[FM] Re: songwriting contests

[photorc]

Now that I'm back from Kerrville, here's my 52 cents on the subject of song
contests:

> Hey, if I had put "Jack Hardy" on my cassette to Kerrville, I am sure Rod
would have picked my songs. So there.

When Rod listens to tapes, only a number and not the name is visible.  Sorry
to thwart your plans.


> Clearly to win a songwriting contest, a song has to be wonderful, but it seems
to me that it also has to be able to engage people the first time they every
hear it.  Maybe I'm just slow, but some of my favorite songs...really took
me a while to "get".

Once the entries are narrowed down, Rod listens to the top contenders many
times before making a decision.  The judges listen only once, but this is
not the casual listening that we all do several times before it begins to
sink in.  


>Who knows, maybe someone would think it'd be a good idea to have the contest
judged by the audience instead of a panel of experts...

Sounds like a sure way to turn a songwriting contest into a "how many
friends and cousins can you drag to a folk festival" contest.


> Eric Schwartz was a finalist in this year's Kerrville New Folk competition.
...(I) could not begin to imagine which songs he had submitted (i.e. managed
to slip past Rod's screening process).  ...His medicine is smart, witty and
often patently offensive to the norms of mainstream culture AND the sacred
cows of political correctness .

Don't underestimate Rod.  He's invited Eric to bring his offensive material
to the main stage next year.  He's also turning into a vegan, and tore the
Bush bumper stickers off of his truck


> Maybe we can have contests for "emerging songwriters" and separate contests
for "songs"

We do.  Kerrville judges the song, not the writer.


> they find they take a back seat to people who don?t "NEED" this exposure

Nobody enters a songwriting contest or a showcase who doesn't need the
exposure.  The Limeliters showcased at Folk Alliance.  They recently sold
out a large hall in Florida the night before selling only a handful of
tickets in Philly.  The folk audience, like all politics, is local.


>One solution would be for contests and/or showcases to affiliate through  the
Folk Alliance.  Not only would this provide a channel for uniform
guidelines to be shared, but it could also help with the "big name winner"
syndrome as follows.

>Right now any specific single contest can, if it chooses, ... write a no-repeat
clause into its rules...  But that doesn't prevent the same person from
simultaneously winning the Old Tower Award, the Hansicker Prize, etc, etc..

>But suppose that Bellflower, Old Tower, Hansicker and so forth were all
registered Folksong Competition Affiliates of the Folk Alliance.  Now their
rules could state (for example) that if you have won more than two awards
from any Competition Affiliate with the past three years, you are
ineligible this year.

Being a big supporter of the Folk Alliance, I hate this idea.  Do we really
want to take the local control out of folk festivals?  Besides, all folk
audiences are local.  (where did I hear that?)  Just because New Yorkers
know Jack Hardy, don't presume that the folks in Florida do.  I think that
Jack has every right to emerge there too.


>Say, for example, some songwriter were to win the songwriting contest at a
certain Folk Festival in Florida this year.  The prize is a mainstage slot
next year.  But the punishment is that he is not eligible to compete in that
contest for several years  AND they discourage the re-booking of
out-of-state acts for the mainstage the following year.  Effectively, by
winning the competition, he has performed himself out of the ability to play
at this festival.  Which is tremendously sad because perhaps he  really
loves that festival and loves playing there.

Is it really punishment to make room for new folks to be recognized?  I
think not.  We're talking here about a small hypothetical festival with a
small budget which can only afford to hire a relatively few acts, and
laudably wishes to support their local performers.  If this hypothetical
performer loves this hypothetical festival enough to be willing to go back
there at his (you did say he) own expense to re-enter the song contest, why
not call up Robby and offer to play for free next year?


>You have won the songwriting contest, now go and compete in the real world
against Vance Gilbert.  Help!

I heard a great one at Kerrville.  A kid tells his father that he wants to
be a folksinger when he grows up.  The father says "I'm sorry son, but you
can't do both."


>When I appeared at Kerrville New Folk in 1989, one of the other participants
was performing a song that in fact was published and recorded (a no-no under
the contest rules).   He was one of the winners....

is changing the rules going to stop people from breaking the rules, or is it
just going to provide different rules to break?


> it isn't really folk music unless you can get some folk to hear your songs!

Most folks don't know that I'm a songwriter.  I pretty much suspended
performing to concentrate on my photography.  This week at Kerrville, I sang
one of my songs for the crowd at Camp Cuisine, in a duet with Peter Yarrow,
with PP&M's accompaniast Paul Prestopino on mandolin.  Hot damn, I guess
that made it folk music, which it wasn't when I sang it for myself at home
the week before.


I have my own concerns about song contests.  I've had good talks with Rod
and Vaughn at Kerrville, and have spoken about it with many of the judges.
I hear a lot of "well, it almost went the other way, but I got my way on
another songwriter, so another judge got his way on this one."  But sorry to
say, I'm not convinced that I've heard any ways here to make them better.


best,

Robert Corwin
Photo-Arts

Photography for exhibition, publication, CDs, promotion, web pages, tour
books, and fine art prints.
Video for promotion
visit the gallery on the web at www.robertcorwin.com