My favourite songwriting contest is about to begin. The name of that contest is SpinTunes.
SpinTunes was created when a group of geeky and non-geeky musicians, who formed a community around The Masters of Song Fu, were looking for a way to ignite their creativity and challenge each other to grow in their craft, through a friendly competition.
SpinTunes can be described as a mix between Nur Ein and Song Fu. Every couple of weeks, contestants are issued a challenge and then a group of judges rank and review each song. After each round, a number of contestant are eliminated, scores cleared and a fresh round begins. The winner is voted upon by the eliminated contestants. Full rules can be found here. Challenges in the past have included writing a song from the point of view of a videogame character, writing a song from the point of view of a super-hero or super-villain, writing a song about a secondary historical character, and much more.
After each round, there is a listening party where all the musicians and their supporters get together, listen to the songs and give each other feedback. All of the music is then made available, for free, via BandCamp.
I was a judge for the first incarnation of SpinTunes and was extremely impressed by what the contestants had to offer. A good number of the songs created during all incarnations of SpinTunes have made their way into regular rotation during my radio shows.
Whether you are a seasoned musician, or a musician who is still learning, this friendly contest is for you. The community surrounding it is very supportive and will even help you with your songs. Many of the contestants participate in order to grow and are more than happy to collaborate with each other.
Sign-ups will last until January 17th 11:59PM EST. Sign-up information can be found here.
The first challenge will be posted January 19th 1AM (R). You can view the tentative schedule here.
If you are curious to hear about some of the experiences of past contestants, including the experiences of two of the current judges, or want to get an idea of what you are getting yourself into, should you decide to sign-up for this competition, you can listen to/ download my Geeky Pleasures Radio Show interview with four former contestants and judges here.
I do hope some of the GeekMom readers will decide to join this great competition. I will be following it closely and am extremely excited to hear what comes out of SpinTunes 4.
