Songwriters Challenge

At an open mic night a fellow open mic junkie named Paul Raia and myself were sitting around talking about songwriting and songwriting events. I told him a I thought a cool event would be for a bunch of us songwriters to throw our names in a hat, draw a name out and then a month or two later at a public venue perform a cover song of one of our fellow songwriters. I still like that idea. But...Paul proceeded to tell me about an event he heard of in San Diego where they gave songwriters a title and then they wrote a song with that title. I thought...hey...cool. So I ran with it. I am pretty sure Paul said they did it every month so that is where the 30 day idea came from. So our version is this: One month before the event is to take place we announce what the title will be and songwriters present their song at a public venue. We are currently using Chino Bandidos in Chandler, AZ because it has a huge room and order at the counter kind of service which works really well with music events.

These events are great fun and we get a wide variety of ages participating, multiple genres of music and a wide range of songwriting experience. We have found sponsors who donate prizes for which we have drawings at the event. These prizes are things that are of value to a songwriter ranging from studio time to merchandise from music stores. Some thought was given to making it a contest but it becomes really difficult to judge when you have a variety of genres and there is a natural tendency to pick the best performance rather than the best song. Therefore we have made it like David Letterman says before Stupid Pet Tricks , "Remember folks, this is an exhibition and NOT a competition; please no wagering."

These events are very fun. If you are a songwriter take the challenge. It's a great chance to network and get to know other songwriters in the area. If you would like to get on the mailing list so you can hear about the next event, email me at chris@azopenmic.com and say hey...add me to your list for the songwriters challenge.

I have given the events their own special pages since they have different titles, different participants, different sponsors and different levels of local press coverage etc. They are listed below if you would like to check them out.