I Will Not Require Any Payment for My Time or Advise. I am willing to help advise you if you are serious about developing your vocal talent. I will never ask you to pay for the time I spend helping you in an advisory capacity. If you are finding my advice to be valuable and wish to make a donation, to help defer the costs involved with operating this site and the other costs I incur in keeping abreast of the industry, you are more than welcome to. I make a PayPal link available at the bottom of my main or welcome page.

If I incur any expenses on your behalf -- filing copyright claims, web site development costs, etc -- I will expect to be reimbursed for those amounts. If, at some time in the future, you convince me to help you in any manner that requires me to travel or incur other expenses, I will expect to be reimbursed for those expenses and, perhaps then, a modest stipend for my time.

All I hope for is a "thank you" when you find my advise helpful. My thanks and pleasure will come in seeing you realize your dream. And, after your career is well established, you could thank me in the liner notes of your first professional CD release, give me a couple tickets to your first Boston Fleet Center Show, or thank me when you accept your Grammy Award.

I Will Not Have You Sign Any Contract with me. There will be no contract involved with my offering my advise to you. I will advise you as much, or as little, as I deem appropriate. You may take, consider, accept, act on, rely on, modify, select, reject, or ignore any or all of that advise as you see fit. No part of this or any associated documents, or of any other communications we may exchange, either written, electronic, or verbal, is intended to imply any contractual obligations on the part of either of us or any other party, directly or indirectly related to either of us.

In plain old English; Either you or I can end our advisor/advisee relationship. It can be ended at any time. It can be ended for any reason; or no reason at all. When it is ended, nether of us can bring a law suite against the other for any breach of contract. Simply because there is NO contract.

I will help you as long as you wish me to, and as long as I believe I can be of help. At any point either one of us wants to end our working relationship, he/she should only let the other know. I promise not to quit and leave you hanging with loose ends. If you do quit, all I would hope for would be a short note as to why. Knowing why may help me to improve the way I deal with others.

If, at some point in the future, we agree that I provide services to you, which go beyond advise, there may be a simple contract involved. It is not likely that this will happen and it certainly will not happen soon.

Meeting with you in person is not on my agenda. I will be working with you in an advisory capacity. Advice can be given via e-mail. When you actually hit the road, I may choose to accept an urgent phone call now and again. I have no current interest in spending a lot of time on the road and you don't need to have to pay me to give you that advice in person.

Investing my money in developing your career is also not something I am prepared to do. If I, with your approval, spend any money on your behalf, I will expect to be reimbursed. I have time and knowledge, and I will share that with you. I am not particularly wealthy and so am inclined to hang on to what I have, as I will try to help you hang on to yours.

Deal honestly and ethically with me and with the other people you will interact with in the course of building your career. Furthermore, I would expect that you not tolerate dishonest or unethical people around you.

A reputation for honesty is an important and valuable asset in the business world. People will respect you for your honesty and will be willing to help you because of it. Without it, you will be at a considerable disadvantage. When people don't trust you, they will hesitate to work with you. When they do work with you, it will only be for their perceived benefit and they will be more interested in protect themselves from you than in help you.

Put forth some effort in advancing your career. It will NOT be easy. It will not be quick. It certainly will not be a sure thing. It will take a great deal of your time and effort. I will be happy to help you as long as I think you are putting effort into it yourself. I will not feel inclined to put my effort into furthering the career of someone who isn't willing to work at it themselves. Been there.

Communicate with me. Our communication is the key to enabling me to really assist you in accomplishing your goals. I can't help if I don't know what is going on with you and your situation. At some point in your career, I may be able to see what is going on with you in the news. I suspect though that it will be a while before that happens.

Meanwhile, you have to tell me not only what is going on, what is happening and what is not, what is working and what is not. You have to tell me how you feel about things. How the people around you feel and what they are saying to you about how things are going with you and your career. You have to communicate the good, the not so good, and the downright horrible.

My Main Rule

Plagiarism will not be tolerated. That is the only real hard and fast "rule" that I have. People work hard for the creative product. You will work hard for yours. It would be no more proper for you to copy someone else's work and call it your own than for someone to do that to you. Not to mention that Plagiarism can result in being sued.

It is hard not to use a line in a lyric or a riff that you heard somewhere. You may not even consciously remember hearing or reading it. I will help you learn how to check for, and avoid, such issues. I will try to watch for such errors in your creative works. I will not feel inclined to remain associated with you though, if I begin to feel that you are doing it on purpose. My reputation is important to me. Yours should be important to you.

Procedures

Communication will normally take place via e-mail. If an issue is served better by something an article I have, or someone else has, written, my e-mail will include a link to that article. You may initially send me audio recordings and photographs as e-mail attachments. We will discuss how to do that if you don't already know.

At some point, we will likely want to exchange documents or recordings on tape or CD via the mail. We can work that out when the time comes. Unless you want to rent a mailbox for that purpose, there will be a loss of anonymity at that point.

Copyright Notice should be affixed to all your creative works. You should get used to placing the notice on your work as you begin the first draft. You should certainly make sure the proper copyright notice is affixed to any of your creative work that leaves your hands (or your computer). Sending files -- text, audio, or picture -- over the Internet is not entirely safe. You can never be sure that the person you send it to will be the person, or the only person, who sees it. Files get misdirected, intercepted, or copied. Anything that gets into the hands of someone else has a potential for being used and claimed by them.