Blog of Bruce Edward Smith, composer and producer of music for commercial use and personal enjoyment. Stay up to date on Bruce's latest releases and projects.
I'm pleased to announce I have a couple new items in the pipeline.
The first is "Dramatic Moments." It's an orchestral piece to build drama in documentaries and dramatic productions. It comes in two versions. The 40+ second looped version simply churns the tension, while the 60 second version actually ends with a positive (major chord) resolution.
The second item is "Moving Ahead." This one is a three minute mellow rock track featuring harmonica and guitar-based rhythm section. It has a bright, upbeat feeling that you can use in productions to underscore development in characters or story. It's also worth considering for health care ads or PSAs.
If you're interested in checking either of these tracks out in their entirety, keep an eye on my Twitter feed for release details as they become available.
As you can see to the left, I have a brand new home page update that I've just rolled out within the last hour of starting this blog post. The back story here is that I was in sort of a creative stall on the musical side. I started thinking about my main web page and began to look at ways I could spruce things up a bit.
I was doing some research at W3Schools, which is a great resource and reference for all kinds of web development. Whilst there, I stumbled on a set of CSS templates they've created and are offering to users to freely use and modify for projects. I copied their template called "The Band" and made some modifications (for example, I'm not planning to tour anytime soon!). It's got a sleek black-and-white look I really love.
The template is very well coded and I found it easy to understand and modify to meet my needs. It helped that I've worked in HTML and CSS before, but the template saved many, many hours of work. It is responsive, looking good on both my desktop and my smartphone. Best of all, it's extremely lightweight compared to my old website, which used a now outdated version of Bootstrap. Better yet, all of the critical elements of my former About, Samples and Contact pages now fit in a single, scroll-able page. Plus, I have links to my EPK and (of course) this blog -- all in one place. I'll be promoting the new page pretty heavily going forward, and hope you'll pay a visit.
Featured Stock Music Item of the Week
One change now that I have a new web page is that I'm not playing up the featured item as much any more. You can still find a link to it if you visit the site on a large screen, but you won't see the link on a smaller form factor like a smartphone. I'll still be pinning the featured item to my Twitter profile each week (it's there now), and I'll have a link to it here as well.
This week's featured item is "Wonder of Discovery." This is one of those cinematic, symphonic hybrid things that makes you think of outer space or the depths of the ocean. It's a great choice for science fiction or science fact.
And that's pretty much it. I plan on getting back to developing some new music for my stock production portfolio this week, and will let you know here when there's new stuff in the pipeline. Thanks for stopping by.
First, my new collection of six second bumper music is now online. If you do YouTube bumper ads or need music with timing of exactly six seconds, this is a collection you need to check out. Here's a sample:
Speaking of my six second bumper collection, I have a new one in the pipeline. This one is a light classical bumper, to go with the rock, pop, electronic, corporate, funk, country and family-friendly bumpers. Once it's available, I'll put the news out on my Twitter feed.
Beyond those tidbits, I really don't have a lot going on just now. I'm working on a piece of music, but don't really have a title, and frankly I'm not sure what I would do with it if and when I finish it. Sometimes, those turn out very well, so who knows? Check back here from time to time to see if it goes anyplace.
I did receive an interesting contact from a guy who asked to use my video "The Man in the Arena" as part of a motivational piece for a local chapter of FIRST in Rhode Island. FIRST is a great program that seeks to get kids excited about STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) disciplines. I was happy to help.
So, enough rambling. It's time to get another week started. I hope yours is a terrific one, and am grateful that you stopped by to read. Peace.
I'm pleased to announce a new collection of music clips edited specifically for six second bumper ads of the type that are gaining popularity on YouTube. These are special versions, including from some of my best selling work, that I've cut down to run in six seconds. No further editing is needed; just plug the audio into your project and go.
I'm starting with fifteen items in different styles, including rock, pop (corporate), cinematic (epic), kid and family friendly, and electronic. I plan to revisit more of my prior work to evaluate for editing to the six second length. In addition, going forward I intend to make future bumpers or logos I write as variations of new pieces conform to the six second length as well. Here's a sample.
It's all about the bumpers (and the madness!) this week, but first some news about the pipeline.
I have a new stock music submission awaiting curation at Pond5. It's a big dramatic intro with :60, :30 and :15 edits, plus a looped version and a stinger/bumper. Here's a preview of the 30 second version.
Now for some more news on the stock music front. In reviewing sales, I found that a couple of the very short tracks in my podcast intro music collection are doing a lot better than the rest (although many of them are doing well). The key similarity between the two is that they're right at the edge of the six second range. That jogged a memory of something I may even have discussed here some time back.
I had seen some reportage last year indicating that YouTube had introduced an option for their advertisers to air six second bumper ads instead of the standard longer ads that viewers often either skip through or abandon entirely. Sure enough, I researched and found that the six second bumpers are growing in popularity with advertisers. The two bumpers (I've been calling them logos, but I guess they really aren't) that are doing well for me are seven seconds, but have fades that I could shorten to make them run in six.
So, I plan not only to begin editing those down, but I'm also going back to check out some of my other intros to see if they, too, can be cut down to the six second mark. Then, I intend to introduce (ASAP) a collection dedicated just to those six second bumpers, promote it, and see what happens. Wish me luck.
Finally, I have indeed survived the switch to Daylight Savings Time here in the US and I must be adapting well. How do I know this? It isn't even 5 PM (1700 hours) on the old time and I'm already hungry! Plus, my alma mater Wright State University is playing in college basketball tournament for the first time in over a decade. I have to wrap this up so I can find food and be ready by 7 PM (1900) for the tournament matchups to be revealed. With so many tough teams in the top echelon this year, it's very likely to be a quick exit. But just being there is what former VP Joe Biden would call "a big f---ing deal."
So, GO RAIDERS and everyone else have a great week.
This week I have great news on website encryption, and even more stock music in the pipeline. Let's get right into it.
In a recent update I had mentioned that I started seeing encrypted (SSL) traffic in my website statistics. After doing some research, I figured out what was going on, and the news is good. Beginning in 2016, cPanel, which makes control panel software for domain management, began working with certificate authority Comodo to provide domain validation (DV) certificates to their internet hosting partners. One of those partners is Lunarpages, through which I host and manage several domains in addition to thisbrucesmith.com.
This is a big deal because, although DV isn't the most comprehensive form of security validation, it does enable encryption on the website, meaning that if you go to https://thisbrucesmith.com (instead of just http:) you won't be vulnerable to someone sniffing to see what you're doing.
Best of all, no one has sent me a bill. Yet.
So, I've changed my link here to the encrypted site, and I hope you'll check it out. Meanwhile . . .
I have two more stock music tracks in the pipeline. The first is "Restless," the title of which is pretty self-explanatory. It evokes impatience, anxiety, restlessness, foreboding and similar emotions associated with imminent action.
The second is another piece for science or astronomy, and electronic piece I call "Cosmic Dawn."
That's pretty much what's new for now. Please keep an eye on this space for updates and new stock music in the pipeline. Have a terrific week.
