Hear ye, hear ye: The Colorado Music Business Organization announces its Third Annual Songwriting Contest! Winning songs will be submitted to *REAL* publishing companies. There will be NO CA$H prizes. Do you have a song you have written and Ten ($10) Dollars laying around not doing anything? Read on because this contest is for YOU!! Individual members who are currently up on their dues may submit one song at no charge; bands get free entry for two songs. The contest starts May 1st and will end on August 31st, 2015.
COMBO will put the top scoring songs on a compilation CD and hand deliver to publishers (that have agreed to accept them), along with a cover letter telling a little about COMBO and about each of the songs, like who the writers thought the song might be good for, i.e., this country song is good for Carrie Underwood. One compilation CD will be given out for each song to the songwriter(s). In other words, if you have five co-writers on the song, one of you will receive a CD which you may copy for the other writers. However, be cautioned – making copies to sell or to give out to other friends and/or family will be in violation of copyright laws. Please do not do that.
No songwriter judges – just people who might buy your music. The panel will be made up of a variety of people who still buy music. A Committee of five (5) judges, none of whom write songs but are music lovers will have the final decision. The reason for this is so that there will be no conflict of interest or an off-chance that someone will steal your song.
Failure to follow the following will disqualify your song: No “bad” words! If you wrote your song with a “must have” naughty word, please mute the word on the mp3 track and write (bleep!) on the lyric sheet (i.e. we will only accept songs for the contest that are “Radio Ready”), etc. Also, the entry fee must be paid by the end of the contest and received by September 5th, 2015.
Examples of judging criteria will consist of, but not be limited to: Do the lyrics ‘hit you in the heart? Does the melody bring out some emotion such as passion, solitude, love, excitement, danger? Do the lyrics make sense? Or make sense in the context of the melody? Are the lyrics different? Or do the lyrics copy lyrics from other songs that are already well known (you really don’t want to do that)? Would the song have a good chance of being placed in a movie, a television show, or in a commercial? Instrumentals are welcomed as many of the aforementioned shows are seeking music only songs.
The songs will be presented for judging “anonymously” – the judges will not know the name(s) of the songwriters, and will not know even the name of the song. Song submissions will be presented to the judges as a number. That way a judge cannot “play favorites”. Email confirmation of accepted entries will have our song number registration (i.e. Song #113). Names of the judging panel are confidential and will not be shared even with each other so that the judges can not communicate with each other to get opinions.
Songs are to be submitted as attachments to songcontest@coloradomusic.org in MP3 format so that contest staff may place the songs on Dropbox for each judge to listen from the privacy of their own homes. Please also attach a Lyric Sheet for each song.
The top rated songs will then be placed on the compilation CD. We will try to get 20 songs on but cannot promise that due to the length of the songs total.
songcontest@coloradomusic.org
Send your payment checks to:
COMBO
P.O. Box 18186
Denver CO 80218
Remember: If you are currently paid up on your dues, you get one song entry at no charge! Bands get two free entries!