I'm going off line here to discuss a certain European song contest. Music being my focus.

I watched the Eurovision song contest last night. The only reason I watched it was to be entertained by the commentary of Terry Wogan.
Those not in Europe may not be aware of this competition, but in Europe, it's normally a big event.
The overall result was of little surprise to me. With neighbour countries having a habit of casting votes for each other. Especially what I like to call Eastern Bloc Europe. So Russia won it this year. What a surprise!

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 certainly isn't 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 song came joint last with votes from ony 2 countries? No, I'm very shocked though, because I considered it one of the best 5 songs, and I would like to think that I know a bit about 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. Commiserations to Poland and Germany too (I liked the Polish entry) who were joint bottom with us. The rest of Europe must see them as having close political links with us. Political, you hear me say?
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 love it, and would like to visit all the European countries in my lifetime, and meet the locals. I'm just a normal individual who loves people and doesn't colour them for the deeds of their fellow countrymen.

You can accept or refute my views. I wouldn't say I am qualified to pass judgement on that show. After all, I'm only a Songwriter

Well, it's almost a year on Youtube now, and I've been thinking about what I've achieved so far. In my opinion, it's been very little. In relation to many others, the Youtube stuff is probably quite successful, but not in my objectives. I'm only about 250 subscribers outside the top 100 UK musicians of all time. That appears to be great, but it's not supported me financially at all.
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 realise that at the age of 42, I'm no spring chicken. 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 want to record some of my material. It doesn't matter what age you are. As long as you write good songs that people will want to sing.

This all came about from seeing the Jonathan ross show yesterday evening. The featured guest was Mr 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 written and recorded over 100 songs, but I've only made about 20 of them public. At this very moment I'm writing another new one!

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 you don't have good financial backing, then it can be a massive 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 latest YT statistics.
Here's my Youtube channel. You can check out some of my original material on there.

Jeffstunes Youtube Channel

Current Subscribers = 621
Current Channel views are 13,352
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

I have started writing a new song, so there probably will not be any new videos in the next few posts. I'm going to start reflecting on some of my comments and messages.

First of all, my "Fun with faces" video. I've now got 8 response videos to it, and more are promised. 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

The honours I got for this video were the best so far. At one point I had 20 different ones. 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!!

A few days back, I had a comment on one of my videos, telling me that I resemble "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 things going on the stats front.
I've now got 616 subscribers and my channel views are now 13,110. They've been moving a bit faster in the last week. My total video views are 191,821. The way the numbers are climbing at the moment, I think I'm looking at less than 2 weeks before it hits the 200k mark.

On June 2nd, I will have been a Youtube member for 1 year. 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.

The fun with faces video I uploaded has had a really good reaction. As I described in the previous post, I saw a Website used on television and wanted to have a go at it myself, and then put together a video about it. I encouraged other Youtubers to morph their own pictures and then post their own video as a response to mine.

I've had six responses so far, and each of them are hilarious. These are the 6 users that have responded 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.

If I get several more responses to my video, I might do another update post. I am having great fun with all this, and it does my music good as well, by giving it some exposure

I was watching Graham Norton the other night on T.V. and he visited a website that altered faces into different ages and races. Such as an Afro-Caribean and a Manga cartoon. All you have to do is upload a front facing jpg of yourself, and you are ready to go. I didn't hesitate to do it myself, and put the resulting images on my Youtube channel.
I made the video a challenge to other Youtubers. 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, we could have a collection of funny faces all in one place.

This video was a slideshow, so I dug out a song I wrote a few years back, to use as the backing. The name of the song is "I understand". That way I could show another of my unheard songs, whilst having fun at the same time.

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

As per normal. Here's some youtube stats.
I've finally broken the 600 barrier with my subscribers, and they now stand at 605.
Channel views are 12,798.
Total video views are 186,136. So close to 200k now. It's looking like it might pass that figure in the next few weeks.

Well the response to my last cover, "Yellow" by "Coldplay" was very positive. It got a good burst of viewings in the first few days. Over 800.
That was the most requested song on my list. Now on to the second most requested song. 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've had some good ideas for new videos, but I wanted to keeo the best ideas back for my own original songs. So I decided to do something funny for this one. 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 uploaded a number of vids in the past few weeks, but the effect on my Youtube numbers is quite minimal. They are still quite constant. My subs are now up to 597. Only 3 more to get to 600.
My channel has now been viewed 12,631 times and the total figure of all the viewings of my videos is now up to 183,585.

That's all for now.

Now on to the 67th video, which I've just uploaded to Youtube. This is a Coldplay song of their first album "Parachutes". I have been asked by many people to do a cover of this song, so it's about time I got around to doing it.
This is a number I used to sing quite often, and a number of my close friends really like it. I do enjoy singing coldplay songs, because of the subtleties in the vocals, and the chance to do falsetto, and there's plenty of that in this song.

See what you think:

My Youtube numbers are still on the march, and here is the latest update.

My subs are now up to 589. Not far away from 600 now.
The Channel views are 12,360, and an overall video view count of 178,166. I should pass the 200,000 within a month, the way things are going.

A few friends suggested that I try out for the Youtube partnership program. I tried it, but got refused in a gentle way. It seems that the quantity of my original material is insufficient, or I don't get enough constant traffic to my videos, to qualify yet. I shall keep on trying

In 1995 at 23 minutes past 1 in the morning, my daughter came into this world. In 2008 she finally became a teenager. It has been a fantastic thirteen years, filled with wonderful memories for me. I've taken so many pictures, and so much video of her, and I'm really glad I did. It's all there for me to re-visit, and live the memories again.
So many people have fallen under my daughters spell. Probably because she has eyes that you just can't say no to. I would say that though. I'm her father. All parents think their own children are very beautiful. I definitely do

I'm very pleased that she has a wonderful nature. It's quite a rarity. She is unselfish, and would give her last penny away if she thought it could help someone. She doesn't ever ask me for anything except my company.

My daughter has also started writing poetry, which is something I did as a child. Even better. One of her poems has been selected for publication in a book of childrens works. Onla a few have been chosen from her school. That makes me feel really proud.

I decided to change 2 words from a great song called "The air that I breathe" by the Hollies. I changed the line "Making love to you" to "Making part of you". I sung it, and put together some clips of my daughters first year of life.

Check it out, and watch out for those eyes

Here's the latest state of play on the Youtube numbers.

There are 577 subscribers.
The channel views are 12,095.
The overall video views are 174,676.

I decided I should start putting up a string of cover versions. It's an attempt to try and put a dent in my request list. There's little hope of ever getting to the end of it though. It's well over a hundred songs and climbing. They are coming in faster that I can do them. Lol.

I thought I'd do things a little bit differently now though. Rather than singing in front of camera, I will make a recording of the songs initially, and then I will make the videos for those songs at another time. This should hopefully result in me getting better quality. I will also have a bit more freedom with the videos I make.

So the first one I chose to do was "Tears in heaven" by Eric Clapton. A very sad song that Eric wrote after the death of his son. I can't imagine the sadness that must have been in his heart, and probably still is.

Check out my version of this wonderful song.

The Youtube figures are as follows.
Subscribers = 569
Channel Viewings = 11884
Total Views = 171739

That's the first of many covers I plan to get through. I haven't decided which one on the list is going to be next. I'll record several and then take my pick