jeffstunes’ blog

I made a decision to seek out some local musicians to help me out with my album project.
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 issue comes when I convert the song from my mind, into reality. Because I only play basic guitar, I cannot seem to add the expression I want from the musical instruments. Like I do with the vocals. I'm sure that I will in time, but I really want to get this album out 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 has requested my company a number of times at an open mic night. So I finally went on wednesday.
Towards the end of the night I got up and performed 2 songs, with the aid of a friendly 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 said I would learn one of their songs if they would learn one for me. We were all in agreement. So it looks like I'll be doing it 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 see if any of them are interested in helping me out with developing 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'll keep my blog updated about this. I came across 2 potentials on wednesday, though nothing is for certain until they are 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.
The total video viewings are now at 262,877.

You can visit my Youtube channel at the following link:

Jeffstunes Youtube channel

Now I have to go and learn "Afternoons and coffee spoons" for my next appearance at the open mic night :)
It's all good fun.

I decided to change my choice of song, but remain with the same band. Coldplay. After I'd uploaded "Violet hill", I got quite a few requests to sing "Viva la vida". Too many requests to ignore really. So I set about recording that one. It's the second song of theirs that I've done from their latest album, which goes by the same name.

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. I really want to improve my production skills. It's great to record all the musical parts perfectly, but if the mix doesn't sound right, then all your efforts are for very little.

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

I've implemented vocal boosting on this song. Plus low to moderate plate reverb in the verses. Chorus and a heavier plate reverb in the chorus.

Here it is. 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.
The channel views are now up at 16,529.
My total video views have done it! They've broken the quarter of a million views. All of this within a year of posting my first video. At the last check, the number stood at 254,512.

I'm hoping I can now do that old album track cover that I said I was going to do in the first place :)

Now for some cover versions. This one is a relatively new song, and it's called "Violet hill". It's covered from the new coldplay album "Viva la vida".
I had several Coldplay songs lined up to cover, and I chose this as the first of the batch. It was extremely hard to get the falsetto on this song, so I dropped the music by a semitone. 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. They hold a number of annual events and one of them 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 have added those to the vid. All I'm going to say is that one in particular got very close, and it wasn't a small aircraft!!!

Check out my cover of this brilliant song, and see my snaps:

The Youtube numbers are still rolling along like a steamroller.
I now have 721 subscribers in total.
Channel views are up to 16,254.
The total viewings of all my videos are a shave away from that milestone. 249,532. If nothing drastic happens, it should pass the quarter of a million tomorrow morning :)

My next one will probably be another Coldplay song. I've got my eyes on an album track from a few years ago :)

This is the 3rd of my old original songs choices. The title of this one is "Winner". The lyrics can be interpreted in many different ways, but I wrote it for mistaken friends who need support.

This is another number that was written with Mick Paul. I've put some information about what Mick is up to now.
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. There aren't many people who don't know who he is. He's been in smash hit shows such as "Knight rider", "Baywatch" and "America's got talent".

This is "Winner" by Mick and I:

Mick is spending a good deal of his time touring at the moment, with a band called "The David Cross band". David Cross used to be in a band called "King Crimson". They were very well known. 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 here's the regular Youtube numbers update.

My subscribers have seen a really good jump in the last few days. Racing past the 700 barrier to 717.
Channel viewings cruised to 16,017. That's the 16k 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'm probably going to do a few coldplay covers in my next few videos, and I'll hopefully be bringing some more news on the progress of my upcoming album release.
I've created a mailing list for album news. The email addresses will only be used 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

Until the next post :)

It's the 2nd of 3 songs written by Mick Paul and I a while back, that I have chosen to put on youtube. Ths one gives you a taste of Mick's bass skills. I wanted acoustic guitar and Bass only in this, and I think it turned out very well. The vocals drift off key in a couple of places. This song, and most of the others were only written hours before they were recorded, so I'm not that surprised at the mistakes in the mix.

The song is about a contreversial subject, though I'm not going let you know what it means here. You'll have to watch the video to discover it. I reveal the meaning at the end. It puts a whole new angle on the lyrics.

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

He performed on 2 singles in 1970.
He joined "The Hotshots" in 1973. They got to number 4 in the british chart with one of their releases.
Joined "Union express" in 1974 and toured around Europe for 2 years.
From 1978, he did some session work for the B.B.C. and for a various number of publishers.
Did a stint as 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 more..

I'll provide a link to his recording studio website:

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.

The title of this song is "Losing my mind". I hope you like it, and the Bass playing :)

Now for the Youtube stuff.
A rise in my subs to 692.
The Channel views are 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 beavering away on my album. Yesterday I woke up singing a song. Weird I know, but it was pretty good. I'm going to put the track together to see what it sounds like in real life, and if it's good enough, it can go on the album.

I'm going to step back in time a bit with 3 selected songs I wrote when I first started to record music seriously.
A few years ago I wrote and recorded 9 songs in about two weeks with a very talented guy called "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 picked 3 of those songs to upload to youtube, and this is the first of them.
The title of the song is "Amber falls". The meaning is quite dark. I wonder if you can work out what the song is about, before the video tells you near the end.

Check out the video here:

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 some youtube food.

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.

In my next post, I'll be bigging up the second of the three selected old original songs :).

It's been a really hectic week. I've done a little work on my own website, so that I can prepare it for the album release. I've updated some of the info. Added some links. I've also put an email registration on my home page, so that people can register for updates on the progress of my album.
I've stressed that the email address will only be used for that purpose, and will not be shared with anyone else. I have also added that same registration feature to another website I have a page on.
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 to leave them there for a while to show where my recordings started, and all the flaws with it.

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!!!

This is a link to that channel:

Music for you - Live channel

This guy needs some more original music videos for his channel, so if you write your own stuff, and would like it broadcast on a live internet television channel, then visit the link I've provided above and contact him via the email address that is shown on the channel. It could provide you with some essential exposure, just like it has for 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.
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".
It was performed by "PetesBehr" on Youtube. It sounds like an unplugged version.
He has done a cover version of one of my songs before.
I think that this differs quite a bit from the original song, but I like 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, it's the Youtube update:

I have now got 681 subscribers. Only another 19 to go to get to 700.
The channel views are moving along very nicely, and have now reached 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 think it's important for me to bring everything up to date, considering I'm releasing an album soon. So I'm updating the info, and changing a few things around. 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 one I've always wanted to do because on the surface it seems such a simple song, but it has so much room for expression. The song I'm talking about is "No surprises" by "Radiohead".
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 of the original is just the man's face in what looks like a space helmet, filling up with water. I didn't use any water though.
Instead, I decided to think about different events in my life while singing, so that there would be subtle changes in expression.

This is the final outcome:

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 :)

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've decided to select 4 tracks from my Youtube uploads. 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 was played on Spirit FM which covers West Sussex. 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. It would be nice if I could finish them by the end of next week, but it will probably take me longer.

OK. Here's my Youtube tip.
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 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

Notice the difference?

Now for my regular statistics update.
My subscribers are now at 670.
My channel views are moving faster now, and are currently at 14,702.
My total video viewings are increasing by over 1,000 views a day now and are now at 221,328.

More updates on the album progress coming soon :)