IMPORTANT!
If you have not yet reached your 18th birthday (or other legal age-of-majority in the state or territory in which you reside) you must have your parents consent to submit an application or to communicate with us at all.
If you indicate any age less than 18 years, you are asked for an e-mail address to contact a parent or legal-guardian. The first thing I am going to do, upon receiving this information, is to contact them, make sure you have talked with them about this, and ask them to sign a release to communicate with you.
I will reply directly to you only after obtaining that release and finding myself reasonably satisfied as to the authenticity of it. All my communications to you, until the time you reach your 18th birthday, will be copied to the e-mail address of your parent or guardian.
If you indicate that you are 18 or over, when you are not, you will be violating my trust and my request to be dealt with in an honest and ethical manner. When I find out that you have misrepresented your age, I will drop you like a hot potato.
If you are under 14 years old, please read How Young is Too Young? before continuing.
The Application Form
Actually, that would be the lack of an Application Form. I have NO FORM for you to fill in. What I would like is for you to write me an e-mail. Tell me about yourself and why you would like our advice. Hearing from you in this way gives me a much better feel for the person you are than receiving a list of dry answers. Just be sure to include the basic information outlined below.
Basic Personal Information
that I need, up front, and why I need it.
A name. I need to call you something. Your real name would simplify matters. When we start working on your public relations and getting you some local performances, I will have to know your real name. This could, and probably will, be fairly soon. If, however, you feel that you would like to retain some degree of anonymity to begin with, a stage name, nickname, or a made-up name will due for now.
Do not feel bad about wanting to retain anonymity. It is a dangerous world, both the physical world and the internet world. This is particularly so for young people and women. I am, after all, a stranger to you. Please read carefully the sections on An E-Mail Address and Copyright Notice, below, before you decide on a name. These can, and probably should, all be related.
An E-Mail address. E-mail will be the only way we communicate, at least initially. If you wish to retain some anonymity, you should not use an e-mail address that contains your real name. You can get a new e-mail account, at no cost, from several sources. Open that e-mail account using some form of the name you pick for us to communicate with.
It is probably a good idea to have a separate e-mail address for our use anyway. It would serve to help keep our communications organized and not cluttered with unrelated matter.
Your age and gender. It is important that I know your age and gender. It is unfortunate but, the industry deals differently with a sixteen year-old than with a twenty-four, and with a male than with a female. It may also be important for the legal, business, and other issues that I will probably advise you on.
What Geographical Area do you live in? I don't want your address or, initially, even the town. In order to advise you on many matters, I have to know what kind of an area you live in (rural, town, suburban, city) and what large city is closest to you. It would also be helpful to know if that city is quick and easy for you to reach or if it is a several hours drive.
What Experience and Training do you have? Do you sing in a church choir, a community or school choral group, or with a band? Do you enjoy Karaoke? Have you had voice lessons; ether a Private Professional Voice Coach or a Professional Music or Vocal Teacher in your school? How long have you taken or did you take lessons? How often were the lessons? How long were the sessions? Do you currently take lessons? If not, why?
Parent or Guardian Contact Information. If you are under the age of 18 years, we must have a way of contacting one of your Parents or a Legal Guardian. After they have looked over this site and decided that you may pursue our assistance, they should provide you with the e-mail address that they wish us to have to communicate with them. A name that they would like us to address them by (Mr. Jones, Mrs. Smith, Hilda...) would also be helpful.
This parental e-mail address will be used to send them a consent form to sign and return to us. It will be used to respond to any questions or concerns they may have. It will also be used to copy them on all the communications we send to you. They may wish to consider creating a separate e-mail account for this purpose.
Other Information
I will need early on.
I will need some more information, some of it a bit personal, early on in our working together. I would perfer that you do not give it to me initially. I would rather you gave me a detaled account of your singing experiance and education and worry about this stuff a bit later. None of it will matter in my desiding to help you or not.
Copyright Notice. You will probably be sending me copies of lyrics, music, poems, photographs, and other "creative works". Any and all creative material that you produce, should be labeled with a copyright notice to help protect it from being stolen and used by others. Nothing sent over the internet is safe from prying eyes. You can never be sure that I will be the only person to see the material. If you do not already have a copyright notice that you use, and are not familiar with the structure and use, don't worry. We can cover that when the time comes.
For now, be aware that part of the copyright notice is the name of the person claiming the copyright. This can be the person's real name, a name that can be readily recognized as that person, or a name that can be traced back to that person. The copyright notice that I use for work related to this site is "Copyright © 2008 Singer Help". Singer Help is not my name, but it can be traced to me. By "traced" I mean that, in the event of a business or legal matter, I can provide documentation that Singer Help is me, by virtue of my owning that web site.
So, consider what name you would like to use in your copyright notice. Keep in mind that the copyright notice you decide on will be for long-term use. You really should not use one form of notice on several documents and then change it. I would suggest, if you don't want to use your real name, that your copyright notice name consist of the initials of your real, legal name and four to six digits that relate either to your date of birth or your social security number. Those are references that are related to you and that will never change. I ask you to consider this now because you may wish to tie that name in with the e-mail address and the name you use to communicate with me. That will just serve to simplify things.
Have you been recorded recently? This could be either a professional recording or a decent quality home recording. It should be a solo, with no post-production processing. If you have, I will want to hear the recording(s). If not, that will be one of our first projects. If you need, I will guide you in making a recording and/or in sending it to me as an e-mail attachment.
What Equipment do you have available to you? Do you have a computer, in your home, which you have reasonable access to? Do you have a microphone for the computer? (It may have one build in.) Is there any kind of music recording or post-production software? Do you have an audio cassette recorder or other audio recording device at your disposal? Do you own or have access to any stage equipment, like amplifiers, microphones, and portable lighting?
Your Financial Situation. I don't want your money but others will. You will have to pay cash for some of the services I may recommend. Knowing if you have the cash, or are flat broke, I can advise you accordingly. So, let me know if you work and have a little cash, if your parents are filthy rich and will back you to the hilt, or if you are in school and don't work. Your financial situation, in itself, will not determine if I decide to advise you or not.
Your Schedule Flexibility is also important. What are your job, school, religious, or other regular commitments? What flexibility is there in them? Do you have time available on some evenings or weekends to put into the advancement of your career? Think about that before you apply. If you don't have a fair amount of time to dedicate to building your career, perhaps this is not a good time to start.
That's about it
for "applying" and the information I will need to get us started. If you have read through all this material, including the disclaimer, and wish to proceed, write that e-mail and send it off to me via the "Contact the Advisor" e-mail link below. I will review the message and get back to you with my initial thoughts, and likely a few questions.
If you have decided not to pursue our assistance at this time, I thank you for your interest. Perhaps you have a friend or two who may be interested in seeing our site. We appreciate word-of-mouth publicity as we do not pay to advertise our existence.
We would also enjoy hearing your opinion of our site. Was it hard to find the information you wanted? Is the font, and the font size, comfortable to read? Are the colors and backgrounds pleasing or distracting? We can always stand to improve the site and your opinions on it are appreciated.
I hope to hear from you soon.
The Adviser