Five Things Composers Wish Organizers Would Consider When Running A Music Composition Competition
I appreciate those who offer competitions to composers. Thank you for providing us these opportunities for our growth, musically and otherwise. I know competitions are subjective and as challenging for the organizers and judges as for the entrants.
Organizers have the difficult task of developing contest rules, attracting entrants, answering lots of questions, receiving countless entries, and finding the right judges for the competition.
I don’t envy judges. They have a challenging job, especially when having to choose winners from numerous excellent entries from multiple disciplines. This is no easy task.
That being said, a few months ago, I entered a composition competition exclusively for musicians belonging to a particular organization, and we had to submit:
1) Two hard copies of a PDF of the sheet music (one with and one without our name).
2) A CD of the song.
3) A brief, written explanation of how our song related to the contest’s specific theme.
Yesterday, I received disappointing results via email from the organization’s music chairperson: I did not win.
The chairperson mentioned the judge’s name in the email. It was the first time I had heard who it was. I looked him up online and noticed that he directed several choral groups. Perhaps not surprisingly, in line with his background, the competition winner had submitted a well-mixed and mastered vocal solo with piano accompaniment.
Although the contest rules allowed for entries written for any instrument, I wondered, in hindsight, if my writing a piano solo had given me less of a chance of receiving a favorable result from this judge. If I had known who he was ahead of time, I could have composed a vocal or choral piece for the contest, instead.
My 5 Suggestions for Organizers of Music Competitions for Composers:
1. Hire more than one judge. Having only one judge offers just one opinion from one viewpoint. Have two, or better yet, three judges. As each judge evaluates the different strengths and weaknesses of the submitted compositions and how they fit the competition criteria, the final judgement could be more balanced, creating a fairer competition.
2. Let competitors know ahead of time who the judge(s) are. Many excellent competitions provide a list of the judges, including their photos and bios. Then competitors can read up on each judge, listen to the judge’s music, look at their websites, and do further research to know which song(s) to submit for a particular competition.
3. It seems to go without saying that in our technology driven, digital age, organizers should request that competitors submit their music digitally. In contrast, for a competition, I recently entered, each competitor was required to send two hard copies of their sheet music and a CD via snail mail (the U.S. Postal Service, USPS).
Don’t get me wrong—I appreciate the USPS; however, for a music competition, this is a waste of paper, time, and resources. I believe in protecting our environment, so the fewer trees we cut down, the better. The time it takes to make photocopies, burn a CD, drive to the post office, and stand in line there for an hour is a waste of a composer’s professional and creative time.
It also is expensive: there’s the cost of ink or the fee for having photocopies made, the gas to drive to the post office, and the price of shipping, tracking, signature, and confirmation. It is all a bit too much nowadays.
My guess is that most, probably 99.9 percent, of the music competitions out there are done virtually and digitally. Thus, I entered a competition whose sponsoring organization is antiquated in their thinking and operated under unnecessarily burdensome rules.
4. Give each competitor at least one positive, genuine comment when informing them of the results. This will encourage the composers to continue honing their craft and enter again the following year.
I still remember the positive, encouraging words I received from an international competition I entered years ago from the U.K. That feedback reinforced my strengths and encouraged me to continue doing what I love to do—write music. There were hundreds of entries, so I was flabbergasted and overjoyed that I received a response from the judges! Due to how they handled their entrants, I highly respect them as an organization.
5. Keep the entrants well-informed. Continue to send them emails about exactly where you are in the process. Let them know what to expect from the beginning, such as:
A. How many judges there will be.
B. When the competition will end.
C. How many entrants there are.
D. How many disciplines are represented.
E. What types of music are being entered.
F. When the deadline is.
G. What will happen if someone enters music after the deadline.
H. When to expect the results.
I. Share the winners song(s), free of charge.
J. How to send comments to the organizers to make future competitions even better.
As a competitor, knowing this type of information helps me understand where I fit in the whole process and brings me peace of mind from beginning to end. Please give us this courtesy.
Tips for Composers Who Enter Contests:
1. Don’t take the results to heart. Remember that competitions are subjective. Continue writing your music. Don’t let anyone who rejects you or your music sway you from doing what you are passionate about.
2. If you win a competition, pay it forward. Encourage other musicians in their compositional pursuits.
3. Choose your competitions wisely. You be the judge of how you use your time and resources.
4. Once you have entered a competition, let the cards fall where they may. Don’t expect anything. Just be thankful for this opportunity. The results do not always represent how hard you worked or how great your piece is. Instead, they reflect what the judges thought “the winner’s” work should look like. Whether you win or not, chalk it up to experience, and continue to learn and grow as a composer and a musician.
Encourage and Promote Music Creation
So, in summary, for those of you creating these music contests, please consider the 5 things I suggested above:Hire more than one judge.
- Hire more than one judge.
2. Tell the competitors who the judge(s) are ahead of time.
3. Request electronic music submissions.
4. Ask judges to offer one piece of positive feedback per competitor.
5. Keep the entrants well-informed throughout.
If you are already doing these 5 basic things, you are ahead of the game and are a winner in my book! If you are not doing these 5 fundamentals, perhaps you could consider implementing them to make your competition more appealing to potential entrants.
Put yourselves in the shoes of the musicians who will enter it. When you are establishing rules, choosing judges, and giving results, think about how you would feel if you received the words you sent out via email. These are real people with real aspirations and a lot of heart. Think of them first and consider what your contest can do to encourage them and promote the creation of music, rather than focusing on how much money you will make from the blood, sweat, and tears put into each music entry.
How are you doing as one who creates these competitions? You be the judge.
Very fair. Thank you for clarifying the issues and keep in mind that some contests have few contestants. It’s important to put everyone on the same playing field regarding quality of composition, length instrumentation. And perhaps it is not important to have a full production of the music as opposed to a midi recording.
In the case of music composition on the composition should count. If there are other criteria, i.e. ease of singability, difficulty of the technique required to play, etc these should be clearly stated. Well in the ideal world composers would create the criteria. One judge that I once asked to evaluate actually created a grid which he used for evaluation of all of his critera.
Thank you, Sheila, for your thoughtful reply. I liked your points about taking into consideration other criteria. I’d like to see the grid that one judge uses to evaluate all of his criteria. But, that makes the point that as a judge, I can create my own grid, depending on the competition. And as an organizer, one can create a set of criteria to follow. Even then, the results seem to be subjective.