Jeffstunes progress on Youtube

I'm going off track a little here to talk about a certain European song contest. Music being my priority.

I watched the Eurovision song contest yesterday evening. My main reason was to be entertained by the commentary of Terry Wogan.

Those of you outside Europe may not know this competition, but within Europe, it's always been a big deal.

The overall result was of little surprise to me. With neighbour countries having a habit of casting votes for each other. None more that what I like to term as Eastern Bloc Europe. So Russia were the victors this time around. How surprising!

I had to laugh when one judge said "The best song in Europe", and one of the judges unknowingly got very close to the truth when they said it was a "Great concert", because a concert is pretty much all it was. It certainly isn't a fair competition any more. Terry Wogan said something like that. He is even considering not commenting on the competition next year, I mean concert :)

Am I sore that the British song came joint last with votes from ony 2 countries? No, I'm very shocked though, because I considered it one of the best 5 songs, and I would like to think that I know a bit about music.

It's even more amazing if you look in all the European charts. There's always British and American music there. And why is that? Well, because it's cutting edge.

I thought it was a toss up between Turkey and Norway for the title. Turkey's song was a modern sound, that was not too far removed from a band called Muse, and for pure songwriting craft, you have to give it to Norway. It's some consolation that they got into the top 10. The British composition was a pretty good one this time around, and deserved a top 10 placing too. Commiserations to Poland and Germany too (I liked the Polish entry) who were joint bottom with us. The rest of Europe must see them as having close political links with us. Political, you hear me say?

That's right. The competition now has a new name for me. The Eurovision Political Popularity Contest. Well, it's certainly not about the merits of the compositions. I think that was made blindingly obvious last night.

So what are my thoughts on Europe?

I love it, and would like to visit all the European countries in my lifetime, and meet the locals. I'm just a normal individual who loves people and doesn't colour them for the deeds of their fellow countrymen.

You can accept or refute my views. I'm not really qualified to comment on such an event. After all, I'm just a Songwriter :)

Well, it's almost a year on Youtube now, and I've been thinking about what I've achieved so far. In my opinion, not very much. In relation to lots of others, the Youtube progress is probably quite good, but not as far as my aspirations are concerned. I'm only about 250 subscribers outside the top 100 UK musicians of all time. That appears to be great, but it's not supported me financially at all.

Basically, I'm a singer/songwriter. I write what I consider to be good songs, and that's been backed up by good friends and industry professionals. I realise that at the age of 42, I'm no spring chicken. So I'm not aiming to be a performer. The obvious path is to be a songwriter, and then promote my songs to signed bands. In the hope that they would want to record some of my material. It doesn't matter what age you are. As long as you write good songs that people will want to sing.

This all came about from seeing the Jonathan ross show yesterday evening. The main guest was Neil Diamond. This is a man that started out as a songwriter. Writing such classics as "I'm a believer", which was made famous by "The Monkees". I'd be more than happy with 1 percent of Neil's success. Neil is someone that my vocals have been strongly compared to.

So I'm not throwing in the towel yet. It's true that the longer you make an effort. The more credible you become to the music industry. The more songs you write, the bigger the chance of someone picking one of them up. I've written and recorded over 100 songs, but I've only made about 20 of them public. At this very moment I'm writing another new one!

Here's some advice for aspiring songwriters. Don't ever give up. It might come to nothing, but at least if you try. You'll know whether you could have made it or not. That's much better than not knowing at all, and looking back and wondering what if?

If you don't have good financial backing, then it can be a massive sacrifice. You can get to the stage where you have virtually nothing. If you are determined enough then you will not let that affect your efforts.

I'm going to finish this post with a link to my Youtube channel, and the latest YT statistics.

Here is my channel. You can listen to some of my original songs there.

Jeffstunes Youtube Channel

My Subscribers = 621

My Channel views are 13,352

My Total video views are 195,657

I'm going to be recording some of my new song today, so I'll be enjoying that.

Until next time :)

I have started writing a new song, so there probably will not be any new videos in the next few posts. I thought it would be a good idea to mention some of my comments and messages, because I get so many of them now.

First of all, my "Fun with faces" video. I've now got 8 response videos to it, and more are promised. This is so much fun. If any of you are a member of youtube and fancy trying it out with your pic, then be my guest. Post it as a response to my video. The link is below:

Fun with faces

This has been my best perfoming video, as far as the honours are concerned. At one stage it had 20. The honour that surprises me the most is that the video is in the top 100 Most responded comedy videos in the UK, of all time!!!!

Astounding!!

A few days back, I had a comment on one of my videos, telling me that I resemble "Miroslav skoro". I had never heard of him, so I did a quick search for videos. It's hard to compare yourself to someone else. I just can't see any likeness at all. The only comparison I can draw it that the hair is quite similar in some vids.

Well, how's things going on the stats front.

616 subscribers now and the channel viewings are at 13,110. They've been moving a bit faster in the last week. My total video views are 191,821. It should pass the 200k in less than 2 weeks, the way things are going.

It's almost been a year since I joined Youtube. June 2nd will be the anniversary. I'm hoping to have my new song recorded and ready by then. It's going to be interesting to see what the second year will bring.

The fun with faces video I uploaded has had a really good reaction. As I described in the previous post, I saw a Website used on television and wanted to have a go at it myself, and make a video out of it. In that video I urged other Youtubers to try it with their own pictures and then post their own video as a response to mine.

I've had six responses so far, and each of them are hilarious. Here are the 6 users that have responded to my video so far.

gersing

UpDownMostly

beachfrontal

grandplans

Midnightsongstress7

yeuxlumineuxNtx

You can take a look at their responses by visiting my vid, and clicking on the video responses below it.

Fun with faces

I've discovered in the last day, the web site has adding more transformation options, since I did mine.

I might do another post update if I get a good few more responses. I am having great fun with all this, plus it helps get a little more exposure for my music :)

I was watching a T.V. program hosted by Graham Norton last night. and he went on a website that transformed faces into different ages and races. Such as a child and an East-Asian. All you have to do is upload a picture of you, and you are ready to transform. I thought I'd give it a try, and upload the results to my Youtube channel.

I set it as a challenge to the Youtube community. Asking them to go to the site and do the same with their picture. Then post them as a video response to my one. That way, all our strange pictures could be accessible from one place.

I wanted to use music as a background to the slideshow, so I found another old song I wrote, and used that. The name of the song is "I understand". That way I could show another of my unheard songs, whilst having fun at the same time.

Check out my video to see what happened to my photo:

As per usual. Here are some Youtube numbers.

My subs have breezed past the 600 barrier and are now 605.

Channel views are 12,798.

My total video views are getting real close to the 200k mark now, and currently stand at 186,136. I estimate is should take around 2 to 3 weeks to get there.

The reaction to the last cover I did, "Yellow" by "Coldplay" was very positive. It got a good burst of viewings in the first few days. Over 800.

That was my most requested song. Now on to the second most requested song. A fairly new number from one of my favourite bands, Travis. The title of the song is Closer, and it's off of their latest album.

I had a few ideas for the video, but I wanted to save the best ones for my original songs. So I ended up making a video for this, which was humerous. The opening sequence on this video, really gave my video editing software a run fir its money. I'm pleased with it though.

See what you think of my rendition of Closer by Travis. I hope you find the video amusing. It made me laugh when I made it.

I've uploaded a number of vids in the past few weeks, but the effect on my Youtube numbers is quite minimal. They are still quite constant. My subs are now up to 597. Only 3 more to get to 600.

My channel has now been viewed 12,631 times and there have been a total of 183,585 viewings of my videos.

That's about it for now.

Now on to the 67th video, which has recently been uploaded. This is a cover of a Coldplay song from the album "Parachutes". I have been asked by many people to do a cover of this song, so it's about time I got around to doing it.

I used to sing this song quite a lot, and a number of my close friends really like it. I find Coldplay songs enjoyable to sing because of the scope for versatility in the vocals, and the chance to do falsetto, and this song is not short on that.

See what you think:

Well the numbers are still steadily rising on Youtube. Here's the latest.

Iv'e now got 589 Subscribers. I'm closing in on 600.

12,360 Channel views, and an overall video view count of 178,166. I should pass the 200,000 within a month, the way things are going.

A few friends suggested that I try out for the Youtube partnership program. Well, i did, and got politely turned down. It seems that I don't have enough original material, or enough regular traffic to my channel yet, to justify inclusion. I shall keep on trying :)

On the third of May 1995, at 1:23am. My daughter was born. In 2008 she finally became a teenager. It's been 13 years of wonder, and great memories for me. I've taken so many pictures, and so much video of her, and I'm really glad I did. It's all there for me to re-visit, and live the memories again.

So many people have been mesmerised by my daughter. Probably because of her remarkable eyes. I would say that though. I'm her father. All parents think their own children are very beautiful. I definitely do :)

One of the things I am most proud of, is that she has a beautiful nature too. That's a rare thing. She is totally unselfish, and would give what she has to make others happy. The only thing she ever asks me for is my company, and a hug.

My daughter has also started writing poetry, which is something I did as a child. Even better. One of her poems has been selected for publication in a book of childrens works. Onla a few have been chosen from her school. That makes me feel really proud.

I decided to cover a song, and change 2 words in it to suit my message. The song is "The air that I breathe" by the Hollies. I altered the line "Making love to you", and changed it to "Making part of you". I sung it, and put together some clips of my daughters first year of life.

Check it out, and watch out for those eyes :)

Here's the latest state of play on the Youtube numbers.

There are 577 subscribers.

12,095 Channel views.

The overall video views are 174,676.

I decided I should start putting up a string of cover versions. It's an attempt to try and put a dent in my request list. The chances of me getting to the end of the list are about nil. There is currently more than a hundred songs on it, and that number keeps on climbing. The probelm is that I get about 4 or 5 request for every song I do.

I thought I'd change the way I do things with my covers. Instead of sitting in front of the camera singing, I will make a recording of the songs initially, and then making the videos for them. This should hopefully result in me getting better quality. It also means that I can make the videos a little bit more interesting.

So the first one I chose to do was "Tears in heaven" by Eric Clapton. A very sad song that Eric wrote after the death of his son. I couldn't begin to comprehend his grief.

Check out my version of this wonderful song.

The latest on the Youtube Jeffstunes figures.

Subs = 569

Channel Viewings = 11884

Total Views = 171739

I've got a load more covers to put up. I haven't decided which one on the list is going to be next. I'll be recording a number of them. Then I will select from that bunch :)