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!