Happy New Year 2018

I'd like to wish my readers a happy new year as we enter 2018. 2017 was the best year for my music since I began seriously working on it back in 2012-13, and I have high hopes that the coming year will be even better. I'll be back in January with some new production music and perhaps a few surprises as well.

While I'm writing, I want to thank everyone who provided support to me in 2017, especially the folks at Pond5 who are by far my biggest boosters on Twitter. Thanks also to those who used my work during the year, like Rochelle Krause, who used my stock music item "Mystery Suspense Theme" in her animated web series "A Universe of Trouble," and YouTuber 'Always The Artist,' who used my track "Smooth Jazz Muted Trumpet" in his photo video of Rocky River Reservation MetroPark in Cleveland, Ohio.

Finally, thanks to anyone who has used my work in their podcasts or other productions, or who have checked out my instrumental tracks on Spotify or elsewhere, or who simply stop by to read my blog here from time to time. I am very grateful to all of you, and wish you a happy and tuneful new year.

Announcement About My Pond5 Works Registered With ASCAP

Effective immediately, I have registered all the music in my Pond5 portfolio, except for certain arrangements of public-domain Christmas music, with the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). I had previously registered selected works from the portfolio with ASCAP, but this week extended that to most of my catalog.

For those who aren't familiar with ASCAP, it's a performance rights organization, or "PRO." PROs like ASCAP and Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) in the United States, or their counterparts in other countries, collect royalties when music written by their members (for example, composers like me) is "performed" in public. Performances can be live or recorded, and include film and television, radio, night clubs and the web.

What this means for you

If you're licensing my work for your personal, private use (say, for a family video), none of what I'm writing about here applies to you. You don't even need to read beyond this point. (But thanks for sticking with me this far!)

However, if you license my work for use in a film, television, radio, a website or other public setting, you need to fill out a cue sheet. This is a document that tells about your project and what specific music you're using for it. If you've never done this before, a good resource to help you get started figuring things out is this page from Pond5 on PRO tracks and cue sheets.

What it means for me

This is very important to me, because it gives me a better opportunity to share in the profits from public performances of my work. Except under certain circumstances, as a media producer there is no extra cost for you to fill out the cue sheet. For example, in film and television the broadcaster, not the producer, is responsible for paying the actual royalties. I suggest you do some research, starting with the link I provided, to determine the requirements for your specific situation.

I hope you will understand and support this decision. I feel strongly that my future viability as a musical artist depends on being able to collect as much of the available royalties for my work as possible. Again, if you're interested in licensing any of my stock music for personal, private use, this change has no impact on you.

As always, I thank you for supporting me and my work, either through licensing stock music, downloading or streaming my commercially available work, or just stopping by to read.

Merry Christmas 2017

Just dropping a quick line to wish everyone a Merry Christmas in 2017. Here north of Dayton, Ohio it's almost dark as I write this, and the snow should begin falling soon. The last I heard, we had a good chance for a White Christmas by tomorrow. Time will tell.

May your holiday be safe, warm and blessed.

What's Happening: The Rest of 2017

This will be my last regular update for 2017. Far from going into hibernation for the remainder of the year, I have several projects that I'll be working on in preparation for the new year.

I'll be spending some time updating my ASCAP catalog with titles from my stock music portfolios. I had not bothered to register many of the titles for works I had created prior to joining ASCAP, but since I hope to do more promotion in 2018, I don't want to miss out on potential royalties from broadcasting.

I also want to update my catalog of commercial recordings on SoundExchange, as a recent search seems to show that the data I had submitted to them previously did not get to their database.

Another item on my list of to-dos is creating a page on my site especially for podcast music. If I'm feeling very ambitious I may even try doing a little programming to allow people to look for intros or loops depending on the genre they want or the kind of podcast they're doing. However, that will probably be a project for later in the year.

Also, I'll be continuing to work on tracks toward an ambient/chillout/sleep project for sometime in the spring. This would be a full-length project (since ambient music fans and reviewers still seem to prefer album-length projects), and I would hope to release it sometime in later winter/early spring.

Of course, I'm also looking forward to spending time with family and friends, and enjoying what I hope will be a relatively quiet Christmas and New Year. I'll be returning to regular posting, and hope to have some interesting things to talk about, in 2018.

Happy holidays to all!

What's Happening: Week of December 11, 2017

Last week I wrote about what I think has and has not worked in 2017. This week I want to talk a bit about 2018.

One thing I've noticed is that podcast music, which accounted for my growth this year, has attracted attention from at least one music library. I see that a new music service has launched aimed directly at podcasters. It's subscription-based and will probably do well among mid-sized operations. The smaller ones probably won't want to pay a subscription, and the biggest (like NPR) basically have their own in-house music already. Their libraries are geared toward background tracks, not intros. So I think there's still an opportunity for me to continue expanding in this area for a while.

I think I'll also be reorganizing my collections in 2018. Some of the things I'm thinking about include:

• Splitting my podcast intro collection into smaller segments, including corporate, news/weather/sports, society and culture, and so on
• De-emphasizing collections like "cimematic and dramatic" in favor of focusing on specific emotions: happy, sad, etc.

I also plan to focus less on holiday music in my social media efforts, and more on corporate and podcasting.

I'm also working on some really ambient, drone-ish music that I may end up releasing commercially early in the new year. These are minimalist pieces that I'm creating on the fly, almost improvised. It's almost like I'm painting with tones for these. Stay tuned for more info.

For the week ahead, I'm featuring Snow Globe on my Twitter feed as my stock music item of the week. If you aren't interested in licensing it but would like download or stream it for personal use, you can find links for major online outlets elsewhere on my blog. This is the last week I'll be featuring Christmas or holiday music on my Twitter feed. Starting next week I'll be featuring items from my romantic collection, with the Christmas season almost over and  St. Valentines's Day just a couple months away.

Thanks for reading. I hope you have a good week, and if you need music for your creative projects, please check out my Pond5 and AudioJungle portfolios.

What's Happening: Week of December 4, 2017

And so, December is upon us.

In addition to being a time to celebrate the holidays with family and friends, it's also a time to look back. Specifically, I'm looking back this month to figure out what has worked for my music business, what hasn't worked and what I want to do in 2018.

What has worked in 2017 is my music for podcasting. Over the course of the past several months I produced close to 150 different tracks and variations of intro and looped music covering styles as diverse as rock, country, light classical, pop, urban and more. Some of my "corporate" work has been among my best-selling items this year, and music in my podcast collection now accounts for anywhere from half to two-thirds of my total sales. All of my sales growth this year is the result of podcast intros and loops.

What has not worked, in my opinion, is my social media promotion. It's very difficult, without taking a lot of time to line up data from multiple sources, to figure out if your social media efforts are translating into interest, and then into sales. I can see that some of my posts promoting various stock music items get link clicks on Twitter. But I can't say what happens from that point. What I do know is that unit sales of my holiday music were twice as good in November 2014, when I wan't tweeting, than they were in November, 2017 when I was promoting my holiday music like crazy on Twitter and Google+.

The conclusion that I cannot escape here is that social media is not making a dent in my holiday sales. That begs the question: what should I be doing with social media? Before you ask, I don't use Facebook. I've always felt that Twitter hashtags make it easier to connect with people who are more likely to be interested in my work. But that assumption may be in need of re-examination.

What does it all mean for me in 2018? I've giving thought to that, and may talk about some possible changes in strategy in a later post before the end of the year. (Unless something wonderful or awful comes up.)

Meanwhile, you may have noticed the image at the top of this post, and maybe it looks familiar to you. If it does, it may be because this is the image I used, with some cropping and other work, in the cover for my single "Snow Globe." The picture was actually taken in February 2008 by my wonderful wife Danita. She's a terrific photographer and has worked on subjects as diverse as real estate, architecture and nature. With her permission I cropped this photo to focus on the gazebo, then sharpened it and cropped it into a circular shape to become my "snow globe."

Don't be surprised if Danita's work shows up in my covers and other work again soon.

And so, December rolls on. I hope yours is lovely and that you'll stop by to read again soon.

Giving Tuesday 2017

I very rarely talk about non-musical things here on my music blog, but I'm making the rare exception this time.

November 28, 2017 is Giving Tuesday.

Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday are all about shopping for gifts to give others (or even, secretly, oneself) that make you and someone your care about feel good for awhile.

Giving Tuesday, though, is about giving something to others that can make you feel good for a long time. This is an opportunity to support charities that are helping people in the US (where I live) or wherever in the world you live.

Because of the intense recent focus on sexual harassment and assault across the political, entertainment, and business landscapes, I thought this would be a good time to commend to you two organizations dedicated to fighting sexual abuse and helping survivors.

The first is the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. RAINN provides a national toll-free, 24/7 hotline for survivors. They also have a chat capability for survivors who go to their website. In addition to survivor support, RAINN is active in public education, policy advocacy and consulting. Survivors have been contacting the group in record numbers in the wake of #MeToo so they can use the support.

RAINN has a solid 3-star rating from Charity Navigator.

The second organization is Darkness to Light. D2L is devoted to reducing child sexual abuse, with a long term goal of ending it entirely. They have trained over 1.4 million people to spot the signs of child sexual abuse and offer various training programs to help adults be responsible stewards of children in their care. They also provide helpful information on their site that can help you right now to become a better protector of kids.

D2L is not rated by Charity Navigator because they now get most of their revenue from providing program services. (Hence they're more of a service organization than a charity.) However, they have been awarded a gold seal of transparency by GuideStar, and continue to rely on contributions to sustain and grow their noble efforts.

I hope you will consider making a donation to either RAINN or D2L on Giving Tuesday.

What's Happening: Week of November 27, 2017

I hope all here in the States enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. I did no shopping at all. (Black Friday? Forget it! But I will get around to it later.) In my part of the country, most folks are happy that Ohio State and the Cincinnati Bengals both won their big (American) football rivalry games. Everyone's attention now turns to the remainder of the Christmas season, beginning with "Cyber Monday."

My personal attention just now is on my new single "Snow Globe." It seems to be picking up interest on Spotify, with listeners checking it out from the States, Ireland and Ecuador. If you happen to be one of those people, thanks so much for listening. I hope you'll add to your festive holiday playlist this year. If you haven't checked it out yet, please do.



If you're on Apple Music, you can stream it there as well.


You can also license "Snow Globe" royalty-free for commercial use through Pond5.

Meanwhile, my thoughts are turning to 2018. I had set myself a fairly ambitious release schedule for the last months of 2017, but it looks like I'm not going to meet that. There are several things going through my mind here. First, the streaming world does not seem to take kindly to artists who release albums a year or two apart. Especially if you're trying to build an audience as I am, the strategy seems to be to release singles at frequent intervals.

If you've stopped by to read here before, you may know that I've had this discussion with myself (and you) before.

However, I still like the album concept (or at least an EP version), so maybe I'll try a mixed strategy next year. I'm thinking I might release the ambient/new age project I've had in mind as an EP but my other stuff (uptempo and downtempo) as singles. You'll know first if you read it here. (By the way, don't be surprised if I don't release a new single before the end of this year.)

Other things in the winds for 2018 include the possibility that I might get some of my work in front of television production companies next year. The downside of this is that I'll have to register about 450-odd titles with ASCAP before the end of this year. It's not difficult, just tedious.

And there are some other potential things in the works to widen my exposure in social media, but nothing is set in stone there yet. Check back for updates.

What's Happening: Week of November 20, 2017

It's Thanksgiving week here in the States, and I have a lot to give thanks for.

First, this is already easily my best sales year for stock music. Each year has gotten a little better since the first full year in 2013, and this year is no exception. I've really benefited from the rise of podcasting, with a lot of interest in and sales of the intros and loops targeted to that area.

Second, in case you haven't stopped by lately, I have a new holiday single. It's called "Snow Globe" and it was inspired by my memories of Christmas and the magic feeling you get when you shake one and watch the snow fall. I hope you'll check out the preview on my main web site, which includes links to buy and stream it from all the major U. S. online stores. If you have Apple Music or Spotify, you can listen to it right now on the players to the right for a limited time.

Speaking of Christmas memories, I thought today of a blog post from several years back where I documented the "Christmas edition" of my musical roots. That particular post heavily featured the great guitarist Chet Atkins, and his 1961 classic Christmas album. I'm including a link to that post here if you'd like to check it out. I'm also featuring that album as my  Spotify artist pick for the next week or so. If you have a Spotify account, please check out my Spotify profile and consider following me.

Finally, I'm thankful for you.

Whether you license my production music, download or stream tracks like "Dream Catcher" or my album Circadia, or just stop by to read what I'm writing, I appreciate your support. I hope you have a wonderful holiday if you're in the States, or just a great week if you're elsewhere.

Thank you.

"Snow Globe" Available At Major US Online Stores

My winter holiday single "Snow Globe" is now available to download or stream at most major U. S. online outlets. Here are links to some of the key places to get it.

iTunes
Spotify
Amazon
Google Play
Microsoft Groove
Tidal

You can also find links at my home page. I hope you'll check it out. I'm very grateful to you for buying, streaming, licensing or just reading. Thank you.

"Snow Globe" Available Now at Amazon

My new holiday single "Snow Globe" is now officially out and you can buy it at Amazon. Other stores to follow.

"Snow Globe" Release in Progress

I uploaded my new holiday single "Snow Globe" to DistroKid this morning. I was really worried about the artwork because the image was smaller than DistroKid's recommended "optimal" 3000 by 3000. However, it breezed right through their approval process. Now I'm holding my breath waiting to see if the audio processes OK. I plan to update status here and on my Twitter feed, so please stay tuned.

While we're waiting, you can check out a teaser preview on YouTube.

What's Happening: Week of November 13, 2017

I was under the weather this week, and didn't get to do all the stuff I had planned. Plus, I was working on some non-musical things (like life). However, I did get a few things accomplished and am excited to be doing more this week.

In case you missed it, please take the opportunity to preview my upcoming winter holiday single "Snow Globe." I plan to release it this Friday (November 17, 2017) through DistroKid. Here's a :60 sneak peek.

In keeping with featuring holiday stock music on my website and Twitter profile my pick this week is "Deck The Halls (Brass Arrangement)." It's a jolly arrangement for brass ensemble with sleigh bells (naturally) and great to give a happy traditional Christmas feeling to holiday ads and family videos. It's also available in a sixty-second (:60) edit version.

Even as Christmas is approaching, so is the new year. Among other things, that means Valentine's Day. Accordingly, I have two new tracks in process to add to my romantic music collection. One of the two is a dreamy RnB-influenced slow dance kind of track with lots of ambiance and synth bell accents. The other is, well . . . different. It's a bubbly, bouncy kind of track that'll make you think of cheezy 1960s pop. I had a lot of fun doing it, and hope someone can find a use for it in their romantic story or ad.

And that's it for me. I hope you'll stay in the loop as I prepare to release "Snow Globe" later this week and that'll you'll check it out as soon as it's available on your favorite downloading or streaming platform.

Preview: "Snow Globe"

The preview for my upcoming holiday single "Snow Globe" is now live on YouTube!

I'm still shooting to release "Snow Globe" next Friday (November 17, 2017).

What's Happening: Week of November 6, 2017

This will be a quick update, as I have a lot of things going at the moment that are not musically related.

I'll be uploading a teaser video for my planned holiday single "Snow Globe" in the middle to later part of next week. I'll let everyone know through this blog when it's up. I plan to upload the actual single on November 17, and will advise here and via Twitter/Google+ when it's ready to go.

For my featured stock music track, I'm featuring my old stalwart "Holiday Hustle Bustle." It has a great retro feel for holiday videos and ads, and is also available in a looped version for continuous background play. I hope you'll check it out.

Finally, I'm beginning to think about planning for 2018. I plan to analyze my stock music business over the holidays with an eye toward making changes. One of the things I'm seriously considering is going "all in" on music for podcasting. Stay tuned for further updates.

And that is the quick and dirty. If you're here in the States, I hope you turned your clocks back Saturday night and enjoyed that extra hour of shut eye.

What's Happening: Week of October 30, 2017

Halloween is upon us, but this week my thoughts are on Christmas.

Leading up to Christmas, I'll be featuring all Christmas music on my Twitter profile. First up this week is my looped orchestral arrangement of Jingle Bells. This is a great choice for looping behind commercials, holiday videos and similar media projects. In the following weeks I'll be featuring other items from my royalty-free Christmas stock music collection.

Meanwhile, after much agonizing, I think I finally have the cover for my upcoming holiday single "Snow Globe' the way I want it. Check it out.

Thanks again to my wonderful wife Danita for providing the photo. Look for a preview video later this week, and release in mid-November (sorry, I'm still waffling about the exact date).

Speaking of waffling, I'm reconsidering my previous plans to release another project before the end of the year. I'd like to give "Snow Globe" room to breathe, so to speak, and I'm thinking releasing a project within a couple of weeks of the single might be a little too much. Plus, I'd like to give a little more thought to track selection and maybe cleaning up a few things in the mixes. A release right before Christmas might still be feasible (to give all you folks something else to use your iTunes and Amazon gift cards on), but as of now I make no promises.

That's my story and as always, I'm sticking to it. Thanks very much for supporting my work or just stopping by to read my updates. I appreciate it.

)Editorial update: I accidentally put the wrong date in the title. It's the week of the 30th, not the 20th.)

What's Happening: Week of October 23, 2017

I got a little busy last week, and didn't make the progress I wanted on a number of fronts, but I do have a few interesting tidbits to share, so onward!

I still haven't finished the cover for my holiday single "Snow Globe," but I do have a photo in mind to feature, one snapped (as almost all of them are) by my awesome wife Danita. I'm not really happy with the background color, and I'm having trouble deciding on a font for the text. Other than that, everything is terrific!

I do think I want to release the single on November 17. Stay tuned.

On my Spotify profile I'm now featuring the classic Weather Report album Heavy Weather. This jazz fusion tour-de-force turned 40 years old in 2017, and represents the band at the height of its accessibility and commercial appeal. The now-standard "Birdland," "Teen Town" and the beautiful ballad "A Remark You Made," among others, sound as fresh today as they did in 1977.

On the stock music front, this week I'm featuring another item from my podcast intros and loops collection. This one is House Music Podcast Intro (Full), and is available to license royalty-free from Pond5. I have nothing new in the pipeline right now, but that can change very quickly if I get an inspiration.

And that's what's happening for now. Thanks for reading. I hope you have a great week coming up.

What's Happening: Week of October 16, 2017

I've been productive on the non-musical front and have some neat things to talk about this week.

Are you on Instagram? You can now follow me there. I'll be sharing photos and videos that are both music and non-music related. Some of the things I'm thinking of sharing include information about my rig (which could be one picture), screenshots and samples of work in process and more. I hope you'll join me there.

If you know anyone who is in the music press (or you are such a person), you can now download my new electronic press kit (EPK) from the updated about page at my website. It includes bio information plus links to photos and music from my (also updated) samples page.

On the musical side, my featured royalty-free stock music track this week is Chase Down, one of three "drums and drones" themed background tracks I published earlier this year. If you're looking for a high-energy electronic track with lots of big drums, this may be the ticket for you.

Also, I've been working on my "Snow Globe" single. I think I have a final master recording ready to go, but I'm going to give it a few more listens before making that "official." I've also been working on cover art, featuring a photo from the awesome Danita. I hope to finish that and share it in the next week or two. I'm thinking a mid-November release date for "Snow Globe" -- maybe the 10th or 17th (since Fridays seem to be the way to go these days). Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, I need to make a decision about an end-of-year non-holiday release. My original plan was to do an EP project in December, of either more ambient music or something more chillout (ambient with a beat). I might just wait until after the first of the year. You'll find out here first.

What's Happening: Week of October 9, 2017

We're one week closer to the holidays, and I have some decisions to make.

First, in case you missed it, earlier this week I introduced a new stock music track at Pond5. Quiet Intensity is sort of ambient but also energetic. The idea I had when I was writing it was to help tell stories of underdogs, unsung heroes, and characters or teams that don't give up. It's available to license royalty-free, and if you're telling that kind of story I hope you'll check it out.

I'm still thinking about revamping my YouTube channel and getting rid of most of my stock music videos. The only problem is that it's time consuming to delete over 100 videos (even if almost no one is watching them).

If you need scary Halloween music for last-minute creative projects, there's still time to license something from my collection.

Starting in the next week I'll be making a bigger push to promote my Christmas stock music. I also hope to firm up plans for my instrumental winter/holiday single "Snow Globe." The current track is over 5 minutes long and I'm thinking about editing it down to something in the 3-4 minute range. It's kind of atmospheric and has lots of sleigh bells (of course!)  but I'm worried that the current length is a little boring.

I also want to settle on cover art for the track (something with snow, of course). Finally, I'm trying to decide if I want to release it through Distrokid or CD Baby. If I go through CD Baby it would cost 15 bucks in all, but it stays released forever. With Distrokid I have to cough up 20 bucks a year, and if none of my releases ever break through I may decide I want to pull the plug someday/ More on that later in the year.

Finally, I've decided I'm going to sign up some of my stuff, especially things from AudioJungle, with AdRev, so I can potentially monetize them through YouTube. I won't do this with anything I have through Pond5, and especially not my podcast intros. But I see the AudioJungle stuff as fair game. Also, I want to have a chance to monetize future chillout or electronic music releases that I'm not licensing through Pond5 or AJ. Stay tuned to find out how that turns out.

And that's the latest from here. I hope your week is a good one.

B~)

What's Happening: Week of October 2, 2017

Happy October to everyone!

If you don't follow my Twitter feed (it would be awesome if you would) you may not be aware that I dropped a bunch of new stock music this week. New at AudioJungle is "Ascending." It's a bright atmospheric track to inspire and motivate audiences. It can also work with panoramic, travel or drone footage. You can check it out here.

In addition, I have some new podcast intros on Pond5. These are targeted to sportscasting. "Sports Podcast Intro 1" has a big opening that transitions into a repetitive background that you can fade out of to start you episode or segment. Then it has a big close that you can fade into to end episodes or segments. The full version is 1:00. and you can license the open, close or loop separately.

"Sports Podcast Intro 2" is a similar deal, but the full version is only :30 long, and the opening section is not available to license separately - just the closing and loop sections.

I'm working on a couple other stock music ideas; one is more ambient, the other more corporate. I plan to revisit those sometime this week, and hope to have some sort of progress update next weekend.

Meanwhile, I'm starting to give more thought to releasing the Christmas track ("Snow Globe") I mentioned in an earlier update. Now that I have a better feeling for how Distrokid's system works with the various online stores, I'm thinking an early- to mid-November release date would work best. More details as they're available.

I may have also mentioned (can't remember to be honest) that I'm thinking about paring down my YouTube channel. I've stopped uploading stock music videos, and the ones I have account for less than five percent of my total view time  As such, they clutter things up. I don't have a plan to do this yet, but don't be surprised if it happens in fairly short order.

That's all I have for this week. I hope the first full week of October is great for you and yours. Be well. B~)

P. S. I almost forgot! Please check out my Spotify artist page, where I'm featuring the classic progressive instrumental rock album moving Waves by Focus. I'll be featuring a new artist beginning sometime this week. Thanks!

What's Happening: Week of September 25, 2017

I hope everyone is easing into autumn this week.

I have a new stock music track in the pipeline. It's titled "Ascending" and is in the inspirational, motivational style. While atmospheric, it also has a lot of rhythm and a strong four on the floor beat going too. I submitted it to AudioJungle first; if they reject it then I'll submit it to Pond5. I'm thinking of this as a potential candidate to include on my next Excelsior EP. Stay tuned for updates.

I've been playing around with Hootsuite the last week or so. Hootsuite is a social media posting and analysis platform that lets you post to up to three different sites for free. It's taken a little getting used to, but I'm finding there's a certain appeal to being able to post messages to Twitter and Google+ from the same platform. Their Hootlet app is especially cool because it allows me to share pages to either platform without leaving the page. However, I still go to Twitter for certain things that I haven't been able to figure out how to do from Hootsuite.

Otherwise, everything else is pretty much the same. As we head into October, I'll be focusing more energy on promoting my Christmas stock music on Pond5 and a little less on Halloween music. I also plan to produce some more intros and loops for podcasts and to get back to promoting those as well.

I can't tell with certainty because I don't have the Distrokid plan that let's me see daily sales, but it looks like some things are going on with my track 'Epic Achievement' from Excelsior: Volume One. Thanks to everyone who's checked out all my work on iTunes and other stores.

And that, in short, is where I'm at this week. I hope yours is a good one. If you need royalty-free music for your projects, please check out my Pond5 and AudioJungle portfolios.

Spotify Profile Updates

As I mentioned in my latest weekly blog update, I've added a short two-paragraph bio to my Spotify profile. You'll find nothing earth-shaking there if you've read this blog or my website.

In addition, I have a brand spanking new artist pick. It's Moving Waves, the 1971 album by Focus. Almost anyone outside Europe who knows of this Dutch band at all knows only of the instrumental rock hit "Hocus Pocus," which features keyboardist/flautist/vocalist Thijs Van Leer's yodeling. (Yes, yodeling.)

But a careful listening to Moving Waves shows this group to be much more than just a quirky band or a one-hit wonder. The tracks, varying from short ("Le Clochard" at just over two minutes) to epic ("Eruption" at 23 minutes) straddle light classical, jazz and rock genres with surprising ease. For guitar lovers, both "Hocus Pocus" and "Eruption" showcase the considerable mad skills of guitarist Jan Akkerman, who went on to a successful career as a solo artist and sideman.

Although Moving Waves could be considered "classic" Focus, it is far from the band's only output. At some point, I may revisit them with a future artist pick.

Another quick update: I've applied to join Apple Connect, which if I understand correctly would allow me to have control over my iTunes/Apple Music profile similar to the control of my profile on Spotify. Haven't heard back yet.

What's Happening: Week of September 18, 2017

I hope you're gearing up for an awesome week.

This week I'll be continuing to promote holiday stock music. My emphasis will be shifting more to Christmas tracks, including my latest, "Auld Lang Syne (Gospel Blues)." Technically, it's New Year's music, but I've lumped it in with my Christmas collection that includes traditional and more commercial friendly fare. If you haven't already, please check it out here. I'll also continue to promote my scary Halloween music collection.

Those of you who frequent Spotify can look forward to updates to my artist page during this week. Spotify is now allowing artists to write their own bios, which I plan to do. I'll also be picking a new artist to feature on my profile.

I have one stock music idea that I'm working on and thinking of submitting to AudioJungle when it's finished. Other than that, there's not much in the pipeline at the moment. I still have plans to release a more moody, new-agey EP and holiday single before the end of the year as I discussed in an update from last month.

Finally, please check out my just-released spoken word video project, "Humans," on YouTube. This is a follow-up to "The Man in the Arena," an excerpt from an old Theodore Roosevelt speech that I narrated and set to music. I'm surprised that "Arena" is finding an audience without any real promotion, and I hope "Humans" eventually finds an audience of its own. More about "Humans" in this mid-week update from last Wednesday.

And with that, I'll stop. Thanks very much for stopping by and checking out what I'm up to. Have a great week.

Just Uploaded New Video: Humans

I've just uploaded a new video to YouTube. The title of the video is "Humans." Like "The Man in the Arena" that I uploaded earlier this year, "Humans" is spoken word with original music. Unlike "Arena" though, the words as well as the music are entirely original.

The text of "Humans" is based on the psychological concept of cognitive behavior theory. Basically, we're bombarded daily with messages trying to manipulate our behavior by appealing to our emotions. Much of our attitudes toward the world have been influenced by these messages that we've absorbed from childhood on, and often don't think to question as adults.

We learn myths about ostriches hiding their heads in the sand or frogs slowly boiling in a pot of water as the heat is gradually turned up, and maybe never stop to ask "Wouldn't the ostrich have to come up for air?" or "Wouldn't the frog just jump out when it got uncomfortable?" More often than not, these myths are based on things that humans often do -- and don't have to.

What's Happening: Week of September 11, 2017

As we remember the anniversary of the tragic events of September 11, 2001, we also have to deal with terrible tragedy in the areas affected by hurricanes in the southern U. S. in recent days and weeks. That's why I'm excited to share some news from CD Baby, the distributor of my album Circadia and single "Dream Catcher."

Starting from midnight (12:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time) on September 11, and running through 11:59 PM PDT on Friday, September 15, CD Baby will donate all of their net proceeds from digital downloads purchased at their store (https://store.cdbaby.com/) to hurricane relief. if you stop by and are interested in my stuff there or have held off for some reason, now would be a great time to check them out.

For Circadia (including the separately downloadable singles "Astral Tribe" and the title track),
CLICK HERE.

For my single "Dream Catcher."
CLICK HERE.

Note: only these two releases are eligible because my "Excelsior" singles and EP were released through a different distributor (DistroKid).

Even if you don't buy my releases, please go and have a look around https://store.cdbaby.com/ and maybe find something you like. Your purchase will add something awesome to your music collection, you'll be supporting deserving independent artists, and CD Baby's share of proceeds will go to hurricane relief. It's a win-win-win; I mean just profuse winning all over the place folks.

Meanwhile, I'm continuing promotion of stock music from my Halloween and Christmas collections. Expect to see those figuring prominently on my Twitter feed this week. Not following me on Twitter? You can do that right here.

Finally, because there seems to be interest in "The Man in the Arena," my spoken word video on YouTube, I've decided to put together a follow-up video. It's called "Humans" and has the same posivibe motivational outlook as "Arena." I plan to upload it sometime this week and will be posting here when it's up. Hope you'll check it out.

What's Happening: Week of September 4, 2017

This update will be somewhat short and to the point, because I'm busy doing things over the Labor Day weekend here in the U. S. However, there are a number of you who stop by from outside the States, so I didn't want to disappoint. So, right on to it.

First I want to thank everyone who has listened to my work on Spotify recently. I feel blessed that listeners in the U.S., U.K., Mexico, France, Germany, Denmark, Costa Rica, Hungary and Australia have been checking out my music there.

For the next two weeks, I'm featuring a very special talent as my Spotify artist's pick. Her name is Rachel Flowers and she is truly a musical savant. Listen is (I think) her first album of all original material, and after you hear it, you'll hope as I do that it isn't her last. You can check out Listen plus some of my own stuff from my Spotify artist page.

You can also download or stream my latest motivational EP  Excelsior: Volume One from several online outlets through links at the EP home page.

On the stock music front, my featured track this week is The Darkest Hour. This somber track can symbolize the depths of despair or the turning point leading to ultimate triumph. I've updated my Twitter feed but haven't updated my web site yet. I hope to do that tomorrow.

I have two new pieces of stock music for Christmas and am working on more as we speak, If you're looking for Christmas production music, please check out my collection.

And that is that. I hope everyone in the U. S. enjoys Labor Day and everyone gets off to a great week. Take care!

What's Happening: Week of August 28, 2017

The eclipse has come and gone, and my own big event went well too. Now it's time to look ahead, to a long weekend and beyond . . .

Excelsior: Volume One Online

I don't know about you, but I am definitely doing my 'Happy Dance' over the release of Excelsior: Volume One. The release went off without a hitch Thursday, and I've created a page for the EP where you can preview the trailer and download or stream tracks. The only site I don't have a link for yet is Microsoft Groove, but if you have Groove you may be able to search for it from within the app.

You can download from Amazon, iTunes or Google Play and stream right off the page from Apple Music, Spotify, or Tidal. There's a link off my official home page, or you can go to http://bit.ly/xlcrv1. I hope you'll check it out and enjoy!

Stock Music Update: Time to Get Ready for the Holidays

With that out of the way it's time to think about Christmas. Late last week someone licensed one of my royalty-free looped orchestral versions of "Jingle Bells." Guess some folks are getting an early start on promos and other media for the holidays, so I should follow suit. I'll be starting to feature my Christmas collection in my promotions beginning Monday.

I also want to work on some new arrangements of Christmas classics to add to that collection, and hope to have some new material by late this week or early next.

Meanwhile, I'll continue to promote Halloween stock music for at least a couple more weeks, and then more sporadically through mid-October. You can check out the full collection of chilling, spine-tingling tracks here.

If you're a podcaster (or know one), don't forget I have a pretty big collection of intros and loops for all kinds of podcasts, including:

Rock
Pop
Country
Jazz
Metal
Corporate
Light Classical
Baroque
Electronic

There's something for everybody, and I'm not finished creating new ones, so keep an eye on my podcast music collection at Pond5 as the weeks and months progress.

Other Stuff

If you have Spotify, please stop by my artist profile. This week my artist pick is one of my favorite drummers and genre-spanning musician Bill Bruford. If Summer Had It's Ghosts is a unique collaboration with multi-instrumentalist Ralph Towner and bassist Eddie Gomez that celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.

In addition to that, I have a new playlist on the profile. I call it "Excelsior Plus" and it features all of the tracks from the Excelsior series single and EP, plus my single "Dream Catcher" and some feel good instrumentals. Those are from the great Larry Carlton, Bruford (this time with his self-titled group from the late 70s), and Booker T and the MGs. If you want a lift on your commute or lunch break, please check it out.

And with that I am finished for this post. Have a great week and please keep the poor folks on the Texas Gulf Coast in your thoughts as they endure Hurricane Harvey. Take care.

What's Happening: Week of August 21, 2017

It's eclipse week, and release week!

Obviously, everyone is going crazy about the total solar eclipse crossing the U. S. tomorrow. I hope to be out and have a chance to experience it myself. Who knows: I may even live tweet, so keep an eye on my Twitter feed between 2:00 and 3:00 p.m. EDT tomorrow. Maximum coverage where I am will be about 89% around 2:30 p.m.

"Are we not men?"

I'm really excited about the end of the week, too. That's because I'll be uploading my EP Excelsior: Volume One to DistroKid on Thursday in the hope that it'll be OK'd and in at least some online marketplaces by Friday. I've already shared a track on Soundcloud. Here is the "official" EP trailer.

I ran into a snag in the upload process with YouTube. I thought that one of the auto-magically generated thumbnails was clean (no scrolling text), but when I looked at what uploaded to Twitter and Google+ it turned out there was some stray text in it. So, I deleted it, and added my cover art as a custom thumbnail. Then I posted the link to Google+ and it showed up with the correct (clean) thumbnail. But when I posted to Twitter it still had the dirty one! As Dilbert would say, "GAAAAH!!" Hoping to have that straightened out and posted to Twitter shortly.

Meanwhile, I am still in the royalty-free stock music business. My featured track this week is "Smooth Jazz Intro (Full)." This full version is :30 long, and it's also available in a shorter (about :10) and 20-second looped versions. You can preview and license it here.

So, lots going on this week. Please stay tuned and I'll keep you informed on when Excelsior: Volume One will be available to download or stream. In the meantime, don't look too closely at the Sun.

What's Happening, Week of August 14, 2017

Here comes another week. They just keep flying by.

In case you missed it, I have a new release ready to roll out. This one will be a 3-song EP that will be part of what I'm calling the "Excelsior" series. In fact, I'm calling this one Excelsior Volume One. I plan to drop it through DistroKid late the week of the 21st. For more details on the release check out my Excelsior: Volume One release announcement issued last Thursday here on the blog. Also, please check out this sneak peek of the first track of the EP, "Happy Dance," on Soundcloud.

My featured royalty-free stock music track this week is "The View Ahead," a sort of atmospheric track aimed toward corporate and business positive media and presentations. You can sample that from my Twitter profile page.

As for other stock music in my portfolio, I'm continuing to heavily promote my scary Halloween music collection for the next several weeks. As always, I'm promoting my collection of intros and loops for podcasting, You can find links to my current collections from my Pond5 artist page if you're interested in using them for your projects. Sometime in early-to-mid September, I'll start promoting my Christmas music collection that includes both classic and contemporary tracks.

I did some reading over the weekend, and one of the books I looked into was one I'd read about 30 years ago. It's The Inner Game of Music by Barry Green with W. Timothy Gallwey. The book took Gallwey's "Inner Game" concept, that had previously been applied to other areas (most famously tennis) and gave it a musical spin. I didn't appreciate the first time I read it how Gallwey's ideas were on the cutting edge of the positive psychology movement that was just getting started in the 1980s. I might write more about it in a separate post. If I do, expect to see it midweek. If not, at least I mentioned it here.

Thinking about longer-term stuff, I have a tentative schedule in mind for new releases extending out to early 2018. Sometime in late October, I'm planning to release an ambient-New Age instrumental holiday single. It's tentatively titled "Snow Globe" and I'll give more details as we get closer to the release. Ditto for Extasis, which is the tentative title for the ambient-New Age instrumental EP I intend to release in early to mid-November. There are definitely 2 tracks that will make the cut for that release, and I anticipate at this point having one or two more tracks to be determined (for a total of 3-4).

Looking ahead to 2018, I hope to release another "Excelsior" EP (Excelsior: Volume Two) in Jaunary or February, followed by an EP of chillout music in the spring. I classified my Circadia album as both ambient and chillout, and I'm afraid that may have caused some confusion. So going forward, since I don't plan to release albums, I'll split my EPs between "chillout" (which for me means there's more of a beat) and "ambient" (meaning for me: more spacy, less of a beat).

Now you know what I know. Until I change my mind. Have a great week.

Coming Soon, Excelsior: Volume One EP

I have some news that I'm excited to share with you today. Within the few weeks I'll be releasing a new EP under the informal banner of the "Excelsior" series. The three-track EP will be titled Excelsior: Volume One and will stick to the theme I've established for this series of releases. They're all former stock music tracks that I'm re-purposing to allow people to add them to their personal motivational playlists without paying a licensing fee. I've remixed and remastered all three tracks, and in one case even added some material.

The track listing for EV1 is as follows:

Happy Dance

Quiet Confidence

Epic Achievement

"Happy Dance" is pretty much what the title suggests. It's got a fun beat and a nice little arpeggiated synth hook. "Quiet Confidence" is the "slow" track of the three but has an uplifting melody. "Epic Achievement" has a a little faster beat and is a great soundtrack for celebrating your personal triumphs.

I'll be releasing future entries in the "Excelsior" series in this format: probably three or at most four tracks at a time every few months. Of course, I'll let everyone know when the EP is out. I think I want to wait until after the solar eclipse since I expect that to dominate the "non-Trump" news over the next couple weeks. Watch here or on my Twitter feed for more details as I figure them out. In the meantime, please preview and enjoy the track "Happy Dance" from my Soundcloud feed.

What's Happening: Week of August 7, 2017

Just two weeks now until the Great American Eclipse, and I hope you're stoked too. I'm not travelling to see the totality in person, but hope to catch it online (maybe on Slooh). As it is, the eclipse coverage will be just under 90 percent where I'm living, which isn't bad. On to the music.

My featured stock music track this week is "Funky Podcast Intro 2 (Full)." Funky drums. Slap bass. Horns. Organ. Percussion. It's on. Please check it out on my Twitter page or on the website.

I have two new intros available as of late last week, and I plan to feature them on my Twitter Monday in case anyone missed them. One is a 70s disco bit, the other a bright and sunny kid and family friendly intro. Both have longer, shorter, looped and logo/ident versions. Meanwhile, I have yet another corporate intro in the works and hope to have that online sometime this week.

I'm getting ready to release a new motivational single in the "Excelsior" series. Or it may be an EP. The beautiful thing about DistroKid is that I have the flexibility to change my mind right up to the last time I click "Enter." (Or whatever it's labeled; I don't remember right off the top.) I'll have a more general announcement when that happens.

My latest Artist Pick on my Spotify page is Pink Floyd's Ummagumma. Before Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall, this 1969 release finds the band stretching out their psychedelic side with a double album that's half live and half studio. The live half features performances of some of the material that brought Floyd a cult following up to that point. The live version of "Astronomy Domine" particularly rocks much harder than the original studio version. The studio half runs a gamut from the very avant-garde and film music influences in "Sisyphus" to the folky "Grantchester Meadows." There's some seriously experimental-psych vibe on one track that I think has the longest title in modern pop music history: "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict." (No, I did not make that up.) Listening back now, there are parts that could be remixed as drum and bass! I had a lot of fun listening to Ummagumma back in the day, and hope you will now.

That's it for now. If you haven't already, please keep an eye on my Twitter and Google+ feeds for more info. Have a good week and please check back.

What's Happening: Week of July 31, 2017

After a pretty slow week on all fronts (unless U. S. politics is your thing), I hope things will begin to pick up as we approach the holidays. Yes, Halloween is only three months away and many of you may already be in pre-production mode. Speaking of Halloween . . .

This week I launched a personally curated collection of some of my scariest, spookiest stock music just in time to start prepping for Halloween. This collection of 20 tracks (with a 21st in the pipeline awaiting thumbs up or down) will be great to use in your ads, personal videos or as the background music in that special room of your haunted house. You can check the whole collection out here, or from my Pond5 artist page.

On my Spotify artist page, I'm featuring What Goes Around: The Best of Shadowfax. In my opinion, this group, with its unique blend of jazz, rock, world music and New Age elements, has stood the test of time. I hope you'll check it out. While you're there, please stream my motivational single "Quest for Transformation," or if you're in a more chill frame of mind, cuts from my album Circadia.

Finally, my featured royalty-free stock music track this week is "Ambient Jazz Intro (Full)" This moody little intro is a nice options for news, topical, lifestyle, arts, political or other podcasts or videos - wherever you want to set a pensive mood. You can check it out from my official home page, or find it pinned to my Twitter profile. There are also shorter versions of this intro that you can audition and license through my podcast music collection page.

I hope you have a productive and "harmonious" week ahead.

Scary Music for Halloween

Today, I've launched a new collection of royalty-free stock music for your spooky Halloween media projects on Pond5. This curated collection includes some of the scariest music from my portfolio of more than 500 Pond5 items, including some of my top-sellers and some tracks that are less well-known.

In addition to the 20 items in the current collection, I have a previously unreleased soundscape in the pipeline that I hope will get approval shortly. It has a nautical theme and is, appropriately, titled "Haunted Pier." It evokes a mental image of long-dead pirates of old coming back from Davy Jones' locker to haunt all of you poor land lubbers. Assuming that goes through, you should be seeing it soon on my Twitter and Google+ feeds.

CHECK OUT MY SCARY HALLOWEEN MUSIC COLLECTION NOW 

What's Happening: Week of July 24, 2017

I hope you've had a restful weekend and are ready to crush it this week.

My featured royalty-free stock music track this week is Lifestyle Intro 2 (Full). It's yet another of my intros for podcasting, but of course you can use it for other stuff too. I hope you'll check it out if you're looking for a musical intro for your lifestyle-oriented or topical media project.

I debuted a new track on Pond5 Friday. It's the corporate track titled "Power Through" that I mentioned in last week's update. If you're interested, please check it out here.

Meanwhile, I'm having second thoughts about the "Excelsior" series. A lot of outlets, like Tidal, YouTube, and others, take their sweet time getting content on to their sites. If I release a single a month, the next one will likely be out before Quest for Transformation, the first single in the series goes live in some of those outlets. Not sure I want to be promoting two or three singles on multiple platforms at the same time. There's also the issue of having to come up with cover art for all this stuff. An alternative might be to release EPs of 3 or 4 tracks every few months. Still thinking about that.

Speaking of EPs, I'm really giving serious thought to putting out Extasis as an EP before the end of the year. It would consist of probably three tracks and would be on the ambient side of my musical personality. I have two of the three tracks in mind, but can't decide on a third.

This weekend I came up with a really pretty little tune I'm calling "Snow Globe." It's light and with lots of bells and makes you think of the little worlds inside the snow globes you might have played with when you were a kid. I thought about including it as the third track of the Extasis EP, but it has a Christmastime feeling the others really don't have. Decisions, decisions . . .

So, that's my story and I'm sticking to it (until I'm not). Thanks for reading and I hope you have a terrific week ahead.

What's Happening: Week of July 17, 2017

Hello! A new week begins and here we go.

I have more new stock music debuting tomorrow on my Twitter and Google+ feeds. These consist of two "action suspense" loops. One of the loops is shorter and slower, the other longer and faster. I think they would be good candidates for news, documentaries, dramatic podcasts or video games. If you see this and don't want to wait until Monday morning (US Eastern Time), you can sample them at Pond5 right now:

Action Suspense Loop 1

Action Suspense Loop 2

The corporate/motivational track I submitted to AudioJungle was rejected. Before sending it on to Pond5, I plan to have another listen to it. I think there may be a couple things I can do to improve it before submitting it. You may ask why I didn't think about those tweaks before you submitted to AudioJungle in the first place? A good question. Answer? Beats me.

On my Spotify artist page I'm featuring the self-titled album by prog/metal supergroup Liquid Tension Experiment. I especially like the track "Kindred Spirits," I hope you'll check that out before I feature a new album next week.

Meanwhile, I'm now giving thought to the second single in my motivational "Excelsior" series, which I'm planning to release sometime next month. I expect to have more to say about that next week.

While I'm at it, I'm also formulating plans to release an EP of ambient material more along the lines of the Circadia album. I originally planned to title the follow-up to that album Extasis, and I may yet do that. More specifics to come.

That, then, is my story, and as always I'm sticking to it. (Until I'm not.) What I am sticking to is the gratitude I feel to everyone who stops by to read this blog or my main website, or to support my work by licensing, downloading or streaming it. You make it possible for me to do this, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I'll chat at you again next week, if not sooner.

What's Happening: Week of July 10, 2017

I suspect everybody in the US is now back from the Independence Day break, and we're all getting ready to roll into a new week. So am I.

First, I have some new music in the pipeline. I submitted a new corporate/motivational track to AudioJungle. I should hear back from them in the next week or so. Either they'll accept it or reject it, in which case I'll submit it to Pond5. AudioJungle is very picky about what material they'll like and what they won't. I'm trying to build my portfolio there, but I've learned to take rejection in stride. Besides, I've had more than one track that AudioJungle rejected that I then submitted with minor or no changes to Pond5 and had multiple sales. One person's trash, as they say.

I produced and submitted a couple of things to Pond5, too. One of the new submissions is an intro for podcasters and other media projects in a house music style. It comes in full (:30), short (:10), logo/outro (~:04) and looped (:15) versions. The other submission is a short (just under :30) "film noir" style cue with muted trumpet, piano and lots of reverb. I hope to hear some news on those as early as tomorrow, although at this time of the year P5 often has folks on holiday and curation times can slow way down. So we'll see.

My single Quest for Transformation is now live at five different outlets as of this writing: Amazon, Google Play, Groove Music, iTunes and Spotify. You can get more info on all that from this post on the blog or at the main web site. Speaking of which . . .

I've added my latest promo picture on the main home page, replacing the old logo that used to serve as a banner there. The banner is still in place on my About and Samples pages, but I'm thinking it might be time for an overhaul of the site. Drop me a line if you have some ideas.

As always, I'm very appreciative of everyone who takes time to stop by and find out what's going on. Please check out the slightly revamped official web page  There are links to the different places where you can download and stream "Quest," including an embedded Spotify player for Quest for Transformation. Have a great week, and do peek in from time to time as you never know when I'll get some new crazy idea and tell the world.

Quest for Transformation Released

I've now officially released a new single "Quest for Transformation" through DistroKid. This is the first in what I plan to be a series of singles under the "Excelsior" banner. "Excelsior" means "upward," and my intention is to make some of my favorite motivational stock music available for personal use. "Quest" is an electronic instrumental pop track designed to get you an a mood to succeed. I hope you'll check it out and add it to your personal motivational playlist. It's now available via:

Amazon

Google Play
Groove Music

iTunes/Apple Music

Spotify

. . . with more outlets to come.

What's Happening: Week of July 3, 2017

I hope everyone is getting ready to enjoy Independence Day in the USA (and did enjoy Canada Day up north). This week I'm working on a new release for streaming and downloading, plus getting ready to roll out some promotional photos. I'll be doing a little less promotion on social media the next few days since most of my Twitter followers will likely be preoccupied with July 4th festivities. However, on Monday and Tuesday I do plan to promote items from my AudioJungle portfolio, since I know that marketplace is geographically diverse.

Starting with Wednesday the 5th, I'll be back to my regular schedule of highlighting items and collections from my Pond5 portfolio. Also, I hope to be able to announce the official roll-out of the first single in my "Excelsior" series, "Quest For Transformation." If you missed that, and my announcement of my association with DistroKid, you can find that here.

Rochelle Krause's sci-fi animated web series "A Universe of Trouble," featuring my royalty free music track "Mystery Suspense Theme," concludes its run this week. If you're coming late to the party, you can find all the episodes on Rochelle's YouTube and Vimeo channels. It's been a great honor to be along for the ride, Rochelle.

Finally, I've got some new promotional photos (taken by an actual photographer - my wonderful wife Danita) that I'll be rolling out in the next week or so. I hope you like them. And with that, it's on to an exciting new week.

Announcing Association With DistroKid, New Excelsior Series of Singles

After much consideration, I signed up with DistroKid this week. For those who may be unfamiliar with DistroKid, it's a music distribution system that allows artists to get their music on iTunes, Spotify and other major sites for a flat fee of $19.99 per year for a single artist (like me). I may have to do some extra stuff to ensure that my work is fully monetized on certain platforms like YouTube, and I'm looking into that. Overall, though, the ability to release unlimited singles seems to be the way to go in this new era of streaming.

With that in mind, I'm preparing to launch a new series of singles. Over the coming months I plan to release some of my favorite motivational and inspirational stock music tracks for personal consumption via download or stream. I'll be doing this at (I hope) fairly frequent intervals, and plan to call the series "Excelsior," which means "upward" or "higher." I hope you'll add these singles to your personal list to inspire you to persevere. to believe and achieve. My first single from the series will be "Quest For Transformation." Stay tuned for more information and to find out when it's available on your favorite download or streaming platform.

What's Happening, Week of June 26, 2017

Amazingly, half of 2017 is almost gone, and I'm contemplating some new projects for the second half of the year. But first, let's talk about what's happening now.

My featured royalty-free stock music track this week is "Urban Podcast Intro 2 (Full)." You can find it at the link right here, though my main website, or pinned to my Twitter profile.

Rochelle Krause's web series "A Universe of Trouble" that features my stock music track "Mystery Suspense Theme" continues its run on Vimeo and YouTube. If you've not checked it out yet, I hope you will.

On my Spotify artist page, I'm featuring Olias of Sunhillow, the classic prog/New Age solo album by Jon Anderson. Also, please check out my playlist of ambient/chill influences that includes "Ocean Song," the opening track of Olias. I also put together a track-by-track discussion of why I chose each track in this blog post.

I have no new music in the pipeline at the moment, but have been blessed with a lot of sales over the past few days, and I'll be highlighting those tomorrow on my Twitter feed and elsewhere.

Now for some thoughts about the longer term.

I'm giving thought to reorganizing my collections on Pond5. My current collections are organized around styles (ambient, corporate, dramatic, etc.). I'm thinking of creating new collections based on mood: angry, sad, mysterious. Or maybe, positive, negative. Still thinking about that.

Another thing I'm pondering is possibly switching from CDBaby to DistroKid for future releases that aren't stock music. As I've mentioned in another post some time back, unless you're a well established artist it just doesn't make sense to release albums any more. EPs maybe, but not albums. As one article I saw put it quite succinctly: playlists are the new albums. So I think it makes more sense to release singles or EPs. With luck you can get one of those individual tracks on a playlist and have some success. To release a single through CDBaby costs $10 forever. To release unlimited singles and EPs through DistroKid costs $20 a year. So it seems like if I release two singles per year, it's a breakeven proposition. There may be things I end up having to do myself that CDBaby now does for me. I'm still researching. This all matters because . . .

I'd like to start releasing more. One of the things I want to do is put out some of my motivational stock music for individual consumption. It occurs to me that there are folks out there who might want to create their own personal self-motivational soundtracks, and some of my work would be perfect for that. Also, since the world doesn't revolve around albums any more, I don't feel I should necessarily wait until I have an album's worth of material to release. There are a couple of tracks in the more ambient chillout genre that are almost ready to go now, only a few tweaks needed.

So that's where I'm at for the moment. If you have some input, please comment. I'd love to hear your ideas and constructive criticism.

My Ambient/Chill Spotify Playlist, Track by Track

I recently claimed my Spotify profile, and in the process started to become familiar with all the stuff that goes on behind the scenes in their artists platform. One of the abilities they provide is allowing you to feature your "album pick." My current pick is "The Hidden Step" by Ozric Tentacles, a very interesting group indeed. Those are only temporary, though. In a couple days I'll be picking a new one.

Spotify also lets the artist feature one or more playlists in his/her profile, so I decided to put one together reflecting some of the music I've found interesting through the years in the general ambient or chill categories. This post goes into some of my reasoning for including each track. Of course I couldn't resist throwing in a couple of my tracks from Circadia, and I won't go into those here.

I suspect that if you listen to it, you may scratch your head as to my definition of "ambient." But I recently read an article rating the "50 Best Ambient Albums of All Time," and the author there basically said: "nobody really agrees on what 'ambient' means, but here goes anyway."

So, in that spirit, here goes anyway.

"Ocean Song" by Jon Anderson

Jon Anderson is best known to most as the co-founder and long-time lead singer of Yes. He's also had an extensive solo career and partnered on projects with Vangelis and other artists. This track opens  Anderson's first, and probably most influential, solo project, Olias of Sunhillow. This may have been Anderson's most ambitious undertaking as well; not only does he sing all the vocals, he also plays all the instruments, which included a lot of exotic stringed and percussion instruments, plus synths. The effect is like sci-fi/fantasy set to music, and I think it's really stood the test of time. To my ear, this track could have been recorded this year rather than over four decades ago. I remember hearing this back then and thinking to myself "I wish I could do something like that." I wrote little songs on guitar in those days, but in my mind I imagined them coming out with this kind of big sweeping sound.

"Tuscany" by Suzanne Ciani

I acquired Suzanne Ciani's album Neverland long ago during one of many flirtations I've had with "New Age" music over the years. I didn't know it at the time, but Ciani actually had quite a bit of cred in the electronic music world. One of her early albums actually made that Top 50 list I mentioned earlier. The development of technology and acceptance of electronic music has allowed Ciani to have some measure of well-deserved commercial success. She's adapted to changing times and technologies and is still going strong at age 71. You can find out more about Suzanne at her website.

"Glass Green" by Tim Story

During an even earlier flirtation with New Age music, I came across Tim Story's Windham Hill album Glass Green, and was immediately taken. I recently saw a video of Story performing material from throughout his career, and he described this phase of his career as "minimalist." I suppose you could call it that, but I found the sound on tracks like this one to have a richness that defied that label. I've always imagined that if Erik Satie composed in the modern era, his work might sound a lot like this. Speaking of which . . .

"Premiere Gymnopedie" by Erik Satie (perf. by Alexandre Theraud)

Thinking about Satie, I realized I couldn't leave him off this playlist. He, along with Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, were French impressionist composers of the turn of the twentieth century. The latter two probably had greater notoriety in their day, but Satie is remembered now as a father of the so-called "minimalist" style, as amply demonstrated in this piece, performed tenderly here by Alexandre Tharaud. Satie was also one weird dude, as this article from The Word Detective about the origin of the term "gymnopedie" will attest.

This piece has resonated down the years, and seems to show up in a lot of places where directors want to convey a sense of deep contemplation. For example, it's this piece that's playing in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Where Silence Has Lease" as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, having ordered the destruction of the starship Enterprise rather than submit to experiments by the alien Nagillum, contemplates his final moments.

"January Stars" by George Winston

This opening track from Winston's Windham Hill album Winter Into Spring is an attempt to directly convey to the listener the chilly feeling of standing outside in midwinter, looking into the vastness of the night sky. At least that's how I felt listening to the opening dissonant notes, intentionally held to wring all the ambiance possible from them. This is just one example of the commercial successful piano work that put Winston on the map throughout the early 1980s.

"Starport Indra" by Jonn Serrie

My recollection of Jonn Serrie is that he first made his mark in the 1980s composing music for planetarium shows. In fact, I was first exposed to his work in a strange way. Back in 1988 or so, some magazine (it might have been Electronic Musician) put out an offer to anyone who was willing to write album reviews. They would send you a tape, you listened to it, wrote a review and sent it back, and they let you keep the tape. I sent off, and to my surprise they actually sent me a tape, It was Jonn Serrie's album . . . And the Stars Go With You. I put on the cassette and was immediately blown away. At the time, he wasn't using really advanced equipment or anything. His backbone instruments were the Fender Rhodes electric piano and synths with heavy emphasis on string patches. But the way he arranged it all gave me that same sense of "faraway-ness" that I got from those opening notes of Winston's "January Stars."

I'm ashamed to admit I never submitted the review. When I contemplated actually writing it, I froze. I was so intimidated by the thought of writing something that might see national publication (even if in a niche magazine) that I procrastinated until the deadline had passed. I suppose it's only cosmic justice, then, that when I looked for Stars to include on this playlist I couldn't find it. However, "Starport Indra" makes a nice stand-in and demonstrates that Serrie, too, has broadened his palette over the years.

"Floating Lotus Flower" by Kitaro

Kitaro was one of those cosmic kind of people, but he's not necessarily as quiet as some of the other artists on the playlist. He's here more as a representative of a certain style of music that's associated with him, especially his approach to the synth as a lead instrument. Where typical synth lead players emphasized blinding technique, Kitaro worked to squeeze every bit of emotion possible out of single held notes. When synth programmers name patches after you decades later, you've done something right. This particular piece really emphasizes Kitaro's ambient, spacey side, as well as his affinity for combining Eastern textures with modern and minimalist elements. 

"Children's Song, No. 8" by Chick Corea (perf. by Mika Pohjola)

I first heard this piece on Corea's album My Spanish Heart. In the midst of all the other typical Corea fare, this really stood out for me. Later, I did some research and found out that Corea had written a whole slew of similar pieces and eventually tracked down a vinyl album of Chick performing a bunch of them. Eventually, I switched over to CDs and got rid of the record, which I now regret doing. Pohhola's performance here, while more than adequate, pales in comparison to my memory of the piece performed more legato and at a slightly faster tempo by the composer himself.

"Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano, Sonatas No. 14 and 15" by John Cage (perf. by Cedric Pescia)

Most people who know of Cage at all these days remember him as a guy who created daffy things like 4' 33" in which the performer sat down at the piano, opened the lid, waited exactly four minutes, and 33 seconds, closed the lid, and the performance was over. Critics derided this sort of thing at the time, but in hindsight one can see that it was ultimate "ambient" music. The "music" of the piece was the ambient sound of the performance venue: people shuffling in their seats, coughing, and so on.

Earlier in his career, though, Cage composed more traditionally. When he decided that traditional tonality was too confining, one of the solutions he came up with was unique. Cage experimented extensively with putting various objects inside the piano, such as bits of rubber, screws and bolts. He called the result a "prepared piano," which sometimes sounded sort of like a music box on acid, but could also yield some very compelling sounds, as is the case on the two pieces here. Although they play as separate tracks on Spotify, Sonatas 14 and 15 are actually of a piece, and are titled "Gemini - after the work of Richard Lippold" (a sculptor who worked in wire and was a contemporary of Cage).

Another reason I included these tracks is personal. Mr. Cage is the only person in this playlist I actually had the privilege of meeting face-to-face. This happened in 1981,when he came to Wright State University for the American premiere of portions of his Etudes Australes. I was a student there at the time, and for us it was a big deal. As a music student, I had been very interested in the work of both Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen. I had the opportunity to both meet Mr. Cage and to hear him discuss his philosophy of music and art more generally. How strange to think that what he strove so hard to achieve in the 1930s and 40s is now available to anyone with a little money and the time to tweak a few parameters.

"Mood for a Day" by Steve Howe (Yes)

Honestly, I really only included this piece because I like it so much. It's not so much ambient as it is mellow, so I guess you could say it's more chill. I had a classical/folk guitar for many years (it's now my son's) and tried once to learn how to play this piece. No luck. It really does set the mood for the day - it sounds like sunrise. Another thing I'm thankful to Steve Howe and this track for: they served as my gateway drug to Segovia.

"Indian Summer" by The Doors

This is the only vocal on the list (even Jon Anderson didn't get to sing!), but when I think back about the things that ultimately brought me to the ambient realm, this popped up. It's easy for me to hear why, beginning with Robbie Krieger's exquisitely Middle Eastern influenced guitar lines, played clean on (most likely) a Gibson SG. Keyboardist Ray Manzarek keeps a low profile here, sticking with his Fender Bass Piano and the occasional understated organ chord. Drummer John Densmore also remains fairly muted, with snares off lots of reverb. Morrison, for all his well-earned wild child reputation, here reveals a sensitive, even tender, side. The overall result is extremely mellow.

"The Sentinel" by Jonn Serrie

This is another track that reminded me of Jonn's work on Stars, and well, I just owe him one.

"Woman at the Well" by Tim Story

This is also a repeat of an earlier artist. I went back through Story's tracks on Spotify and found this one. Although it's credited as part of compilation, it originally appeared on Glass Green. This track is my favorite from that album. It is more in keeping with the minimalist style he was working on at the time, and also illustrates his use of traditional instruments, like piano, marimba and vibes, alongside electronics, to achieve a very personal sound. It also reveals the underlying spirituality that drives this music, being based on the 4th chapter of the Gospel of John.

So, if you got this far, I thank you, and I hope that this shed a light on some of my own musical tastes and influences. I've documented some of those more fully in other parts of this blog, and I invite you to check those out if you're interested. Please check back this weekend as I'll have a new album to featured on my profile page.