Songwriting competition

Last updated

A songwriting competition is a contest whereby musicians submit original music to a third party or forum, generally to win a prize or some other benefit. Songwriting competitions have existed long before the advent of the Internet, but today many are conducted through websites or musician forums. An example is the John Lennon Songwriting Contest in New York, which was founded by Yoko Ono in 1997 and has existed both online and offline. Other important songwriting competitions are the Unisong International Song Contest in Los Angeles or the International Songwriting Competition in Nashville.

Winners receive money prizes exposure and airplay of their songs, sometimes recording contracts. Songwriting competitions, such as the 2FM Song Contest for song-writers aged under 21, are often called "career-boosts".

A variation on the theme of songwriting competitions is ComProsers, whose inaugural contest asks participants to read a short story first and create a piece of music inspired by that story. [1]

Yet another variation is the Write-With-A-Hit-Maker [2] songwriting contest. This annual event sponsored by the 20+ year old Durango Songwriters Expo [3] provides the winning songwriter with the rare opportunity to write a song with a bona fide hit songwriter. Hit songwriters who have participated in this event include Jeff Silbar ("Wind Beneath My Wings"), Kim Williams ("Three Wooden Crosses"), and Pam Sheyne ("Genie in a Bottle"). Some of the WWAHM song contest winners, including Alissa Moreno and Richard Harris, have gone on to have hits themselves and find their way onto the Billboard charts.

Song competitions can also be used to generate discussion and raise awareness of important social and political issues such as the Change the World With Your Song Song Competition [4] in which contestants write about a number of themes based around important social and political issues.

On June 3, 2015, American Songwriter magazine announced a new music / songwriting competition initiated by Fiverr, called The Big Hook. [5]

Songwriting competitions differ from singing competitions, such as Pop Idol and its spinoffs in various countries, because the latter do not require that the music submitted or performed be original; and instead the music there has usually been recorded by other artist previously and is often well known. American Idol however, later launched a subsidiary songwriting competition of its own. [6]

Related Research Articles

Benny Andersson Swedish musician; member of ABBA

Göran BrorBennyAndersson is a Swedish singer, musician, composer, producer, member of the musical group ABBA and co-composer of the musicals Chess, Kristina från Duvemåla, and Mamma Mia! For the 2008 film version of Mamma Mia! and its 2018 sequel, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, he worked also as an executive producer. Since 2001, he has been active with his own band Benny Anderssons orkester.

Songwriter Person who writes the words or music to songs

A songwriter is a musician who professionally composes musical compositions and writes lyrics for songs. A songwriter can also be called a composer, although the latter term tends to be used mainly for individuals from the classical music genre and film scoring, but is also associated writing and composing the original musical composition or musical bed. A songwriter who mainly writes the lyrics for a song is referred to as a lyricist. The pressure from the music industry to produce popular hits means that song writing is often an activity for which the tasks are distributed between a number of people. For example, a songwriter who excels at writing lyrics might be paired with a songwriter with the task of creating original melodies. Pop songs may be composed by group members from the band or by staff writers – songwriters directly employed by music publishers. Some songwriters serve as their own music publishers, while others have outside publishers.

Burt Bacharach American pianist, composer, producer (b. 1928)

Burt Freeman Bacharach is an American composer, songwriter, record producer and pianist who composed hundreds of pop songs from the late 1950s through the 1980s, many in collaboration with lyricist Hal David. A six-time Grammy Award winner and three-time Academy Award winner, Bacharach's songs have been recorded by more than 1,000 different artists. As of 2014, he had written 73 US and 52 UK Top 40 hits. He is considered one of the most important composers of 20th-century popular music.

Vanessa Denae Olivarez is an American singer, songwriter and actress. She is the vocalist, songwriter and autoharpist for the country bands Granville Automatic and Mama's Blue Dress, has written songs for the country duo Sugarland, and was in the Top 12 of the second season of the television series American Idol in 2003.

Diane Warren American songwriter, musician, and record producer

Diane Eve Warren is an American songwriter, musician, and record producer.

Kara DioGuardi American songwriter

Kara Elizabeth DioGuardi is an American songwriter, record producer, music publisher, A&R executive, and singer. She writes music primarily in the pop rock genre. DioGuardi has worked with many popular artists; sales of albums on which her songs appear exceed 160 million worldwide. DioGuardi is a 2011 NAMM Music for Life Award winner, 2009 NMPA Songwriter Icon Award winner, 2007 BMI Pop Songwriter of the Year, and has received 20 BMI Awards for co-writing the most performed songs on the radio.

David Francey Canadian folk singer-songwriter

David Francey is a Canadian folk singer-songwriter. He is the recipient of three Juno Awards and three Canadian Folk Music Awards.

Music competition Contest that rewards the best musical performer

A music competition is a public event designed to identify and award outstanding musical ensembles, soloists, composers, conductors and musicologists. Pop music competitions are music competitions which are held to find pop starlets.

Danny Sheridan American songwriter

Danny Sheridan was an American musician, songwriter, producer, actor, and entertainment manager. In 2006 he also became a radio personality on 97.1 KLSX Free FM. He is credited as an influential electric bass player, and as the founder of the Eli Radish Band, pioneers of the so-called outlaw country music genre. This is a style that Sheridan's former band-mate/vocalist David Allan Coe continues to perform today, with a string of hit songs like "Would You Lay with Me " and the anti-boss tune, "Take This Job And Shove It". Still in his teens, Sheridan's Eli Radish toured with such notable acts as The Who and The Doors. The lyrics of Coe's "Longhaired Redneck" forever memorialized the concerts he performed with Sheridan while fronting the Eli Radish Band. In 2014 Sheridan began managing Coe and co-produced his new CD "Just As I Am", with Boris Menart.

The Metro Manila Popular Music Festival was launched by the Popular Music Foundation of the Philippines in 1977 and held annually from 1978 to 1985. It was "the country’s pioneering and once foremost songwriting competition," according to The Philippine Star. Its objective was to promote the advancement of Filipino music, and its chief proponents were journalist Teodoro Valencia and Imee Marcos. These festivals launched many the careers of songwriters and singers, and gave original Filipino music more than a few memorable and modern-day song classics. Among them is Freddie Aguilar.

Regie Hamm is an American singer-songwriter. He has multiple credits as a songwriter, producer, musician, and artist.

Lesley Roy Irish singer

Lesley Roy is an Irish singer-songwriter from Balbriggan, County Dublin Ireland. Roy was signed to an independent Irish label in 2006 followed by a record deal with US label Jive Records. She released her debut album Unbeautiful in 2008, which was executive produced by Max Martin and which had a top 40 hit with the single Unbeautiful on US radio. Until switching her focus to songwriting/toplining and attracting the attention of Marc Jordan the former manager credited for launching the career of Rihanna and owner of Rebel One Management & Publishing. As a songwriter Roy has experienced international success with releases for artists including Adam Lambert, Miss Montreal, Medina, Jana Kramer, Marlee Scott, Deorro, Anish Sood and Brendan Murray.

Katrina "Trina" Belamide is a Filipino songwriter and record producer. According to the Manila Times she has written songs for most of the Philippines' top recording artists.

Hillary Lindsey American singer-songwriter

Hillary Lee Lindsey is an American singer-songwriter. She has written songs with or for a number of artists including Michelle Branch, Faith Hill, Martina McBride, Shakira, Lady A, Gary Allan, Sara Evans, Carrie Underwood, Kellie Pickler, Bon Jovi, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Tim McGraw and Luke Bryan. In 2006 and 2016, respectively, Lindsey won a Grammy Award for Best Country Song for Carrie Underwood's "Jesus, Take the Wheel" and for Little Big Town's "Girl Crush". In 2011, Lindsey received an Academy Award nomination for "Coming Home", recorded by Gwyneth Paltrow for the soundtrack of Country Strong, in the Best Original Song category. "Coming Home" also received a Golden Globe nomination that same year for Best Original Song along with "There's a Place for Us", making Lindsey a double nominee in 2011. As of 2018, she has had 20 number-one singles as a writer.

David Ernest Malloy is an American country music and pop songwriter, record producer and A&R executive with 41 number one hits. He had received multiple Grammy nominations, as writer and/or producer, and has worked with many artists and projects including USA for Africa, Tim McGraw, Dancing with the Stars Julianne Hough, Eddie Rabbitt, Dolly Parton, Reba McEntire, Kenny Rogers, Mindy McCready, Badfinger, and Tanya Tucker. Malloy received Grammy nominations for writing the songs "Driving My Life Away" and "One Voice". He received the BMI Burton Award for "Suspicions", a song he wrote with Rabbitt.

Ester Dean American singer and songwriter

Esther Renay Dean is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Dean has also written songs for many artists, with numerous Top 10 hits, including No. 1 hits for Rihanna and Katy Perry, earning the name "The Song Factory". At the 54th Annual Grammy Awards, Dean was nominated for Album of the Year as a producer on Rihanna's album Loud. Outside of music, she voiced two of the characters in the fourth film in the Ice Age franchise, Ice Age: Continental Drift, and also wrote a song for the movie, titled "We Are (Family)". Dean made her acting debut in the film Pitch Perfect (2012) as Cynthia-Rose Adams, a role she reprised for the sequels, Pitch Perfect 2 (2015) and Pitch Perfect 3 (2017).

Stephen Hartley Dorff is an American songwriter and composer whose work is mainly in the field of country music.

Visayan Pop Songwriting Campaign, also known as Vispop or Visayan Pop Music Festival, is a Cebuano national songwriting campaign and competition for pop music compositions launched in Cebu City, Philippines on 2012. The competition is under the auspice of Artists and Musicians Marketing Cooperative. From 2013-2017, it was staged in cooperation with the Filipino Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (FILSCAP). The 2019 edition was organized with the partnership of Sacred Heart School for Boys - Batch 1985 Foundation, but the project was later shelved.

The Great American Song Contest is an international music competition run annually by Songwriters Resource Network since 2000.

The International Songwriting Competition (ISC), founded in 2002, is an annual songwriting contest for both amateur and professional songwriters. There is no physical event to attend as the competition is held online, and anyone in the world can enter. Each year the competition gives away over $150,000 USD in cash and prizes, including $25,000 USD in cash to the overall Grand Prize Winner. Additionally, ISC offers an opportunity for artists to have their songs heard by celebrity artists and music industry executives.

References

  1. ↑ "ComProsers". Comprosers.com. Retrieved 30 May 2018.
  2. ↑ https://WWAHM.com
  3. ↑ "Durango Songwriters Expo | Listening Sessions, Showcases, Songwriting Success!". Durango Songwriters Expo.
  4. ↑ "Archived copy". changetheworldwithyoursong.com. Archived from the original on 9 May 2016. Retrieved 14 January 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  5. ↑ "Announcing "The Big Hook" Challenge from Fiverr « American Songwriter". Americansongwriter.com. 3 June 2015. Retrieved 30 May 2018.
  6. ↑ "'American Idol' moving ahead with sixth season songwriting contest". Realityworld.com. Retrieved 30 May 2018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.