JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Songwriter Message Forum Post QUESTIONS or COMMENTS here!

Interesting viewpoints expressed. There is no question that all levels of skill are involved in this. My hope is that by reading all the entries, a lot of folks will get an education in songwriting (lyric writing more specifically) that they may never have gotten before. I have personally listned to parts or all of the 12K CD's (maybe it's 13K at this point..) we have gotten in the past 4 years. After several thousand, I was able to see weaknesses in some of my own songs that I totally could NEVER see previously. I learned far more from the weak stuff simply because it illuminated problems that I could then recognize in my own work.

I think we are around 75 votes give or take so far. It is likely I will extend the entry period since I won't be off the road for another 8 days anyway and we never got a chance to announce the voting in the newsletter because I haven't had time on the road to send a newsletter out. (It can take over 12 straight hours to do so.. major time hog...).

As a regular screener of music for our awards process, the RFV channel and other organizations contests etc... I see a lot of material that has problems that the writers/artists are 100% unwilling or unable to acknowledge, no matter how nicely you suggest improvements or give positive and constructive feedback. It's often these folks who criticize everyone else for their lack of success (i.e. the Labels.. the media... the Radio programmers... the contest judges... companies like TAXI or Tonos or others). I can't tell all of you how many times I have had nasty attitudes from folks that were clearly in the bottom 10% of all music I have come across and who insist everyone else is wrong but them. There is no question that musical beauty is in the ear of the beholder so to speak, but trust me, there are many folks simply unwilling to deal with any level of reality when it comes to their music. On the otherhand, on this roadtrip alone I have seen several artists/writers dramatically improve over the last 4 years, so in shockingly positive ways because they were able to take constructive criticism and implement it and just keep moving forward. I hope folks here will use this process in the same way. To become familiar with the talent that is out there and the level it takes to rise to the top and to work to improve your work to match and surpass the examples. That is always how humans have moved forward in art, business, science and life in general.

Brian