Songwriting competition

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 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.

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 magazine announced a new music / songwriting competition initiated by Fiverr, called The Big Hook.

Songwriting competitions differ from singing competitions, such as American Idol, because the latter do not require that the music submitted or performed be original; in fact, the music is usually published and rather well known. American Idol has, however, recently launched a subsidiary songwriting competition of its own.

References

• Global Songwriting Contest, a limited entry global songwriting contest