in the middle of writing a new song at the moment!

Some advice to songwriters. Never, ever give up. It might come to nothing, but at least if you try. You’ll know whether you could have made it or not. That’s much better than not knowing at all, and looking back and wondering what if?

If money is an issue, then it can be an enormous sacrifice. You can get to the stage where you have virtually nothing. If you are determined enough then you will not let that affect your efforts.

I’m going to finish this post with a link to my Youtube channel, and the current Youtube stats.

Here is my channel. You can listen to some of my original songs there.

Jeffstunes Youtube Channel

My Subscribers = 621

My Channel views are 13,352

My Total video views are 195,657

I’m going to be recording some of my new song today, so I’ll be enjoying that.

Until next time

First, the “Fun with faces” vid. There are now 8 responses to it, and more people said they would be posting responses. This is great fun. If any of you are a member of youtube and fancy trying it out with your pic, then be my guest. Post it as a response to my video. The link is below:

Fun with faces

This has been my best perfoming video, as far as the honours are concerned. At one stage it had 20. The honour that surprises me the most is that the video is in the top 100 Most responded comedy videos in the UK, of all time!!!!

Astounding!!

I had a comment a few days ago from someone telling me that I look like a guy called “Miroslav skoro”. I had never heard of him, so I did a quick search for videos. It’s hard to compare yourself to someone else. I just can’t see any likeness at all. The only thing that I did notice is that our hairstyle was reasonably similar in some of his videos.

Well, how’s the lay of the land on the Youtube stats situation.

616 subscribers now and the channel viewings are at 13,110. They’ve been moving a bit faster in the last week. The overall video views are now at 191,821. It should pass the 200k in less than 2 weeks, the way things are going.

It’s almost been a year since I joined Youtube. June 2nd will be the anniversary. I’m hoping to have my new song recorded and ready by then. I’m looking forward to seeing what will happen in my second year.

So far I have 6 responses, and each one of them are very different, and very funny. Here are the 6 users that have responded to my video so far.

gersing

UpDownMostly

beachfrontal

grandplans

Midnightsongstress7

yeuxlumineuxNtx

You can check out their responses by visiting my video, and then clicking on the responses shown underneath it.

Fun with faces

I’ve discovered in the last day, the web site has adding more transformation options, since I did mine.

I might do another post update if I get a good few more responses. I’m having a lot of fun with this, plus it helps get a little more exposure for my music

I set it as a challenge to the Youtube community. Asking them to go to the site and do the same with their picture. Then post their video as a response to mine. That way, all our strange pictures could be accessible from one place.

I wanted to use music as a background to the slideshow, so I found another old song I wrote, and used that. The song is called “I understand”. This way I could get another of my tunes out, and have some fun at the same time.

Check out my video to see what happened to my photo:

As per normal. Here’s some youtube stats.

My subs have breezed past the 600 barrier and are now 605.

Channel views are 12,798.

Total video views are 186,136. So close to 200k now. I estimate is should take around 2 to 3 weeks to get there.

That was the most requested song on my list. Now to the song that was second on my most requested list. This one is quite a recent song, and is by a top group called Travis. The title of the song is Closer, and it’s off of their latest album.

I had a few ideas for the video, but I wanted to save the best ones for my original songs. So I ended up making a video for this, which was humerous. The opening sequence on this video, really gave my video editing software a run fir its money. I’m pleased with it though.

Check out my version of Closer by Travis. I hope you enjoy the humour in the video. I was laughing whilst making it.

I’ve put several videos out over the last few weeks, but the effect on my Youtube numbers is quite minimal. They are still quite constant. I’ve got 596 Subscribers now. Only 3 to get to 600.

My channel has now been viewed 12,631 times and there have been a total of 183,585 viewings of my videos.

That’s about it for now.