Lets have a songwriting contest

dunno if theres enough people on the songwriting section of this forum to do it but im in, as long as its all in fun and noone gets too competitive :)

You won't get too many interested ..

Most the song writters write in SSG ,

We do it to improve our songs not to compete with each other

And just quietly if Vic Lewis and Pbee team up My monies on them and they would supply a MP3 ...

:)

And just quietly if Vic Lewis and Pbee team up My monies on them and they would supply a MP3

Well then you'd lose your money 8)

haha just kidding

ohhh...its hotting up already!! :lol: where are rachael and saint and disaster? theres a few that could do this

I'd be up for a little friendly competition - might make for some interesting songs if nothing else!

Pete

EDIT - woohoo! 400th post! I'm on the rise, people :lol: :lol:

And just quietly if Vic Lewis and Pbee team up My monies on them and they would supply a MP3 ...

Thanks for the vote of confidence Trev, but I'm still going through the worst case of writer's block in history.....haven't written anything since about June, apart from one collaboration, and that was mostly Blueline....think it'll take a bolt through my neck and a bolt of lightning to spark any life in my brain cell. Never known such a bleak period - I usually check into the SSG sunday, start thinking along the lines of "Where can I go with this...." I haven't even had one line worth keeping in the last few weeks. Nothing.

But hey, some of you guys want to run a friendly competition, go ahead - but I'd suggest a few basic ground rules along the lines of:

1 - What subject are you going to write about? And who's going to pick it? I'd suggest something along the lines of an SSG assignment - nothing too restricting, pick a subject that'll give you plenty of scope.

2 - What's the rules on collaboration? Half a song per person? Wouldn't it just be better to write individually? Easier than laying down rules like "each partner has to contribute at least one verse, and if one person is responsible for the main chorus, the other has to write a bridge....etc."

3 - What about posting MP3's? Or is this purely a lyric competition? Some lyrics don't look much on paper, but get a good tune to them and a good vocal delivery and they look much better.

4 - Who's going to judge? What are you going to judge? Style, fluency, imagery etc? Music? I'd suggest a panel of unbiased judges, if you could get one together...maybe five people who aren't involved competitively. The more the better.

Ah well - if you do go ahead, good luck and good writing!

:D :D :D

Vic

I'm happy to see my idea is taking off. Yeah we do need to set some groung rules if we want to start this competition. I think first we should pick a couple of judges. A couple of neutral and good songwriters.

Well, I think we need to ask for some volunteer judges; we can't just pick people :lol: plus, it's kinda hard to determine a "good" songwriter - much easier to pick writers "good" songs! There are so many different aspects that come into play when writing. I think the best idea would be to just start a topic asking for anyone who would listen to a bunch of songs and rate them out of 10 or something?

I like Vic's groundrules, and he rasies some good points;

##Are we going to have one topic, which everyone adheres to? (Will be harder to judge if not) If so, who picks the topic?

##Writing individually is probably easier (at least give the option?)

##Submitting an MP3 - I think that in order to judge properly, this would be needed. As Vic said, some lyrics when written down may not seem much, but given the right backing track and vocal delivery, they can be great.

Pete

i agree in theory, that lyrics might be brilliant but dont read as well as they sound, but what if someone is let down by lack of recording ability (like backing tracks and stuff) or singing ability, the judge would have to stay purely impartial to the rest of the song and just focus on lyrics.

teams would be more fun and less competitive but single will be easier, its not professional so it doesnt really matter if one person only gives a few lines or watnot, its just in fun.

maybe the mods can come up with a topic (could be risky :P ) ?
or we could suggest topics and have a vote on which one to do?
a list of people who are willing to do it...

but what if someone is let down by lack of recording ability (like backing tracks and stuff) or singing ability, the judge would have to stay purely impartial to the rest of the song and just focus on lyrics.

The main focus would be on the songwriting - an MP3 would just give the judge(s) more of an overall insight as to how the lyrics would work, phrasing, timing, etc -

I don't particularly want to take part as a contestant - my writing's non-existent at the moment - but if you want an impartial judge who'll give you a fair review, I'll volunteer - as long as you remember that my opinions are exactly that......just one man's opinion....

:D :D :D

Vic

1 - What subject are you going to write about? And who's going to pick it? I'd suggest something along the lines of an SSG assignment - nothing too restricting, pick a subject that'll give you plenty of scope.

Agree.
2 - What's the rules on collaboration? Half a song per person? Wouldn't it just be better to write individually? Easier than laying down rules like "each partner has to contribute at least one verse, and if one person is responsible for the main chorus, the other has to write a bridge....etc."

I agree, it's better if each person works on it's own for this project.
3 - What about posting MP3's? Or is this purely a lyric competition? Some lyrics don't look much on paper, but get a good tune to them and a good vocal delivery and they look much better.

Just lyrics sounds like nonsense to me. The quality of lyrics depends on the musical context just as much as the words itself, espescially when it comes to rhythm and atmosphere. Get some chords together people, it's GuitarNoise after all. :P
4 - Who's going to judge? What are you going to judge? Style, fluency, imagery etc? Music? I'd suggest a panel of unbiased judges, if you could get one together...maybe five people who aren't involved competitively. The more the better.

I'll volunteer as judge.

As for themes: I think a global theme that allows for many things is best. Something like 'hope/hopeless'. You can write songs about this in every genre, tonality and key. Finally I'm all for less talking and more working, projects like this often fail because people keep on talking forever. So somebody start a poll, let it run for three days and go with that. Who cares if it's not your favourite subject anyway.

I wanted a contest with just lyrics because some people write a lot better than they play, me included, so i think it should stay a lyric contest and maybe it has two catergories. 1) just lyrics and 2) people who want to do a whole song. They both will be judeged by two or three judges and the best from each catergory will win.

And I think the theme should be life and death, some thing that all of us on here think about and draw inspiration from.

I know I'm in the minority on this but lyrics without music is called poetry, not lyrics. And obviously poetry has a whole different set of guidelines then lyrics. This means you simply cannot judge 'lyrics' on themselves because half of what decides whether or not the lyrics actually work is in how it's applied, and without music there is no application or context whatsoever. Not trying to bust anyone's balls here but I simply have no idea what a 'lyrics only' competition would look like, nor how it should be 'judged'. You can't even judge rhyhmes because a properly placed line can emphasize different parts of a line in a way that it is simply invisible when written. And the opposite goes as well: lyrics that look nice are often impossible to properly set to music.

I understand everyone has their own strengths but IMHO you really need to show us what you're trying to do. Even if your chord changes are sloppy and your voice sounds like a frog, atleast it'll allow us to judge the lyrics in a reasonably proper fashion. And I know I'm stretchin it here but as far as I am concerned people who write 'lyrics' without applying it to music (whether they record it or not doesn't matter!) aren't writing lyrics, nor will they ever improve with it. It's like practicing baseball swings without the ball, you can try for decades but you'll never get anywhere until you start practicing the moves *with* the ball.

Not that my opinion is worth more then anyone else's, but if it'll be 'lyrics only' I won't be able to be a judgde. BTW: Welcome to GN! :D

I see what your saying and understand, i do think a lyric catergory with no music can work, and we'll just find a judge who thinks it works too.