United Song project hopes to feature CNMI talent

A non-profit organization is calling all musicians and singers in the CNMI to vie for a spot to represent the islands in a project that aims to feature one singer or musician from every country in the world in a song.

The non-profit, simply called United Song, currently has 225 artists working from different locations around the world, with many in the Pacific involved, including Palau, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Australia, Samoa, American Samoa, Fiji, and most recently, Guam, according to producer Eric Helzer.

Helzer told Saipan Tribune that he hopes someone from the Northern Marianas could be a part of the multinational production.

“We have been working on the project for four years now and we currently have 225 people from different locations involved. We only need 14 more people to complete the final song. Yes, we are only having one person per country/territory,” he said.

As for who gets to be in the song once they reach out, Helzer said, “I reply to each person in the order that they contact me and there is no official audition. The project is open to anyone regardless of experience. There is also no drop date for the project because we do not know how long it will take to find the remaining people. We are all excited to complete the project and hope to do so soon but we cannot complete the song without everyone.”

Helzer said, “I will also add that this is a 100% nonprofit project, with no money for anyone including myself. It is strictly an art project and the song will never be sold. It will always be available for free for anyone who wants to listen, download, or play it.”

He said the project is more about representation and is totally non -profit.

When asked about the song itself, Helzer shared that the lyrics can be found on their website.

“The lyrics that you see on the web page are the basic lyrics for the song. Each person is given the choice to sing these lyrics or write their own (in the same theme) and sing them in any language. I wrote the lyrics and I wanted them to be something everyone could relate to. The lyrics are an invitation for the entire world to sing along with us.”

When it comes to the melody and chord progression, Helzer shared, “We also have a melody for the lyrics and we use these lyrics and melody so we can combine different voices together in harmony. Each person is given a recording of the melody and they can sing along to any part of the song that they like. We also allow for people to write their own lyrics (in the same theme) and they can sing them in any language. We will have sections of the song for these contributions. We use a portion of each person’s contribution to create the final song.”

Helzer said they also have many people playing instruments on the project.

“We have a basic recording track and welcome the addition of any instrument. As of right now, about half of our artists sing and the other half play instruments. The final song will be built from all of the contributions and everyone involved will get equal songwriting credit.”

With hundreds of musicians and vocalists from around the world on the project, Helzer shared that the project itself has already built a great community.

“We all stay connected in a Facebook group and have become a family by way of this project. We hope to find someone in CNMI that would enjoy being a part of a project like this.”

To learn more, visit https://theunitedsong.org/ or you can email theunitedsong@gmail.com. Helzer shared that he can also be reached at https://www.facebook.com/goodlife.helzer.7.