Hello Dave.

Per your comment, "I believe a young talent will be more interested in advancing his/her career than a one-shot money award," this was my hope going into the project. I am not naive in thinking people would not be more compelled to participate if there was the prospect of winning money. The big question is what else can a cash-strapped organization offer, and you make some fine thoughts. My hopeful speculation was once we secured a song to record, attracting musicians to record with us will be much easier than attracting a songwriter, based on sheer volume of players vs number of songwriters. We hope that by designing this as a contest of sorts, through auditions, we will be able to pick the higher caliber of musicians to record original works. As such, while I know it is not much, what we offered was the songwriter will be getting a high quality recording/demo of his/her work performed by high caliber musicians, the experience of collaborating and recording using new technologies and techniques, plus bragging rights that he/she won a contest. Eventually we will have supporting funding which will allow us to offer monetary rewards.

To your point, we are trying to provide other intangible enticements. For instance, we have a contact to a producer who has been nominated for over 50 Grammys. We are reaching out to this person to see if he will agree to serve as producer for the project. That way, we could say hey, if your song is selected, you and the musicians will be working with this respected and known industry individual who will produce your song. But, it takes time and trust to build those relationships. That is something I am constantly working on and is a constant challenge.

I hear what you are saying regarding a contest requiring a PR Team. One of the big lessons learned has been as we grow as an organization and expand nationally and eventually globally, we cannot sustain the marketing of our projects with the lean team of volunteers we currently have. So I completely agree with you on that point and the Board of Directors have already discussed the need to add a Board Member who will oversee the marketing of the organization.

Yes, all songs submitted will be original compositions with rights owned by the songwriters. In the application documents, we define how the rights of the song are distributed amongst participants. When we were based out of Colorado, we set up a relationship with the University of Denver's Sturm College of Law. We worked with two law professors who assigned a student attorney to Global Z to assist us in defining how to approach publishing and copyright agreements. While this was highly productive, the direction we are moving has taken us not only out of Colorado, but will expand our projects across national boundaries. So we hope to find a law program in MD or the DC area we can work with to provide guidance as expand. We are equally about creating educational partnerships and learning opportunities for university students and have a history of partnering with community schools.

I respect your position of 'peace through strength.' I am former 82nd Airborne. One of my personal philosophies is belief in the need for balance in all things. I do not deny the need for military or police forces. But, there are multiple ways we can achieve peace on many levels. What we seek to achieve is largely supported by scholarly research. I have plowed through the peer-reviewed literature to help ensure that our model is sound. Also, as an academician who specializes in distance education and computer-mediated communication, I have repeatedly witnessed how people of difference, from around the world, can bond while participating on a unified project. Lasting friendships have formed from these virtual experiences and resulted in people traveling across oceans to meet their newly found friends face-to-face. I do not expect everyone will embrace what we do and have experienced this already. But, different people are impacted in different ways and I am confident we will make a difference in the lives of some people. I thank you for your words of caution and perception. We are genuine and have nothing but good intentions at heart. Unfortunately, the only way to prove this is through our deeds and achievements over time.

Regarding your mention of our volunteer team being more academia than music industry, yes, that is true. The academicians who have the literature-based background understand and quickly get behind what we seek to do. We also have a history of partnering with universities and colleges. We are vetted prior to and during our partnership projects and have had excellent experiences in these partnerships.

I have been in touch with music industry people and getting big names onboard is more challenging. David Wiener has been the exception. David is an entrepreneur and owner of DWV Entertainment, the Respect the Music Foundation, and former owner of pro audio brand, Aphex. sE Electronics is the other industry name working with us. I am incredibly grateful to them for their willingness to work with us early in our building years. I have talked with a number of music industry folks and while they are really excited about what we are doing, they are - understandably - concerned with getting behind us until we can prove that their name/brand will be associated with an organization that is proven to be a positive force and has a proven track record. This is mirrored when we have gone after grant money. Foundations want to make sure they are not throwing away money on an organization that will disappear at any given time. It is the proverbial catch-22 scenario. When you are successful, it is easy to attract A-listers. The challenge is attracting them when you need them most - when the coffers are small and you need funds just to survive.

Lastly, I understand that "Americana" is a highly subjective genre. To me that is part of the appeal. When you bring together musicians from a variety of life experiences and influences, it is exciting to see what develops :-)

My whole-hearted thanks for the time and thoughts, Dave.

Bill