Hi, my name is Jim Herrmann, and I'm really glad that you are checking out my Musical Progress site. I am the creator of the Musical Progress web site, which is designed for users to help identify any music that promotes progressive values. While this has been a fun project, I decided that I need a space to promote more specifically what I do.

I have been writing songs since 1984, when I was still in college. I wrote and recorded several songs in the late eighties, and I plan to get those transferred to this site at some point. After I got married and had children, I got busy with life, and my song writing dropped off to nothing for many years. In 2005 I was introduced to the Song Writers Circle, which was founded and run by David Haken. They meet once a month to showcase new songs, and take turns playing original material. This got me motivated to get writing again and I have written more songs since then than I had written in all my years prior. So, I really thank David for getting me back into writing. He provides a precious service to the Kansas City song writing community, and again I thank him for all that he does.

Many of the songs I have written since my writing revival do promote progressive values directly, and I will post those on the main Musical Progress site, as well as here. However, I have many songs that are just about life, or just for fun. I didn't want to make those a specific part of the main site, thus I created this sub-domain to share all of my music with you. I will release all of the songs on this site under a creative commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license, so you can share these songs with your friends, you can perform then, you can record them, and you can integrate them into your own work, all for free as long as it's non-commercial. You don't even have to tell me, altough I'd love it if you did. I just ask that you give credit to me, and that you also share any work derived from my work in the same fashion. If you wish to use my stuff for commercial use (i.e. you're going to sell it), I'd be tickled to death and would certainly allow that, but you need to talk to me first.

I also have started playing public performances of my music, and I needed a place to promote those performances, which I will do here. I plan to have other people play with me at some, or most, of these performances. I will invite other song writers that are trying to get started at playing out, and most especially, I want my children to play with me as much as possible. They are accomplished musicians in their own right, more so than I am. I love their playing almost as much as I love them.

So come along for the ride, check back here often, download my songs, sign up for my announcement list, come see my shows, and enjoy my music. I hope you do enjoy my music as much as I enjoy creating it for you.

Peace,
Jim