A Survey of Songwriters

When Great American Song Contest began in 1998, everyone agreed that SRN should sponsor a song contest to help songwriters find opportunities in the music industry.

As the survey below explains, SRN interviewed over a hundred songwriters and asked for recommendations on how to build a song contest to help them reach their goals.

Using these suggestions, we designed the Great American Song Contest. That's why we say the GASC is a contest created by songwriters for songwriters.

The first Great American Song Contest was launched in 1999 and went on to become one of the world's most respected events for songwriters, lyricists and composers.

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THE SURVEY:

We asked songwriters what they'd like to see in a good song contest. And what they didn't like in other contests. Out of 112 songwriters who responded to our survey, approximately 55 percent were male and 45 percent were female; 65 percent were from the U.S., 26 percent were from Canada, and 9 percent were from other countries.

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THE SURVEY FINDINGS:

1.) Many songwriters in the survey said they questioned the value of the large "big-cash prize" song competitions.

"Frankly, I think the big contests are often more interested in making money than helping songwriters," said one songwriter from Texas. "I think some contests just use a lot of hype to get tons of entries. A few people win but everyone else gets zero benefit."

2.) Some songwriters complained about the high fees charged by large "lottery-style" song competitions.

"Some big song contests seem more like song lotteries," commented a songwriter from California. "It seems like writers pay costly entry fees only to end up paying for the big cash prizes for a few lucky winners."

3.) Some participants of other big corporate contests said they questioned whether their songs were thoroughly reviewed.

"I've heard some contests only listen to the first minute or so of the songs," said a Michigan songwriter. "If songs are not even listened to completely, how fair is that?"

4.) Some participants of other songwriting contests complained they received no feedback on their songs.

"It would really be helpful to get critiques from judges," said a song lyricist from Tennessee. "I entered [one contest] and they didn't even confirm my entry. They didn't give me any feedback about my work. All they did was cash my check."

CREATING A BETTER SONG CONTEST