Sunday, July 30, 2017

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.

Thursday, July 27, 2017

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.

Sunday, July 23, 2017

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.

Sunday, July 16, 2017

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:


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.

Sunday, July 9, 2017

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.

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

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:


. . . with more outlets to come.

Sunday, July 2, 2017

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.