A new Christian music band: Touch of Gospel Touch of Jazz
Touch of Gospel Touch of Jazz is a Michigan-based band that primarily plays Christian music. We also play jazz, with jazz being broadly defined as music which features some degree of improvisation.
Touch of Jazz will take a very unique approach to music creation. On April 29, 2024, I posted the following on Facebook to announce the band:
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Dear Family and Friends,
I did my best below. This is just my initial idea. It's going to evolve as more people get involved.
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The new band will be Touch of Gospel Touch of Jazz (togtoj.org). Today, I registered the domain name togtoj.org. I'll try to get the website up in the next few days or weeks.
Anyone will be welcome to join Togtoj: the only requirements: humility, character, a willingness to play Christian music, a willingness to learn, and a willingness to play beautiful music with a group of equal peers. Whether the prospective new band-member has these attributes will be democratically determined by the current band members.
As we get more members (with each member paying dues) we'll have more flexibility in what we're able to do. Rehearsal time and dates will probably be decided in our first few band meetings.
1.) It'll be a democratic organization: there'll be no boss. All band members will be equals, and everyone's input will be carefully considered before we make decisions.
2.) I'm going to propose the following at our 1st meeting:
2a. Band members will pay monthly dues ($20/month???)
2b. The dues will be used to pay for arrangements of our songs, gear such as tablets for music, uniforms??? etc., and other band needs.
2c. We'll pick songs for our songbook in a round robin fashion: member 1 will pick song one, member 2 will pick song 2, member 3 will pick song 3, so on and so forth.
2d. Each member of the band will be featured on their favorite song.
2e. All songs will be arranged in MuseScore so that each member of the band can hear exactly how their part sounds and each part will be edittable in MuseScore (the parts won't be set in stone: they can evolve as we get new ideas).
2f. Every member of the band will be treated with dignity and respect, and we'll acknowledge that each of us brings different strengths and weaknesses to the table. The long-term goal will be to build on each member's strength, build confidence, and to minimize/eventually eliminate each member's weaknesses, to the extent possible.
2g. When performing at Churches, any donations from the Church/the parishioners will be split EQUALLY among all members of the band. This will also hold true for pay at other venues.
2h. As much as possible, we'll write original songs collaboratively, and the whole band will get writing credit for our original songs (a friend told me that the Beatles did something similar to this).
2i. We may one day publish books of our music so that other bands can play our original music if they wish. All band members will get a share of book sales.
2j. Togtoj will primarily play Christian music, but we'll probably also play jazz, with jazz being broadly music that our members enjoy that may feature some degree of improvisation.
2k. The band will have formal positions such as Treasurer and Music Director, and all financial and other decisions will be fully transparent. All band members will be paid the same for the same work.
2l. one day, we may register as a non-profit and obtain a trademark. I use to work for the USPTO so I know how trademarks work. I'm going to post FB post this to Djere.com so if someone tries to trademark the name Touch of Gospel Touch of Jazz, the Trademark Examiner doing the prior art search will find that post.
3.) By playing music that every member of the band loves, we'll build each member up and make ALL members of the band feel appreciated and integral to our music-making process.
Thank you for reading this!!! I did my best. Groups make better decisions than individuals, so my only goal with the work I've done so far is to give the band the best start possible. I have faith that we'll develop processes to take this band to very high places in the future.