Music Makes a Difference (MMAD) is hosting a Songwriting Contest starting April 8, 2021. As
part of the contest, MMAD will hire "Seed Artists" to record an original, partial song (melody,
first verse, chorus) on video. The partial song videos can be of any musical genre (e.g.,
Americana, Folk, Hip Hop, Rock-n-Roll, etc.) MMAD will provide the partial songs to the
contestants and require one song to be "completed" by the contestants each of the four weeks
of the contest.
Completing the Song Examples The concept of this songwriter contest was inspired by a TikTok
video wherein a musician posted a video with a melody and first verse and asked for
collaborators to video themselves singing to the melody with second and third verses that they
wrote to mesh with the first verse. Here are two links to collaborators who accepted the
songwriting challenge:
@Rneary16
@charlottecardin_
MMAD's goal is to create a singer/songwriter competition around this collaboration concept.
Contest Basics
The contest will run for four (4) weeks. Contestants will be told which partial song needs to be
completed for each week of the competition. Contestants will record a video to be paired with
the Seed Artist's video with verses to complete the song (up to three minutes in total song
length). Contestants can be solo artists or band members. The Seed Artist's only involvement
is to provide the partial song video.
The completed song videos will then be aired, on a weekly basis, for fans to vote for their
favorite. Fans vote by making donations where $1 equals 1 vote for that song. Fans can
donate/vote as much and as often as they want. All weekly donations will be shared amongst
the artists
Prize Money! The above process will be repeated weekly for the length of the competition with
weekly winners being announced. At the end of the competition, the Top Songwriter Award will
be awarded based on the total number of points accumulated over all four weeks. The top four
songwriters will receive the following prizes:
- 1st Place - $2,500
- 2nd Place - $1,500
- 3rd Place - $1,000
- 4th Place - $500
Best Song Award In addition to the above awards, a Best New Song will be determined by
allowing fans to vote from a pool of songs consisting of the top two songs from each week's
competition. The artist with the most votes will be awarded the Best New Song and receive a
$500 cash prize.
Want to be a Seed Artist? MMAD is looking to hire seed artists to provide partial song videos
for the four weeks of our competition. Seed Artists can submit multiple partial songs covering
any genre. Potential Seed Artists have until March 26, 2021 to submit their partial song
video(s). MMAD will select a total of four (4) partial song videos to be used during the contest
and will pay Seed Artists $500 for the use of each video selected for use in our Songwriter
Competition.
From a copyright standpoint, Seed artists will receive 50% of the songwriting credits for any of
the completed songs that result from the songwriting competition. However, the prize money
from MMAD's Songwriting Contest as well as the donation/votes arising from the competition
will not be shared with the Seed Artist.
To submit a partial song video or videos for consideration as a Seed Artist, please use the
following link: Seed Artist Sign-Up no later than March 26, 2021.
Want to compete in the contest? The contest is open to musician(s) in the greater Dane
County, Wisconsin area (by our definition, Dane County and any county that borders Dane
County (Columbia, Dodge, Jefferson, Rock, Green, Iowa and Sauk). Any songwriter, duo or band
may register to compete in the competition. Contestant Sign-Up.
Registration is due no later than March 21, 2021 at 6PM.
Contestant Selection The musician(s) selected to compete will be based on fan nominations
(from the list of artists who registered for the competition). Nomination voting is free for the
contestant selection. A fan can vote for up to five artists to be in the contest but can only cast
one vote per artist. The 10 artists/bands receiving the most votes will be in the Complete The Song
Contest. Nomination votes can be cast at Complete The Song Contestant Nomination from March
22 - March 24, 2021.
For more information or answers to your questions, please contact:
billzorr@musicmakesadifference.info
Important Dates:
- March 12: Public announcement of Music Makes a Difference – Complete The Song! Contest
- March 21: Deadline for contestants to register to participate in contest
- March 22-24: Fan voting to select the ten songwriting contestants
- March 25: Top 10 contestant songwriters announced
- March 26: Deadline for Seed Artists to submit partial song videos
- March 29: Contestants receive the four selected partial song videos and the schedule for
submitting completed songs
- April 5: Songwriters submit first completed song video
- April 8: MMAD hosts Week 1 Songwriting Show
- April 8-11: Fan voting for favorite Week 1 song video
Contest continues for three additional weeks with completed song videos due on Mondays and
hosted shows on Thursdays.
- May 2: Final day for fan voting for Week 4 song video
- May 3-5: Fan favorite song voting (selected from each week's top two voted songs)
- May 6: Complete The Song Award Show and Favorite Song Award