It has been a mad rush week. I've done some work on my own website, so that I can get it ready for the release of the album. I've changed some of the information. Put some more links in. I have also added an email registration on my home page, so that anyone can register for updates on the progress of the album.
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 confidently share my web address. I've been running it for a few years already, but I haven't done much with it up to now

Anyway. Here it is. My website:

Jeffs music

There is a music player on there that has got a selection of songs that I've created over the last 4 years. I could have taken them off because the recording quality is not the best in the world, and vocals are out of tune in places where a lot of them were rushed. 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 agreed, of course. He informed that when the first show aired, it received over 1,000 viewers in the first 3 hours!!!

Here is a link to his live 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 views are now at 15,146.
There has been another few thousand views to all of my videos so that figure now stands at 229,501.

There's been another cover version of one of my original songs. This time it's "Broadcast fantasy".
This was covered 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's what I like to see people doing with songs. Especially when it comes to my music. Engraving their own signature on it.

First of all, here is the original version:

Broadcast Fantasy - Jeffstunes

Now you've heard the Original. Check out his cover of it:

It feels good when other people like your songs enough to want to record their own versions. It makes me feel like I'm 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 total viewings for all of my videos are 227,028. Only another 23k to the quarter of a million, and it's moving at about a thousand a day at the moment.

I have been doing a bit of work on my personal website over the last week. I think it's important for me to bring everything up to date, considering I'm releasing an album soon. So I'm changing the info on there. I'll be giving out the URL when It's done, for anyone interested

I decided to take a few days out from making my album, and I recorded a requested song, from a while ago. It's a song I really wanted to do because it seems a very simple song, but it's quite vocally expressive. The song I'm talking about is "No surprises" by "Radiohead".
The making of the vid was pretty easy. Not much going on in it. Just me sitting in half shadow, throughout the 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. I didn't use any water though.
Instead, I decided to think about different events in my life while singing, so my facial expressions would go through subtle changes.

Here is the result:

As per normal. Here is the latest news on my Youtube account statistics.

677 subs.
14,891 channel viewings.
224,885 total video viewings.

It would probably be a good idea for me to get back to making the album now

Right. This is the first of my updates on the progress of my album, and also a nice little tip for musicians on Youtube

I have decided to choose 4 songs from the ones I uploaded to Youtube. I've chosen 3 already, and those songs are as follows:

Broadcast fantasy - Jeffstunes

Don't wish it away - Jeffstunes

Sight Or Sound - Jeffstunes

I am going to pick three of the best of the rest, and put them to a public vote. So the fourth song will be selected 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 2nd of the new songs songs is called "Soaked to the bone". I completed 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.
If you upload your songs in stereo to Youtube, and get frustrated when the sound comes out in mono, and reduced quality. You might find it interesting to know that Youtube do have a higher quality version of your video.
When you provide a link for your video, you will normally specify a URL. To get the higher quality version, all you have to do is append "&fmt=18" to the URL. I suppose it's possible to do that with the embedding as well, but I haven't attempted that yet.

Here's an example for you. This is a link to one of my original songs:

Don't wish it away - Jeffstunes

Now the same song with the addition of "&fmt=18" to the URL

Don't wish it away - Jeffstunes

Can you hear the difference?

Now for my youtube figures.
My subscribers are now at 670.
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 album news coming soon

I was trying to find ways to bump up my daily Youtube viewing figures, when I happened upon a tool that they have in Beta at the moment. It's called "Annotations".
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. However, with this tool, I can make a link pop up on the video, and that is more likely to be noticed.
So I ploughed through a lot of my videos and put on the annotations that link to my channel. It took me a long time. They've only been on for a day, but I've already seen a hike in traffic. Especially to my channel viewings. So it appears that it is working so far.
This is a link to my Channel on Youtube. Where most of the Annotations point to:

Jeffstunes Youtube Channel

Now for the latest on my Youtube numbers, followed by a snippet of news

I now have a total of 662 Subscribers.
The channel viewings are moving now and currently stand at 14,509.
The total video views are now at 216,799. At this rate I should reach the quarter million by 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 quite excited about it. I'll keep my blog up to date with the progress as the release date gets nearer. Naming tracks etc

This is an update to my previous post. I recently uploaded a new song to Youtube, and the response exceeded my expectations. The title of it was "Broadcast fantasy". It was an amusing view of TV addiction.

My honours for this video were more than I thought they would be, and there were a couple of firsts too. Literally.

Basically, Youtube has an honours system. Which works 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 an overall set of top 100's that are worldwide, and then there are those that are divided into countries. These are also subdivided 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 regularly get honours for each video I upload, and this is because I have a decent amount of subscribers and friends to my Youtube 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 happened on 4th June. I was over the moon with them. I put them in my video description as a reminder.

Here's an update on my Youtube statistics.
Subs - 651
Channel viewings - 14,196
Overall video views - 211,513

I've got some interesting things going on at the moment, and I'm going to be talking about them in my next few posts. It's all exciting stuff

I was busy writing another song when this one popped into my head. So I halted progress on the initial song to develop it. It's title is "Broadcast fantasy".

Well, i've just gone past the one year membership on Youtube, and I wanted to upload a song in celebration, and this one seems perfect. It's a tongue-in-cheek look at TV addiction. As Youtube shares a lot of similarites with television, it seemed like the right choice to make.

This is different in style again, to my previous songs. I think this one sits more in the pop arena.

I hope you enjoy it like I did:

This video was uploaded less that 24 hours ago, and the response so far is very good. Lots of lovely honours
So back to the numbers. Here's the Youtube latest.

I've now got 639 subscribers on my Channel.
My channel has now been seen 13,842 times, and all of my videos have received a total of 205,218 viewings.

I'm aiming to make the song I was originally working on, my next upload. Though I have a habit of changing my mind at the last minute