First Run Songwriting Competition

The First Run Songwriting Competition is accepting submissions in Jazz, R&B/Soul, and Lyrics/Song Poetry Only categories. Contestants must compose music and lyrics according to guidelines for each category. One winner from each category will have their song featured in the Stage production, Firstborn in April 2010./n/nThe First Run Songwriting Competition is a Songwriting/Composing Contest open to songwriters, lyricists and music composers everywhere with a special division for writers and composers under 25. Winners will be selected in Jazz, R&B/Soul, and Lyrics/Song Poetry Only categories.



Contestants must compose music and lyrics according to guidelines for each category. One winner from each category will have their song featured in the Stage production, Firstborn in April 2010.



Categories:

• Jazz: Songs should be 3-5 minutes long and piano centered. Submissions should have the title "Firstborn" and must have lyrics reflecting hope for a newly born daughter, the challenges that life presents and the love that will always be hers. It should be straight-ahead jazz, jazz fusion with R&B/Soul, or jazz fusion with contemporary acoustic/folk.
• R&B/Soul: Songs should be 3-5 minutes long and feature any instrumentation. The style of the track should be a ballad in R&B, soul, neo-soul and/or acoustic fusion genres. Submissions can have any title, but lyrics should reflect a hope that beauty will return again in a life and love that was once beautiful, then changed for the worse.
• Lyrics/Song Poetry Only:
  Writers may submit lyrics for either the Jazz or R&B/Soul guidelines. Judges in this lyrics only category base their evaluations on effective use of lyrical technique, story/theme development, rhyming and overall songwriting effectiveness. Judges also consider how successfully a lyric can be adapted to music.