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!

"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 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 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~)

Happy November 2016!

Here I am again with best wishes, an update or two, and a reminder that Christmas is almost upon us . . . and you know what that means!

As I mentioned recently, 2016 is already my best year since I began creating and selling stock music. My work has been licensed by buyers on five continents (North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia to be exact!). I feel very grateful to and honored by those of you who chose my work to support your media projects. I hope my work serves you well, and that you'll continue to check out my growing portfolio of over 300 tracks.

Speaking of that growing portfolio, I just released three new royalty-free stock music tracks at Pond5.

Corporate Tech is a bouncy little electronic number.
Ambient Urban Requiem is a sad, dirge-like track with a slightly old school urban beat.
Ominous Science Fiction Cue is . . . well . . . it sort of explains itself.

You can find these tracks and all my most recent production music releases from Pond5 here.

On the commercial front, after working on some ideas and doing a lot of soul searching, I do not plan to do a full-length release before the end of the year. My next project will not be as diverse as Circadia, instead hewing to the more downtempo chill side. I may still put out an EP of some sort featuring the more ambient and electronic stuff I've developed over the past year, but I haven't made a firm decision on that yet.

Those of you looking for Christmas music for your projects, please have a listen to my royalty-free Christmas background music collection at Pond5. There's a mix of traditional and more modern holiday music arranged for different combinations of instruments. If you find something useful, please let me know.

And with that, I'll wish you a happy month and hope to post more good stuff soon.

More Christmas Previews

Christmas is closing in, and this year that means I've been working to develop my stock music library.

Holiday Tracks Starting to Move

I got a sale today on my original piece called "Holiday Joy." Looks like producers are starting to gear up for their seasonal videos and other media projects.

Thank you all for listening and buying . . . and may all your Christmases be bright.