A songwriting competition is a

contest CONTEST is the United Kingdom's counter-terrorism strategy, first developed by Sir David Omand and the Home Office in early 2003 as the immediate response to 9/11, and a revised version was made public in 2006. Further revisions were publish ...

whereby

musician A musician is someone who Composer, composes, Conducting, conducts, or Performing arts#Performers, performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general Terminology, term used to designate a person who fol ...

s submit original

music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...

to a third party or forum, generally to win a

prize A prize is an award to be given to a person or a group of people (such as sporting teams and organizations) to recognize and reward their actions and achievements.

or some other benefit.

Songwriting A songwriter is a person who creates musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music genre and film scoring. ...

competitions have existed long before the advent of the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

, 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 Yoko Ono (, usually spelled in katakana as ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking. Ono grew up in Tokyo and moved to New York ...

in 1997 and has existed both online and offline. Other important songwriting competitions are the

Unisong International Song Contest The Unisong International Songwriting Contest is the oldest international songwriting competition for and judged by songwriters. Unisong International Song Contest was founded in 1996 by songwriter Alan Roy Scott (Music Bridges), publisher David ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

or the

International Songwriting Competition 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 en ...

Nashville Nashville, often known as Music City, is the capital and List of municipalities in Tennessee, most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, locat ...

. Winners receive money prizes exposure and

airplay Airplay is how frequently a song is being played through broadcasting on radio stations. A song which is being played several times every day (spins) would have a significant amount of airplay. Music which became very popular on jukeboxes, in n ...

of their

song A song is a musical composition performed by the human voice. The voice often carries the melody (a series of distinct and fixed pitches) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs have a structure, such as the common ABA form, and are usu ...

s, 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. Yet another variation is the Write-With-A-Hit-Maker songwriting contest. This annual event sponsored by the 20+ year old Durango Songwriters Expo 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 Jeff Silbar is a songwriter. Silbar, a native of Los Angeles, won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 1990 for co-writing Bette Midler's " Wind Beneath My Wings" with Larry Henley. Notable compositions *" All My Life" (Kenny Rogers) *" He's a ...

Wind Beneath My Wings "Wind Beneath My Wings" (sometimes titled "The Wind Beneath My Wings" and "Hero") is a song written in 1982 by Americans Jeff Silbar and Larry Henley. The song was first recorded by Australian singer Kamahl in 1982 for a country and western albu ...

"), Kim Williams (" Three Wooden Crosses"), and

Pam Sheyne Pamela Sheyne is a New Zealand born songwriter, producer, mentor and singer best known for co-writing Christina Aguilera’s global smash debut single " Genie in a Bottle". She has achieved 50+ million record sales and over 100 RIAA Platinum, Go ...

Genie in a Bottle "Genie in a Bottle" is a song by the American singer Christina Aguilera from her debut studio album, ''Christina Aguilera'' (1999). Pam Sheyne, Steve Kipner, and David Frank wrote the track; the latter two produced it. The singer herself also ...

"). Some of the WWAHM song contest winners, including Alissa Moreno and

Richard Harris Richard St John Francis Harris (1 October 1930 – 25 October 2002) was an Irish actor and singer. Having studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, he rose to prominence as an icon of the British New Wave. He received numerous a ...

, have gone on to have hits themselves and find their way onto the

Billboard charts The ''Billboard'' charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs and albums in the United States and elsewhere. The results are published in ''Billboard (magazine), Billboard'' magazine. ''Billboard'' biz, the online extension of the ' ...

. 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 in which contestants write about a number of themes based around important social and political issues. On June 3, 2015, ''

American Songwriter ''American Songwriter'' is a bimonthly magazine covering songwriting. Established in 1984, it features interviews, songwriting tips, news, reviews and lyric contest. The magazine is based in Nashville, Tennessee. History The ''American Songwri ...

'' magazine announced a new music / songwriting competition initiated by Fiverr, called The Big Hook. Songwriting competitions differ from singing competitions, such as ''

Pop Idol ''Pop Idol'' is a British music competition television series created by Simon Fuller which ran on ITV from 2001 to 2003. The aim of the show was to decide the best new young pop singer (or "pop idol") in the UK based on viewer voting and pa ...

'' 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 ''American Idol'' is an American Music competition, singing competition television series created by Simon Fuller, produced by Fremantle (company), Fremantle North America and 19 Entertainment, and distributed by Fremantle North America. It a ...

'' however, later launched a subsidiary songwriting competition of its own.

References

{{reflist

External links

Global Songwriting Contest
a limited entry global songwriting contest * *