Jeff Edwards @ MindSay 
It's been a while since I last posted, and put any videos up on Youtube. It's been a very busy month, and very little of that has been music related. I went to the wedding of a very good friend, and it was one of the best weddings I've ever attended. We were very well looked after. Ferried around everywhere, so that we didn't have to worry about our alcohol levels :)
It took place on the Isle of Man. A highlight of the day was a tram that was hired out exclusively to transport us all to the peak of snaefell mountain. A bagpiper joined us. Together with plenty to eat and a sufficient supply of champagne.
I thoroughly enjoyed it, and was glad for the both of them that the event went so well.
I finally got back to doing a couple of cover songs. This one is another Coldplay tune called "Amsterdam". It featured on the album "A rush of blood to the head". This is one of my all time favourites of Coldplay. The vid just shows a collection of pictures. I admit I didn't spend much time on the vid, but the song was far more important to me :)
Check it out :)
There are a number other things I've been getting up to in the past month, though I'm not going to bother writing about it. It would fill several pages. I'm just going to crack on with the Youtube statistics.
I may have been neglecting my Youtube channel, but the numbers have still been increasing very well on their own.
I now have 806 subs. I was hoping to get to the 1,000 by the end of the year, but at this rate, it looks like it's going to pass that sooner.
Channel viewings are now up to 18,423. They are rolling along well.
Last, but by no means least. The total video views have inreased to 291,498. The 300k landmark is less than 2 weeks away now.
I've pre-recorded another song, and I'm hoping to make the video quite amusing. It is another song from the "Crash test dummies". I'm hoping I can put that up quite soon. Rather than wait another month :)
I made a decision to look for local musicians to get involved with my album project.
The biggest issue I have with my songwriting is on the music side. I believe that I write good songs, and that's been backed up by countless musicians and industry professionals.
I'm very happy with my lyric writing, and the general melodies. The issue comes when I convert the song from my mind, into reality. Because I only play a bit of guitar, I cannot seem to get the expression I want out of the instruments. Like I do with the vocals. I'm sure that I will in time, but I really want to get this album out before the end of this year.
I was chatting to a friend of mine who goes to the odd karaoke, and I discovered that he was in a band. He has requested my company a number of times at an open mic night. So I finally went on wednesday.
I ended up getting up and doing 2 numbers, with the help of a guitarist.
I must admit that I really enjoyed the night. The venue sort of reminded me a bit of the cavern club (of beatles fame). It was underground, and all arches. The acoustics were fantastic because the long arches acted like funnels for the sound.
At the end of the night, I was approached by a few of the musicians. Who asked me to come down and perform again. So I said I would learn one of their songs if they would learn one for me. We were all in agreement. So it looks like I'll be doing it again soon.
This experience sparked an idea. I could visit a number of open mic nights and get chatting with some of the musicians. Then see if any of them are interested in helping me out with developing my album. I'll make a CD of a few songs for them to listen to. If they like it then we will take it from there :)
I'm going to be putting more about this in my blog, as it happens. I found 2 potential musicians on wednesday, though nothing is in concrete until they are sitting in my studio, recording with me.
OK. So what's been going on on my Youtube channel. They have a habit of changing things, and this time they've removed the total video views from their statistics. So I had to do a manual count up. Here's the latest:
My subscribers are up to 746.
Channel views have increased to 17,049.
After a long counting process. I can tell you that my total viewing figures are 262,877.
You can visit my Youtube channel at the following link:
Now I have to go and learn "Afternoons and coffee spoons" for my next appearance at the open mic night :)
It's all good fun.
I chose to do a different song, but remain with the same band. Coldplay. After I had put up "Violet hill", I got a large number of requests to try "Viva la vida". There were too many to to pass it off. So I deided to record that one next. It's another one from their latest album with the same title.
some consider that it's not very professional to cover songs with backing tracks, but I always find a way of learning something in most things I do. I really want to improve my production skills. It's ok to record all the right bits for your song, but if the mix isn't produced properly, then all that work means very little.
One of the aspects I've been concentrating on is vocal production, and I've been trying to match that of the original song. It's made a big difference to my ears, and it's teaching me how to produce my own voice in relation to the different types of music.
I've implemented vocal boosting on this song. Plus low to moderate plate reverb in the verses. I've used the Chorus effect and a heavier plate reverb in the choruses.
This is the result. Viva la vida.
Now for some up to date figures from my Youtube account.
Subs have come and gone, but yesterday I awoke to the pleasant sight of 6 new subscribers. That puts the figure at 727.
Channel viewings are currently 16,529.
The overall video viewings have made it! They've gone past the quarter million views. All of this within a year of putting up my first Youtube video. The current figure now stands at 254,512.
I'm hoping I can now do that old album track cover that I said I was going to do in the first place :)
Now for some cover versions. This one is quite a recent tune, and is called "Violet hill". It's taken from the latest Coldplay album entitled "Viva la vida".
I've got a number of Coldplay songs lined up to do, and this is the first out of that selection. I really struggled with the falsetto in this one, so I had to take the music down a key. Even then I still struggled, but I just about managed it.
It's been quite noisy in the skies above my village over the past weekend. I live quite near to a place called Goodwood. They hold a number of annual events and one of them is called "The festival of speed". So while it was on, I snapped a few of the aircraft from my back garden. I've put those in the video. All I will say is that one aircraft in particular got extremely close, and it wasn't the smallest flying object in the world!!!
Check out my cover of this brilliant song, and see my snaps:
The Youtube stats are still moving well.
I've now got 721 subscribers.
My channel viewings are now up to 16,254.
The overall video views are so close now. 249,532. Barring disasters, it will pass the quarter of a million tomorrow :)
It's quite likely that my next song will be another Coldplay tune. I've got my eyes on an album track from a few years ago :)
This is the 3rd of my old original songs choices. This is a song called "Winner". The lyrics can be interpreted in many different ways, but I wrote it for mistaken friends who need support.
This song was also co-written with Mick Paul. I finish off with details about what mick is up to now in his music career.
If you watched the last vid I posted, you will have learned that Mick played bass on a David Hasselhoff single. I don't think there's many individuals who don't know who the Hoff is. After being in such shows as "Knight rider", "Baywatch" and "America's got talent".
Here is "Winner":
Mick is quite busy doing the touring thing at the moment, with an outfit named "The David Cross band". David Cross used to be in a band called "King Crimson". They were very well known. If you come from Italy, There's a good chance that you've heard of David Cross. He's quite popular there, and hence the reason why Mick does most of his touring there.
Now here's the regular Youtube numbers update.
My subscribers have seen a really good jump in the last few days. Racing past the 700 barrier to 717.
Channel viewings cruised to 16,017. That's the 16k barrier broken.
Last but by no means least. The total video views. They are 246,003. I hoped that they might possibly get to the quarter of a million by the 17th July. Which is the 1st year anniversary of my the first vid I uploaded on Youtube. At this rate, it looks like it's going to get there on the 15th!!
I'm probably going to do a few coldplay covers in my next few videos, and I'm hoping to bring some more news about my forthcoming album release.
I've created a mailing list for album news. I will only be using the email addresses for that purpose. It's so I can inform interested parties about events regarding the album, before I post the info anywhere else.
If anyone is interested in signing up for it then you can do just that if you go to the homepage on my website. Here's the URL:
Until the next post :)
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