Our First Post : The Dream
What do you call a small group of guys trying to build a sheet music app?
A. Really Awesome
B. Really Crazy
C. Bob, Joe, Larry, Pete, and Bill
D. Stanza Music, Inc.
E. All of the above
See bottom for answer.
No, but seriously, I'm supposed to write the first update for Stanza. What can I say? How does one capture the enthusiasm and drive for this fantastic dream we are working towards? How do I portray our feeling of the necessity of this project? I think the best way is just to tell you the story.
The Beginning
For years, there have been murmurings among singers of the Church of God in Christ, Mennonite, that we need an app that could access all of the shape note songs. Imagine, whenever you needed to find a song, however obscure, you could open the app, search for it by title, first line, or author, and it would come up. Not only could you see where the song was, but you could also view and sing it easily in the app without needing to hunt down the book it comes from. Such an app would vastly improve the way we access sheet music. Due to the nature of the project, no one has tackled it…until now.
Although our ambitions go back years, Stanza Music as it is known today began as a chat. At first, this chat was dedicated to songwriting, music theory, and lame jokes. As our friendships grew, we discovered that some of us had been seriously considering building a sheet music app for years, and some steps had already been taken toward it. With the enthusiasm and support of the rest of the group, we began to feel that we might be ready to take on this challenge. We realized from the beginning that such an endeavor would be enormously ambitious, but as we discussed the complexities involved, we began to believe that it could be accomplished. Having delved into the quite extensive archives of our chat, I believe that we really became serious about building the app on December 5, 2022. We decided that the name Stanza would fit our app well, and in January of 2023 we organized Stanza Music, Inc. with the state of Missouri.At the end of January we met in Michigan to have fun, sing together, and discuss Stanza. We spent a lot of time perfecting this website and figuring out the best way to get your money discussing the project in general. We have now launched this website to share our dream with singers everywhere and to hopefully collect donations for building Stanza.
Why We Need A Sheet Music App
There are several reasons why we are building Stanza. One is convenient access. We want to feature as many sheet music songs as we can get permission to distribute. Will we have the largest collection in existence? Well, one can hope. There appears to be a large number of chats dedicated to searching for songs that are difficult to access, and we feel that Stanza would solve this problem. Also, those who love to sing will not have to carry a large collection of books everywhere. For those with access to a projector, the app will make singing from it easy. Stanza will provide access to an enormous library of songs from wherever you are. You will be able to create collections of favorite songs, youth or school songbooks, and songs for specific events such as weddings, funerals, singing evenings, etc.
The second reason we need the app is a bit more of a touchy subject. Smartphones have made it easy to scan sheet music and share it far and wide among friends, as well as create collections in Google Drive, Dropbox, or a similar service. According to copyright laws, the copyright holder has the right to be compensated for each copy of their song, and often this is not done. We are aware that there is a vast amount of technically illegal sheet music floating around, collected in cloud folders and on chats or simply in physical sheet music. Stanza would solve this problem by compensating each copyright holder for the use of their songs.
A third reason we have discussed is that we could potentially publish new songs on the app. However, we do not intend Stanza to be a platform where authors can self-publish. Our current thought is that new songs would go through a proofreading and editing process before being approved for Stanza, similar to the process for approving new songbooks. That being said, we do not know exactly how it will all work in the end, and at this time we are only looking for previously published works.
Challenges of Building Stanza
Make no mistake, building Stanza will not be easy. There are many complexities involved in making this dream a reality. Although the road ahead is long and somewhat unknown, we are stepping forward in faith that God will make a way. The most prominent issue is that of money. Developing a mobile app for both Android and iOS is a very costly endeavor. At this time, we cannot put an exact price tag on this project, but it will be a significant sum**.** To put it bluntly, the only way we will be able to build this app is with your donations. The more money you donate, the better the app is going to be. You can visit our donate page to help us out. Your donations will be used only for design and development costs; we at Stanza Music are not paying ourselves for the time that we put into the app.
Another challenge is getting permission from publishers to distribute their songs on Stanza. Anyone that has published a song can help us out by signing up via our Signup page.
We have discussed many ideas for the design of the app, too many to be able to describe them all. One of our concepts can be seen on the home page of this website. We don't know exactly what the final version of the app will look like, but we intend to put your money into making it as user-friendly and convenient as possible. And speaking of money…
If we are going to distribute sheet music legally, the copyright holderof a song needs to be paid royalties for each use of their song. Naturally, this money must come from somewhere. No one wants an ad-based app, so we must charge a monthly or yearly subscription fee for the use of Stanza. The subscription will allow unlimited access to the Stanza library.
We are very enthused about Stanza and we hope you can catch a vision of this project as well. We will use this page to update you on how your donations are being used to build the app. We thank you for your support and we welcome your questions, suggestions, criticisms, and comments.
Answer: What do you think? Tell us in the comments.