Here we go again! After a world record setting music awards program in 2002 we are ready to start the process for 2003. Because it would be impossible to continue on our growth pattern of the last 3 years of tripling each year, we have made a few subtle changes in the awards program we think will keep it under control and still make for a great Award process this time around.

To start off with, any music that has been sent to us since last year's deadline which wasn't squeezed in last year will be included for 2003. (That includes roughly 1000 Albums already). All the music posted on our site in our database currently was entered for 2002 and is not eligible for 2003. Please do not resubmit any music which has previously been entered. We'll repeat that again later in this FAQ.

We reserve the right to make ANY changes we feel necessary to these guidelines without advanced notice. Remember, we do this work for free, and if we need to make an adjustment, we'll post it on line and in the newsletter, but we aren't responsible for any problems that may cause you. If your music isn't considered this year for some reason, we can always consider it the next year.
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Official Entry Period: Now through June 30th, 2003 for music released before 2003.

Our "Official" entry period has started. Because we need to control the quantity of entries this year, we have a fairly short official entry period for this year for music released BEFORE 2003. That means, if you have an album released any time prior to 2003, you must send it with a postmark NO LATER than June 30th, 2003. We have not set a final deadline for music released in 2003. We will announce that later, but we expect to extend 2003 entries at least an additional month or more.

This is an important distinction from previous years. You can enter music that was recorded 3 years ago.. 10 years ago.. 30 years ago.. it doesn't matter as long as you've never entered it into the Just Plain Folks Music Awards program before. But you must have your entry postmarked by June 30th, 2003 for it to be considered this year.

For music with a release date in 2003, we will accept entries until at least July 31st, 2003. (And depending on the amount of music we have on hand on that date, we will decide whether to extend the entry period any further.)

Note: If you have a work in progress album that isn't released until after the deadline, you can hold your place in the awards process by sending us the prerelease or demos and we allow you to replace that with the finished release when it is done, as long as it is still in the running in the awards process. We've made this same offer each year of the awards and some albums have gone on to win after using this option. Please clearly indicate on the submission that it is the work in progress and also clearly indicate you have sent a replacement once the final album is done.
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Who is eligible to enter:

You must be a Just Plain Folks Member to enter. This means the artist on the CD and/or the writers of the song(s) entered or both. We allow managers, producers, publishers etc.. to enter their artists but those artists also need to be signed up as a member and we need their contact info included.

If you are not currently an active member, it's simple to join. Just visit our homepage at www.jpfolks.com/home.html and enter your email address in the appropriate box. Or you can send an email directly to us at jpnotes@aol.com and place "I want to join" in the subject field and we will be happy to add you. Once you join, you are eligible to enter the music awards.

As long as you are an active member of Just Plain Folks, you can enter any music which hasn't previously been entered into our awards program. It doesn't matter if you are entry level or you've had major hits. We've had both types of artists/writers win awards. If you are part of our community and membership, we welcome your entry. You CAN be signed to a label and you CAN be signed to a publishing deal. Please just be sure your label or publisher has no problem with you entering.

All genres/types of music are welcome. (more on that below).
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How to submit: Where to send, what to include, what to do, what not to do.

Only active members of Just Plain Folks are eligible to enter. If you are a representative for an artist or writer, we also need the contact info for the artist themselves to consider them. We welcome management, publicists, labels, etc., to enter their artists.. but it's still a member awards program. Membership is free. If your artist has a problem with being an official member, don't enter them!

Send your CD only (we can't accept Cassette Tapes or any other format with the exception of Video which is a new category. (see details on that later)

Your submission MUST include the following info ON your CD and Liner Notes:

Full Name of person submitting.
Your position if not the artist or a member of the band (i.e., publicist, label, producer, etc.).
Phone Number
Email Address
Full Mailing Address: (Street Address, City, State, Country)
Website (if Applicable)
Info on whether your CD is available for sale on CD Baby or Amazon for Radio Free Virgin Consideration. (see details on that later)

This info MUST be included on the CD itself (preferred) or on the liner notes/case. Feel free to neatly print it on the CD with a sharpie if you'd like. Remember, we want to recognize your music.. but to do that we need to know who it is. Each year we've had to pass on nominating some music because we couldn't determine who the artist was. When we receive CD's,. they are immediately logged and separated from their cases and any documents they come with. If your CD doesn't list the name of your band/artist and the title of the album, please write that information on the CD with a sharpie otherwise you risk us not knowing who you are no matter how much paper info you send. We do make an effort to write this info on the CD's ourselves, but it's better not to take the chance right?
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Optional Info to Include:

You are welcome to send your press kit, but it isn't required. If you want to indicate specific tracks for consideration, you are welcome to, but we often nominate tracks different from those flagged by the artists themselves. Also, you are welcome to suggest what genre you feel your music falls into, but we VERY often place music based on a criteria/definition which may not fit your idea. Suggesting a genre helps more if your music is in an unusual/less common genre, but less if it is mainstream or more common genre. If you include this info, it's best to write it on the CD itself with a sharpie. Again, this info is optional, but welcomed.

Circling or indicating radio friendly tracks helps with the Radio Free Virgin screening, but less with the Music Awards screening because the criteria is different. We ONLY consider radio quality recordings for Radio Free Virgin.

Also, if you have "hidden" tracks at the end of your CD (i.e., with lots of blank space before it) we can easily miss those tracks, so please indicate that so we don't miss it. We rarely have the CD track notes available when the music is screened so we just hit play and when the CD appears to be over that's it.

VERY IMPORTANT: Please do NOT send each song on its own CD. Combine all your entries into 1. This means if you are sending 7 song demos, place them all on 1 CD, not 7 CD's with 1 song each. You can send more than 1 album, but please condense all those demos to 1 or 2 CD's. We had someone send us 30 CD's last year with 1 song each. It's a waste of time for both parties to do it that way.
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How to verify we have your music?

In the last awards process, we received nearly 8000 finished albums and a lot more single and multi song demos. Because of the volume, we can't respond to each person to confirm we have your entry. However, after we check all the music in, we will post the complete listing of ALL the Albums/Entries we have on hand. If your entry isn't there, we have a friendly built in grace period to rectify problems or missing entries. We're nice that way. So PLEASE be patient and don't pester us to verify your entry. If you simply MUST know.. send us a check for $1000 dollars and we'll talk. (okay.. I'm kidding.. $100 would do...)
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How and Where do you send your entry:

NEVER send your entry to us with a signature required. We will likely refuse it. Since we travel a great deal, we can't always be here to sign for something. Don't waste your money! Also, be sure there is no postage due. We will refuse any entries with postage due. You can send your entry Fed Ex, UPS, or regular mail, but remember our deadlines are always based on Postmark dates, so there's no need to waste the money on an overnight package or priority type mail unless we request it for some reason. (Sometimes we'll need a replacement CD quickly or if we find something which an industry person wants a copy of, we may need a second copy.) Please be sure that your CD works BEFORE you send it. We got over 100 bad CD's last year. We make a reasonable effort to request another.. but frankly it's a pain in the ass. If you are sending a CDR, that is fine.. just check it start to finish first so we don't waste our time on a bad CD.

Once you have your CD ready to go with all the requested info, mail it to:

Just Plain Folks
1315 N. Butler Ave.
Indianapolis, IN 46219

We do not return CDs. EVER. Do not ask us to return it. Even with enclosed SASE we won't return it. It's just too difficult because we separate the CDs from their cases/mailing materials at the time of check in and it might take several weeks before we screen it. We do keep all CDs on file here (we have over 15,000 in our archive). REPEAT: We do NOT return CDs or any other material you send us.
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What Genres of Music Do We Award?

That's a great question but one we don't know ourselves until we screen all the entries. We give out awards based on the music received. As a rule of thumb, if we have at least 20 Quality Album entries in a given Genre or 100 Quality Song entries, we generally have a category for it in the awards. (Last year in some cases we had over 1000 albums and over 10K songs in a given genre at the top end...). If we don't we generally include the great music into a genre that most closely approximates it. If you are worried that your unusual genre might not be considered, keep in mind that the opportunities for recognition are actually greater for excellent music in less common genres than great music that is competing with thousands of others in a more common genre.

Here are the genres we recognized in 2003. We may add or subtract based on the music that we give.

Alternative, Dance, Electronica, Holiday, Cover, Compilation Album, Celtic, Instrumental, Solo Instrumental, Jazz Instrumental, Jazz Vocal, Cabaret, Classical, Americana, Roots, Country, Reggae, Ethnic, World, Novelty/Comedy, Children's, Theatrical, Opera, Contemporary Christian, Gospel, Tribute, Rap/Hip Hop, Spoken Word, Lyrics Only, Traditional Folk, New Folk, Blues, Metal, Hard Rock, Industrial, Modern Rock, Male and Female Singer Songwriter, Contemporary, College Rock, Pop, R&B, Rock and Live.

Note: The Lyric award is a separate entry process which is conducted on the website. We will announce the guidelines for entry for Best Lyric later in the year.

Helpful Suggestion: If you write/perform music that doesn't fit any of the above genres, it would be helpful in your case if you indicate your genre on your CD. We didn't find any music last year that didn't fit into one of the above genres, but we are happy to add new ones if we have enough quality entries.
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How does the process work?

We change and adjust the program each year as we find ways to improve it. Here is the general idea/outline we used for last year. Some of these steps are dependent on the amount of music we get which we won't know until after the deadline this year.

Based on last year:

Round 1 We start to check out the music and filter out the bottom 10-20% of the music which falls dramatically short of the other 80-90%. This gives us a feel for what we have and we take notes on all the genres of music we hear among those that move onto round 2. The music that is being eliminated in round 1 gets a second screening to be sure we didn't miss something.

Round 2 is when we place the CD's into genres. We usually start with 50-60 different genres that we've noted in round 1 (which we usually narrow down by the end). We even have a special stack for music that defies initial description, but is well done. This stage is actually the longest of the entire award process.

Round 3 is comparative listening. Since all the CD's are separated by general genre, we start comparing them to each other. CD's which are clearly outstanding get passed straight on to round 3. Everything else is carefully screened and we generally filter out another 25-33% in this stage based on how high the bar is for that given genre.

Round 4 is when individual songs are flagged for Radio Free Virgin consideration and possible song nomination consideration. Some albums can have nearly every song flagged (the record is our 2002 Album of the Year winner which had every single song but one flagged). The criteria is already starting to get high, but by the end of this round, we'll still have an enormous number of songs flagged. When in doubt on a song.. it gets flagged.

Round 5 is when we start to narrow the songs down and also when we flag for album consideration. Obviously albums with a lot of songs being considered are more likely to be nominated for an album award. Because of the notes we take during the process, sometimes by the end an album might have no individual songs nominated, but it might have had 5-6 in the running during the process.

Round 6 is when we have focused filtering of songs against songs. We will generally bring in a new batch of experts in each given genre as well. We could still have hundreds of albums and hundreds of songs in the running for a nomination at this stage. Usually all the songs at this stage that are still in the running (and possibly a few eliminated in round 5) are included on Radio Free Virgin. In 2002, we nominated roughly 630 songs, but we added 2600 to the Radio Free Virgin Channels.

Round 7 is when we whittle the songs down to the nominations. This is often the hardest segment of the process. Usually there are 30-60 worthy songs in a large genre that each have gotten a lot of support from judges throughout the process. This is where judgment calls and opinions and tastes of the judges are tested the most. (And the most heated arguments take place.) We will usually try to recognize diversity in the nominations. For example, if there are 10 totally great songs of a very specific style, we might only take the very top 5 of that style within a given genre so that there is room to recognize other approaches and styles within that same genre. (That's just a hypothetical example.) This is also the round where genres are finalized. We don't fit songs into genres. We fit the genres around the collection of songs. That is why it shifts from one year to the next. Once we have a similar collection of great songs, we determine it fits a named genre the best. Genres are NEVER an exact science and at any given time one song might fit into 3-4-5 different genres based on 5 different opinions. If we have a killer song that really deserves recognition in a crowded category, we try hard to find a home for it in the nominations somewhere. After all, our goal is to recognize great music. The more the merrier.

Once round 7 is done (whew!) we announce the nominations and set the final voting into gear. Last year we used over 300 judges in the final round alone. This group is made up of the following:

01. Industry Professionals (Producers, Engineers, Labels, Publishers, Managers etc).
02. JPFolks Mentor Staff
03. JPFolks Home Staff and Chapter Coordinators and Volunteers and Media People
04. General Member/Peer Songwriters/Artists
05. Music Fans with no industry/artist/writer background/experience.

Our judges only have 1 criteria to address when voting:

Does the music move you?

Each judge picks their top 5 favorite songs in a given genres from 1st through 5th. The song with the most votes wins. We announce the top 6 places in the song categories.

The albums are more complicated and we use industry/mentor and staff judges only on those because of logistics. We do judge albums on production, songwriting, performance, arrangement as well as how much it moves us overall. We use all the notes taken on the album during the process to assist on the album results.

Once the results are tabulated (usually 2 days before we hand out the awards) we order the trophies and try to stay awake long enough the get through the awards, since we rarely sleep the 3 months before they are announced in Hollywood.
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How long does the entire process take?

We actually don't know. We will spend exactly the amount of time it takes to do it right. In the first 2 years the process lasted 1 calendar year. Last year, it took us 15 months. We will shoot to have the nominations announced by January of 2004 and we will shoot to have the winners announced by April. It really depends on whether we get 50K songs/4K albums (which we are hoping for).. 100K song/8K albums again (like last year) or 200K songs/16K albums. (That would likely take 18 months to complete so we are planning to avoid that.)
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What do you win?

This thing keeps growing and gaining attention. It is likely a lot of cool things will happen for the nominees and winners which we can't even imagine right now after the success of last year. However, as it stands, here's my spiel on it:

It's a free awards program. It may be the only awards program in the world that exists solely to recognize great music without any commercial influence/goals/payoff to anyone involved and with the least amount of bias (good or bad) humanly possible. We generally have sponsors to help cover some of the enormous costs associated with doing this free, but because we don't charge to enter, we don't give out large cash prizes. Your music is judged blindly and on merit only. We give out an awards trophy to each winner (whether they are present at the awards show or not) and certificates to the finalists who are present at the awards in each genre which we announce at the show. We also post the winners on the website and supply the names and info to the press and any interested industry member. All the winners and finalists are also placed into heavy rotation on Radio Free Virgin's Just Plain Folks Channels. We very well might have additional promotional prizes from our community partners, but it's not something we publicize to gain entries, because we're not trying to make money on this... just recognize great music that otherwise might not get the recognition it deserves. We think that is what it SHOULD be all about.

We've had #1 artists, #1 writers, hit songs, hit albums and every other extreme win awards in the past. The greatest thing about our awards is that you are competing with people on a totally unbiased basis and that includes some of the very best writers and artists in the world. No one gets an unfair advantage over anyone else. We rarely even know who the nominees actually are until we pick the final list and then check out them nominees along with everyone else later.

We also feature the winners and nominees and recognize them at events, showcases and gatherings throughout the year and beyond. When possible we give extra performance time to finalists. We also plan to place some winners and finalists on compilation CD's (only with written permission of course). It's also very common for our industry judges to find artists and writers they want to work with during the screening process. We've had a lot of success stories crop up this way, but we can't promise anyone that will happen and often those industry folks like to remain anonymous, so we don't make a big deal out of it to the group at large.

So if being recognized in what has become the worlds largest music awards program of any kind is something you'd like to shoot for, you've come to the right place. But remember, last year we had 102,000 songs entered and only 38 songs won an award. The bar is VERY high and I assure you there were far more than 38 amazing, hit quality songs submitted. So always keep any awards program in perspective.
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New Award for 2003: Best Video!

We are going to try a new category for 2003, Best Member Music Video. We aren't sure if there are enough professional videos out there for this category, but we're interested in giving it a shot. If you have a Music Video, we will accept it on the following formats:

VHS Tape
CD Video (if it is readable on a Windows Platform Machine)
DVD

You can send as many videos as you like in, but please be sure to include all your contact info on each Tape/Disc just as you would for music entries. If we are unable to read/view the video on a Windows Machine or standard VHS VCR or DVD player, we can't consider it. If you are sending an entry from outside the US, please be sure it is playable on a US machine.

Because this is a brand new category for us, we really have no idea what to expect. If the entries are high quality, we will likely try to work with the eventual nominees to post them on line in some format (with approval of course) and hopefully we can play the winning video Live at our Annual Awards Show in Hollywood. Again, this is all dependent on getting at least 20 quality entries. If we get less than that, we may just do an honorable mention type of thing to recognize the best of what we do get. So send those video's in!
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Radio Free Virgin's Just Plain Folks Channel(s):

Our partners at Virgin's Internet Radio Broadcaster "Radio Free Virgin" have given us our own channel there to play our members music. We plan to expand these channels in 2003 from 1 to 4 so we can break out genres from the "kitchen sink" approach we have right now with all genres mixed together. RFV is the largest measured internet broadcaster in the world (AOL doesn't allow monitoring, but is likely larger). To put it into perspective, they have more active listeners than the largest LA radio station. Over 3 Million listeners are registered on their service. They have a subscription based service which offers commercial free listening, and they have free channels as well. Our Just Plain Folks Channels are broadcast on both the free and subscription services. You can listen to the channel(s) by downloading their player and also by visiting the Just Plain Folks website and launching the Lite Player by clicking the RFV banner on our site.

If your music is being played on RFV, and your Album is being sold on CD Baby or Amazon.com, it is linked to your buy page directly from the player. This means listeners can buy your CD as it's playing right from your CD Baby page.

We currently have nearly 3000 songs on the service in rotation and we will continue to add new tracks from the music that is submitted for our Music Awards. This is just one more cool benefit to participating in the Music Awards and with Just Plain Folks.

To visit the RFV site, go to www.radiofreevirgin.com.
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Out of pure interest, two "little" things come to mind that would be interesting for us to know:

1. What is the 2nd and 3rd largest song contests in the world and in terms of song submission numbers, how do they compare with the JPF 2002 Song Awards?

2. Are the JPF Song Awards contests listed in the latest "Song Writer's Market" edited by Ian C. Bessler?

We mention our awards in Songwriters Market, but we don't list them separately because they are only open to members nad we don't have rigid dates and deadlines. Most of the ones listed in Songwriters Market are fee based contests.

As for other large awards/contests... The Grammy's generally have about 900 albums eligible each year... We had roughly 8000... the John Lennon contest had about 35,000 songs entered last I heard and we had 102,000... those might be the other two largests..

If anyone knows of other's that are larger, feel free to let us know.

Also, to clarify, if you get the newsletter, (which we sent out via email yesterday) you ARE officially a member of the group. You don't need to do anything else. However, if you want to post here on the message boards, you must ALSO register by clicking the register link. It's easy to do!

Thanks,

Question: I'd given my email address when I joined JPFolks, but have not gotten an e-newsletter. I've been successful registering (and posting) on the boards -- do I need to re-submit my email address?

Thanks!

We sent a newsletter out last night. If you didn't get it, your email address hasn't been entered, or the email didn't go through. Registering here is separate from joining the group. (This message board is a sort of closed database which simply makes the board work, but we don't get a list of those who signed up here to add to our general membership).

So, enter your email address on the home page and we'll see if you start getting the info.

quote:

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Music Awards 2003 FAQ and Guidelines

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Thanks, Brian, for the information. I do want to be considered for the competition, but I need to ask a questions first. A month or so ago I sent a copy of my CD, "A Man Like Me," for the JPF Radio Free Virgin setup, as well as for "general consideration." Do I need to submit a second copy of the CD for the Music Awards?

Thanks in advance for the answer!

Steven

Good question. No one ever needs to send us more than 1 copy of anything unless we ask for it specifically. We use the same copy for everything, saving you money and us time and storage space.

You have to be patient to get confirmation that we have your music. We will post a database (like the one on our site from last year) with all the entries once we hit the deadline. We will have a grace period for anyone who doesn't find their name on the listing. So please, be patient!

Thanks,

quote:

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No one ever needs to send us more than 1 copy of anything unless we ask for it specifically....

So please, be patient!

---

Thanks, Brian, 'tis appreciated. Just wanted to know what I needed to do, so patience wasn't a factor.

You're doing major good karma stuff, thanks again!

Steven

I want to send you some of my new songs for the 2003 Awards and I will include these on one CD for you. But, I also want to send a new album I released in August, 2002. Some of the songs are mine and some are by others. Can I submit this to be considered for Best Album in a genre category?? Or do all the tunes have to be original?

Also, regarding song submissions, I came up with a technical question for you to think about. It's regarding the format for sending demo songs for the upcoming 2003 Song Awards contest...

Would it be alright to "burn" high quality MP3 files to CD-R's? The idea is that we could easily fit 3 CD's worth of songs to one CD. For example, if each CD normally has 10 songs, that would mean 30 songs on 1 CD instead of sending 3 CDs. I suppose the question is: will you be able to handle the "logistics" of playing MP3 files as well as the conventional music CD files that you are normally receiving?

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Also, as this grows, I'm wondering if you will ever need to put a ceiling (limitation) on the quantity of songs submitted per artist or per band? For example, maybe a limit of 1 CD with NO MORE than 20 songs maximum per artist or song writer per entry/year. (?)
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By the way, most CD-R disks these days can hold up to about 780 Mega Bytes of data. Hence, if the average MP3 song file is even as high as 10 MB, which would reflect the highest "CD quality" format, folks could theoretically place as many as 80 songs per compact CD-R disc!

At 5 MB per song, which still reflects TWICE the quality of standard 128 kbps compression, we could compile up to 160 songs on just ONE CD! Wouldn't that help you save a lot of storage space?

Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts on these issues.
Michael

We don't want ANY mp3 files. Period. No exceptions.

There are many reasons for this. We want to be able to listen to the CD's anywhere. I use a little boombox myself which doesn't play mp3 files. Also, we have to put tracks onto CD's for judges and screening. We'd have to waste a bunch of time re-converting mp3 files back to wav files to do this. Also, when we format music for RFV, it is in WAV file format, not mp3. Yet another thing we'd have to hassle with.

As for limiting the amount of songs entered.. we've only had a couple people abuse the program. Even if there was a rule, guess what? A couple people would still abuse the program because frankly there will ALWAYS be someone out there who will take advantage or who just don't think things through. (We see this in all things..). Rather than set up a bunch of rules to strangle the ease of entering, we try hard to make it as easy as we can. The couple exceptions will always be there. Plus, if someone has 60 great songs to share.. we want them to send them... I'd rather have 60 great songs from a great writer/artist than 1 bad song from a bad writer right? If someone sends us 60 BAD songs.. it's really not that hard to get through them quickly.

A good example of this being an issue was a winner from last year who sent 3 CD's... one of which was only a short demo. Had we limited his entries.. he wouldn't have sent the demo.. he would have sent the two finished albums.. but guess what? The winning song was on the demo.

I am pretty confident our new guidelines will dramatically limit the number of the entries this year. It might even go too far, but we can always extend the entry period if needed. For example, by simply placing the rules/address/guidelines on this page, less than 1000 people have even checked it out (based on the web page visits since posting it). Had I run it in the newsletter, 21,000 would have seen it and far more would have probably pursued it who won't bother (for whatever reason) come and check this page.

I am guessing we may cut the entries down a great deal from last year by this 1 factor alone. Hopefully we won't lose the quality level at the same time.. but we needed to limit it a bit one way or another.

To answer Judy's question:

Songs must be entered by the writer to win an award (the award goes to the writer). Albums go to the artist. So the artist must enter the album. We do have a category now for Best Cover song as well.. so even that could be a place to get recognition. An album of cover songs is still eligible in the genre it was entered.

I understand that you are still working on getting all the songwriter's "permission" needed to go ahead with the Song Awards compilation CD.

If there's anything we can do to help, just let us know. Maybe some of us know some of the winners and can ask, remind or encourage to move ahead with this project!? Just an idea, "keep or sweep"!

Best regards,
Michael B.

I've got a few questions for you:

1. If we have both old (pre-2003) and new songs to submit, but the new ones aren't done yet, can we submit them on separate CD's for the separate due dates, or do we have to submit all by the first due date? At this point, I'm not sure I can get even demo tracks done on the new ones in time.

2. I have 1 song that is completely different from all of my other stuff, that I won't be performing on. Should that go on the same CD as the other stuff?

3. I submitted a demo version of a song last year that I eventually decided to drop from the running. Is it eligible for resubmission?

4. If we have a completed album that we want to submit in the album category and some additional demos, they should all be put onto 1 CD? How do we indicate which part is the album?

5. Are you thinking of eliminating older songs next year and only allowing recently written stuff? Another words, do we need to submit any old stuff this year or lose the opportunity?

I answered this on your other post.

The only limitation we have is sending the same songs/albums in which have been sent previously. If it's a new recording with a couple old songs, just send it. Brian >>

*********************

Sorry about posting in 2 places. Once I figured out where I wanted to be, I forgot to delete my original post. I don't do forums very often. Anyway, we seem to be on different tracks here...

What I asked in Question #1 (there were actually 5 - see below) was: if I have a song that was recorded prior to 2003 (due June 1) and another song that won't be done until after June 1st (due July 31), can I submit them on separate CD's so that they're in by their respective due dates? I don't have an album prepared this year. We're just talking singles.

The remaining questions are as follows with some slight rewording:

2. I have 1 song that is completely different from all of my other material, that I won't be performing on. Should that go on the same CD as the other stuff?

3. I submitted a rough demo version of a song last year that I eventually decided to drop from the running. No finished recording was ever made. When I do finish it will it be eligible for resubmission?

4. If we have a completed album (I don't, but I'm asking anyway for those that do) that we want to submit in the album category and some additional singles, can we put the singles on a separate CD?

5. I got the feeling that you're thinking of eliminating older recordings next year and only allowing recently recorded stuff. Will we need to submit any older recordings this year or lose the opportunity?

Thanks again,
Donna :-)

1. If you've never sent any of the songs in before, who would know if it was recorded before this year? If you have a collection of songs never sent in before that you are working on.. just send them in when the new ones are recorded. The point of the deadlines are to give people working on brand new material a little more time to submit without us still getting hundreds of CD's per day throughout July that could have been sent to us in June. If you have a full CD that say's it was recorded in 1982.. then send it now... if we're talking 1 CD of demo songs and you are still adding to that demo collection, it's a new recording to us. It hasn't been "released yet."

2. Yes.. as noted.. put all single songs onto 1 CD. I don't care if it's Metal and Country.

3. I don't recall NOT considering any songs last year. We blind screen, so if it wasn't chosen last year, it's already been entered. Even if you request it not be considered, unless we had flagged it to be nominated and then learned you didn't want it considered, which we didn't, it was already passed over.

4. Yes

5. You should submit old recordings now anyway because you never know what opportunities will or won't exist next year or beyond. We do this free.. we can only focus on 1 year at a time. Though it's not my intent now not to allow older recordings to be entered, I can't promise you we'll even have an awards program in 2004 until we get there.

I think I've got it now:

1 & 2. I'll send in the collection of single recordings when they're finished on 1 CD, in time for the July 31st deadline.

3. Anything submitted last year or earlier, unfinished or not (unless it was flagged and deleted before going through the first review), can not be reconsidered.

4. Singles can be submitted on a separate CD from albums...yeah it seemed like a dumb question, but I wanted to be sure.

5. << Though it's not my intent now not to allow older recordings to be entered, I can't promise you we'll even have an awards program in 2004 until we get there. >>

Good point.

Thanks,

Thanks again for the opportunity.

I'll be submitting a couple of CDs, and on one of them is a good song (I think) which is co-write with another person who isn't a registered JPF member.

Here are my options:

a) skip the song to keep things simple 4 U
b) submit it anyway - you don't mind
c) get the other writer to register

I want to keep things simple for you - so please advise.

Regards

It's always a good idea to get your co-writers and band mates to sign up and join. You're doing them a favor and helping us a grow as a group. And it's free. No reason not to.

If the person doesn't join, as long as 1 co-writer is a member, the song is eligible. As for albums, the artist (or a band member) has to be a member for the album to be considered. For songs, one or more of the writers has to be a member.

As for Blake, the list of what was received for last year is still linked on the Music Awards page in alpha order. It doesn't list the individual songs.. that would take a database more than 10 times larger and I am not typing in the names of 102K songs that were entered. You should always keep a record of what music is sent to who.. publishers.. labels.. media etc.. it's a lesson to learn. It helps with infringement issues and helps in follow up efforts. In this case, it helps to know what was entered previously.

After reading your guidelines and all the other posts a question remains.

If it all gets mixed in time, I hope to enter two CD's. One is a demo compilation of my own stuff with me singing.

The other is a demo compilation of a really powerful and wonderful young woman singer doing my material.

It may turn out that we both sing one or two of the same songs. Should either of those tunes meet your high standards, would both get advanced, and if so, would I be competing against myself?

How does this work?

Should I try not to duplicate songs this way, and have different material on each CD?

Problem I am having is that in demoing I am trying to show that some of my stuff can be delivered by either gender...

I still have time to tweak this, and your comments would be helpful.

regards

Peter

We wouldn't advance the same song by 2 artists to nominations stage. We'd pick whichever version that scored the highest and had the best chance to win overall. You are right about the bar being very high. Last year we nominated a ton of songs, but it was still only 7/10th of 1% of the songs entered. It looks like we might have 50% more music this year than last.. so it will be more like less than 1/2 of 1% this year most likely.

Thank you for your clarification.

Peter

You missed their deadline of June 28th. Your option right now is to send it yourself postmarked BEFORE July 31st if you want to enter it. Rules are in this post.

The reasons I'm asking are that I'd like to be considered for awards, of course, but also, since a good portion of what I do is dependent on a listener *seeing* my act (i.e., just hearing it might not do justice to it), whether the official video of my performance would qualify for consideration.

Thanks! :-)