Acoustic Guitar

Songwriting Competitions

• Acoustic Guitar magazine • Season 3 • Episode 2

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How does competition fit into the creative process? We're joined by Abby Posner, Rachel Garcia, and Thu Tran for a candid roundtable discussion all about songwriting competitions. Explore the highs and lows of participating in these events, how to pick which song to enter, and the impact contests can have on a guitarist's career. 

Additional resources:

The Acoustic Guitar Podcast theme music is composed by Adam Perlmutter and performed for this episode by Thu Tran.

This episode is hosted by Nick Grizzle and Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers, produced by Tanya Gonzalez, and directed and edited by Joey Lusterman. Executive producers are Lyzy Lusterman and Stephanie Campos Dal Broi.

The Acoustic Guitar Podcast is produced by the team at Acoustic Guitar magazine, including:

  • Publisher: Lyzy Lusterman
  • Editorial Director: Adam Perlmutter
  • Managing Editor: Kevin Owens
  • Creative Director: Joey Lusterman
  • Digital Content Director: Stephanie Campos Dal Broi
  • Digital Content Manager: Nick Grizzle
  • Marketing Services Manager: Tanya Gonzalez

Special thanks to our listeners who support the show on Patreon.

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Nick Grizzle:

Welcome to the Acoustic Guitar Podcast. I'm your host, Nick Grizzle, joined by co-host Jeffrey Pepper Rogers, who, you may know, won the 2008 John Lennon Songwriting Contest with his country tune Fly. This episode is all about songwriting competitions. We're joined by Abby Posner, Rachel Garcia, and Thu Tran. Abby Posner has been a working musician in Los Angeles for the past 18 years. She is the grand prize winner of the 2023 USA Songwriting Competition with William H Carpenter for their song Get Loud. Rachel Garcia and Thu Tran write, record, and perform together as The Singer and the Songwriter. They won the West Coast Songwriters International Song Contest for their song the Art of Missing You.

Nick Grizzle:

Our candid roundtable discussion explores the impact contests have on musicians' careers, the highs and lows of participating in these events and what role, if any, competition plays in the creative process. Be sure to check out the links in our show notes to learn more about our guests and their music. You'll also find the link to support the Acoustic Guitar Podcast on Patreon, that's patreon dot com slash acousticguitarplus. If you can't make a pledge at this time, you can also support the show by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. Thanks for listening and for chipping in if you can. We begin with Jeffrey Pepper Rogers asking Abby Posner why she started entering songwriting competitions.

Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers:

What was your goal when you started to enter contests? What were you hoping for, I mean, aside from the obvious which is to win? But what were you aiming to accomplish?

Abby Posner:

Yeah, so I've been writing music for a long time. I've been at this for a little over 15 years and I never really even thought to apply for these things. To be honest, I was really focused on touring and I was really focused on sync licensing and so I honestly didn't even really think to go this route until I first applied the John Lennon Songwriting Competition and then I just thought, well, why not, it's just an extra bonus. So I never have written songs specifically for songwriting competitions and that's something that's. It's almost like you have to change your mind frame a little bit, almost like writing songs for sync licensing.

Abby Posner:

I write songs from the heart as an artist, and then when I'm writing songs for briefs for music supervisors in sync placements, it's kind of a different. I'm writing from a different place. So I never really thought to write specifically for a contest. Yeah, but it just so happens that this last song that I wrote with my co-writer, Will Carpenter, won the USA Songwriting Competition and we were specifically writing because it was a cause we were very passionate about and it was art to raise awareness and to bring to make sure that people felt heard and seen that weren't.

Nick Grizzle:

So was that written specifically for the competition?

Abby Posner:

No, not at all. We had no intention of winning any prizes. We were writing kind of with a little bit of a sync. He's one of my co-writers I write licensing music with, but we really just want. We were feeling a lot of rage at the time. This was after Roe v Wade, you know, got overturned and we both just sat down and wrote a song.

Nick Grizzle:

And Rachel and Thu, how about you?

Rachel Garcia:

We've always been independent musicians. It's always just been the two of us. So I think one of the intentions of submitting for these competitions was to feel supported, was to garner support from a larger institution. We've always felt a bit stuck to sort of move our career forward. Like, as we grow as artists, our career has often not followed, and so I think we saw it as one of the avenues to gain outside support.

Rachel Garcia:

So it wasn't just the two of us really hustling, but just getting this like outside and, I think, also some validation from the industry and from folk music. It's sort of this like outside stamp that says we actually like, approve of these two people and we think that they're good, and so that sort of... It's just sort of like on your website, you know this little mark, or it's on your social media, and I think when people are booking you, even if they don't know what the competition is, they sort of have this like outside, institutional validation of like 'we approve of these two people, you can trust them,' and so I think I think we were searching for that as well.

Nick Grizzle:

How do you pick which songs to enter? If you're not writing specifically for this contest, say any given contest, how do you choose which song? Is there something in particular about a song that kind of stands out as this would be good for a competition?

Abby Posner:

Yeah, I think that you kind of go through, at least for me, I go through my album and I think about what's the hook, what's the catchiest, biggest hook? I also think about genre and which, because I write a lot of different genres in my on my albums and so I'm thinking, well, what's gonna be like the biggest thing that can grab somebody's ear and make them want more? And I'm really specifically focusing in on choruses, making sure that it's a little bit of an anthem, something that is an earworm.

Abby Posner:

The last song that Will and I submitted is a very big, almost anthem piece. We've been submitting it for sports games and arenas and I think that that was something that perhaps caught the ear of the contest was that it was big, it had a theme, it had a message and there it was very... You know, we both produced it and we both kind of added. I added a more organic, natural element to that production, while Will took the reins and added more of an electronic feel. And I think that when you work together as a team it really boosts your chances, because I'm a lone wolf producer normally and I just he just makes me sound better because he's a different person and he's approaching music in a different way. So I think it's this song one, because it was a collaboration of two very different minds.

Nick Grizzle:

Yeah, and that's Get Loud. Was that one right?

Rachel Garcia:

Abby: That's that's right. Yeah, "gGet Loud. I relate to it. Abby shared. A lot goes into it a lot of conversations about what they would like, what they would respond to, what the specific audience in that region might respond to, for instance, like the Curville Folk Festival is gonna be like a really different choice than something that's national. I think for us we definitely choose what we think is our best song Songs that we wrote almost kind of split, so songs that feel like we both had a heavy hand in, and then, I think, songs that are general enough that people can sort of overlay their own story and life onto the meaning of this song, and then specific enough that it's like interesting. So we call that in our band, we call that telescoping. So a band, so a song that really has that like granular detail, we call it thinginess, like the stuff and the details of a song, so someone's really interested, but also like a general enough message that it could fit many people's like lives and stories.

Abby Posner:

I love that so much. I totally agree with you on that, Rachel. That's like that's, and that's also just an incredible thing for sync. You know, like if you have universal lyrics that are kind of like we don't really know what the song is about, even though the writers are like, this is a very important message to us. It could mean something so different to everyone, and I really agree with what you said there for sure.

Thu Tran:

Oh, I was going to say that it's something I learned from Rachel as a writer. Rachel's a poet and that, like I think the kind of anthemic stuff is like what I would have always logically been like, oh, something really catchy is what people are going to like. But I've learned from Rachel and her writing is so specific. I'm always like that's so specific, like no one's who's going to relate to that, but it's -without getting kind of too like shop talky about it- like there's something about thinking. When you're talking about, like, choosing a song for the songwriting competition, you're up against a bunch of people, right, if it's an online submission, then it's tons more people. But like, all these writers are writing songs and sometimes it's that really specific moment of the lyric-- that's really what differentiates you. So it's they're never going to remember the title or whatever. But if there's some detail in there, they're like oh yeah, it's that song and it's got like an egg in it. You know, like that's all that's needed to be, like that kind of sifts to the top.

Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers:

Yeah, I was just going to add from my own experience, because I, after writing songs for several decades, I had this feeling about entering the John Lennon Songwriting Contest and I wound up winning for this song. But there was this very specific feeling that I had about that song, that most of the stuff that I had written felt very tied to my idiosyncratic style as a guitarist, as a singer, and there was something about this song that I wrote that felt more like elemental, like I could hear a bunch of people maybe grabbing it and singing it a little bit more. I don't know it's. It's it's related to the universal element that you're talking about, but it's also about, maybe, something that other people could perform to and I was like, ok, I'm going to enter this and it seemed to be a good instinct and, you know, lightning struck on my first time out with that. But it kind of.

Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers:

It leads to another question that I wanted to ask you all to, which is about categories, about genre. So in my own experience, I wound up entering the country category, even though I've never, ever considered myself a country songwriter. But that song that's what it was, you know, was based on a fiddle tune, part of it and it was. You know it was based in bluegrass and country, but a lot of times choosing a genre is different. I mean there's folk and there's Americana, and there's singer- songwriter. I mean, songs can be looked at in so many ways. So how do you figure where you're going to mean, along with choosing the song, what box are you going to put it in?

Abby Posner:

Yeah, that's a really good question. I think that's where I struggle sometimes because I am so inspired by. I mean, I love music, period. I just love all music and I'm so influenced by soul and Americana and folk and rock and pop and sometimes I'll just splatter that all on a page. This song that Will and I wrote happened to be a very rock kind of alternative song, which is a little bit outside of my category. I tend to write more folk and Americana. We did have a little tinge of a banjo in there, but Will was the one that submitted and and it was submitted under alternative rock and I would have never and none of my other songs would fit that category. So it was. It was wise that he submitted under that, you know. So it was, yeah, that. I think that was. That was part of the winning deal. If we had done Americana, I don't know, I don't know that we would have won.

Thu Tran:

That's such a great point, Abby. I think it made me think. I think one of the things you're choosing in choosing the genre to compete in is to choose who your competitors are, because I feel like in some ways this just makes me think like music is such a hard thing to make compete, like it's kind of antithetical to how I feel about music. and I think about it sort of like it's like the Westminster dog show, because, all dogs are good dogs. How pure they are in their category is not why I love dogs, you know.

Thu Tran:

So to like, judge it on, like it's for it's like.

Nick Grizzle:

That's not the point, of dogs man.

Thu Tran:

And if I'm gonna like be labor that metaphor, I feel like our music's like a mutt and it has no place winning any of these things. But if it's going to be considered, that's pretty nice you know, yeah, yeah, it's wonderful.

Abby Posner:

I love that so much. I really really love that. We think of our song as a mutt too, because it's a little bit of everything you know well, those are the best dogs. Those are the best dogs, although I do have a. I have a purebred, I have a basset hound, but he is a rescue, so don't judge there.

Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers:

I just wanted to double back to ask when entering, because we've made a few references here to the recordings and I know contests are different in terms of whether they want a very produced recording or something simpler or. But how do you think about that? You know, do you, do you feel like is a simple demo going to be okay, maybe for some contest? Do you feel like you want something that's more really studio release worthy?

Abby Posner:

For me. I love producing and so I and this is again, this is just my own personal experience I don't make anything half I would. I would personally never submit an unfinished demo. I also just love the process of producing and I want to make it as good as I possibly can and I always want to challenge myself to be better on each song and on each album and I want to challenge myself to grow as an artist and as a producer. So personally, I steer away from unfinished or just kind of raw demos. Some of the stuff that I produce in general is a little bit raw, but it's on purpose, because I like that gritty, the grittiness. But I would, I would definitely always submit at least a final mix, if not a final master, and that's just. That's just me.

Thu Tran:

I agree with that. I think we've mostly only submitted completed mastered songs and I think it just and I know many competitions don't require that and I think if you're treating it like a game which kind of it is right it's a contest, that you're thinking about the other players as well and it's just you want it to hold up against other people who might would be, you know, submitting a fully finished mastered thing, and so it might not do your song that many favors. But again, yeah, there are plenty of like great songs and that lo-fi kind of demo quality is part of its appeal. But I try to put myself in the the headspace of the judges if they're listening back to, back to things you know, sometimes it's like it's super quiet or it's grainy or it's just popping noises and and that can get you out of the zone and yeah, although some some of the competition I guess I'm thinking in particularly like of the Kerville, is you two Rachel and and two you.

Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers:

You went down to Kerrville, right, you were part of that competition, so they have. I was actually just looking over their, their, their contest rules and they make this. They say in all caps, I think you know make sure the lyrics are really clear and and they want it and they're very strict about it has to be two people maximum, two people on stage stripped down.

Nick Grizzle:

So, as I understand it, that whole competition, kerville, is you don't submit a song, you go and you perform and then that's your entry, right?

Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers:

No, you submit a song and then you get. If you're a finalist, you go down and and perform.

Rachel Garcia:

It's like the Super Bowl in that town. It was an kind of unbelievable experience that we were sort of warned about, but it was really something to see it unfold over two days. Yeah, you submit songs and then you play your entries. JPR: and there's what Thu: there's 24 finalists and six winners.

Nick Grizzle:

You mentioned that it was like the Super Bowl. Can you walk us through those couple days?

Rachel Garcia:

Oh my gosh yeah.

Rachel Garcia:

So it's hot, it's like over 100. And then so all of the theaters are outside. The days that you perform are. You're in an outdoor amphitheater, so so is the audience, so there's a real advantage to going early in the day. Okay, kerrville, texas, and I think what I mean about the Super Bowl is there's a lot of sort of feverishness about this competition, both among the people who've made it into the 24 and among the people attending. It has a really long legacy, and I remember sitting in the audience watching my fellow participants and seeing everyone around me had paper and pencil and they were marking notes on their, on their sheet of paper, and sort of grading the songs as we were, as I was watching people play.

Thu Tran:

And, to be clear, there are judges. The audience is not judging, but they are taking notes as if they are.

Rachel Garcia:

Yeah, there's a bit of like a leaderboard feeling and I remember sitting, you know, the people around me not knowing that I was going to be performing and watching this happen, and it just sort of the pressure was just sort of mounting in that way. I also knew that we were like day two at the end of the day and so I was like, oh no, everyone's going to be so tired, they would have maybe already slotted in their six, you know, in their minds so we'd have to like essentially unseat someone from like the six potential winners they were holding in their minds.

Thu Tran:

This is also to say like it's like the Super Bowl, because I know nothing about sports or athleticism, so that's probably as close to a competitive sports game as I'll ever get to compete.

Abby Posner:

It's like a dog show. I'm closer.

Thu Tran:

I will. I have more chance of competing in a dog show than in a Super Bowl.

Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers:

And yet the other part of that and I know it's you know there are other contests that also have this, that are around events, so you have a bunch of songwriters coming together and you know the community aspect of of them. You know, like also in Colorado, like the Rocky Mountain Folk Festival or the Telluride festivals that have these events and so a lot of chance to meet other songwriters, to kind of. You know you're competing against each other but I'm wondering, has it had experiences that sort of made you where that community aspect of it was meaningful, where you sort of feel like, well, this is my, my tribe, you know, make connections that are that turn out to be something that that you know you come back to in another way, outside of the contest?

Thu Tran:

Yeah, I think like to contrast that what Rachel is describing, we stayed at the Kerrville Folk Festival for a week after the competition and it was that was the whole thing for us. Like to be able to sit around a campfire, Like it was such a stark contrast to like feeling that amount of adrenaline and stuff about that comp, the competitive aspect of it. It just felt so antithetical to music. And then, once we were so relieved, once it was over, and then the week after, sitting around a campfire with all of the other you know competition quote unquote and just like enjoying their songs, playing music together, jamming on each other's songs, learning each other's songs, playing covers together, Like I was like, oh yeah, that's that's the point, Like that's so much the value of this.

Nick Grizzle:

Do you feel that that community aspect as well within? You know the songwriting competition community. Do you do you ever chat with other people who participated in them? Or you know trade tips or horror stories or anything like that?

Abby Posner:

I think that what Rachel and two are talking about is like being in person with people and and seeing them live and having an experience together.

Abby Posner:

I've I've only said I have submitted to Kerrville and I've submitted to, I think, the new song competition and haven't gotten in. But I think that there's the only thing I can compare it to is like getting a showcase at, you know, like Americana Fest, like we had a showcase in Nashville and we got to meet other showcase artists and have that kind of bond, um. Or or having a showcase at Folk Alliance, which, which we do this year as well, um, because you're in person and you're you're like, you're just, you're in a space together and you're getting to know each other and you're playing music and you're supporting each other. And I think that the difference is is the ones that uh, this recent one that we won, it was online and you know we're not in a space together and like celebrating and um, meeting other people in other categories in person. So I think the in person effect is very special with Kerrville and uh new song and these other, you know, performing competitions.

Nick Grizzle:

Do you ever get feedback from uh, you know the judges or or anything in these competitions? I mean?

Abby Posner:

yeah, there was one time I got feedback from, I think, the international acoustic songwriting competition, which I was like a runner up for Um, and yeah, there was. There was some good constructive criticism and also things that they really liked. I think for that one, but I don't. I don't actually know if we got feedback on the the USA songwriting competition.

Thu Tran:

I think there was one um competition through Nashville Songwriters Association um that did have a panel and they gave anonymous feedback and it was interesting. Specific to that, it was a Nashville based uh competition it was, but it was only online submission so anybody could submit, but you really got us. I think to me feedback says just as much about the feedback giver as the feedback receiver, and so, like it was really interesting to hear what Nashville songwriters like valued and like they were really um looking for, like stronger choruses, stronger hooks and like the type of folk storytelling that our music is mostly based around. You know, I would, you know, even like the strongest of choruses that I think it's like it's it's not catchy enough for them, and so that was really interesting feedback to hear another person's perspective of, but their perspective also being really informed by the, the sliver of the industry that they are experts in, you know.

Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers:

Well, I wonder, uh, talking about having that, um, credential, and I have to say that's it is very meaningful, and there's this basic reality that there are a zillion songwriters out there and you know, if you have that, that stamp does mean something. You know, my John Lennon songwriting contest win was in 2008. It's still right at the top of my bio. You know, in, in, in talking about the value of, of having that sort of credential, are there specific things that you feel like doors that have opened for you a gig that you've gotten, a connection that you've made that has happened in part as a result of of this, or is that just too hard to trace?

Abby Posner:

I think it's like unseen stuff. Like you know, I put out an album recently, uh, had a PR campaign, a radio campaign, this win, you know, like there's all these different things kind of happening simultaneously and you don't know if it's because of this win or it's because, oh hey, I heard this one song on the radio. Um, but I think it's. It's kind of like when you put something into the world, you know it's this kind of whirlwind of activity starts to happen around it, whether it's very minuscule or not, like the word of mouth, whatever it is.

Abby Posner:

So I do wonder sometimes well, why did I get that opportunity? Was it because of the of the win? Why am I booking that festival now? Is it because they saw that? But they won't? Ever I haven't had somebody say directly hey, abby, I saw that you won the USA Songwriting Competition. Will you come and play, you know, mild music or whatever festival it might be. I just think that there's like, whenever you this is what I encourage artists to do is just like keep putting things out there. There's, it creates movement in some way.

Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers:

Maybe it's really it's just getting past that you know that gate, where then somebody's gonna decide to dig in a little deeper. I mean, whatever happens is gonna be based on your music, you know, not based on a credential itself, right?

Abby Posner:

Yeah, I mean it's unfortunate. I think right now we're living in a time where streaming is so prominent. People look at Spotify plays and they look at followers and they like that's how they judge if you're good enough or not. But yeah, there is something to be said for all of these things. If you have that as a credential, I think that it certainly doesn't hurt. I just don't know if that's why I've gotten certain opportunities. I'm not sure.

Rachel Garcia:

I think I relate to what you're saying around. It sort of whips up some energy. We also haven't had like really direct feedback that it's like. This is why we often think of like the main goal of a gig that we have is to get another gig from that gig, and it's sort of just by putting yourself into those situations and sort of engaging with it, it I don't know it's it kind of opens this like air stream of more things, but I don't know that there has been like a direct pointed boost.

Thu Tran:

Yeah, and I think about that. It isn't like some. There's like some marketing adage where it's like it takes people like three times of seeing something to recognize it or legitimize it. And I feel like putting yourself, even if you're a finalist and you don't win. There's these blasts of these little cycles of like, well, the new song finalists are announced, and then it's the competition, and then it's the winner is announced and you're kind of lumped in and I kind of imagine a mysterious listener out there being like the singer and the songwriter huh who? And then a month later the singer and the songwriter with the curvil, and then they're like God, keep hearing about the singer and the songwriter who the heck are they? And I would hope that some being kind of looped into that, that those little cycles, just helps to kind of subconsciously enter into people's minds.

Rachel Garcia:

I also feel like it sort of gives your fans that have been with you, those true fans, something to be really excited about. You know it's January and so for the last decade there's been like the tiny desk right that we often send something in for, and we've been sort of noticed by the tiny desk like a couple of times, like into, like a top five nature, like outdoor They'll do like a feature.

Rachel Garcia:

Yeah, some feature, but obviously not a winner, and we'll sort of send that out as like here's this new song that we've submitted for this. But I think in sort of tech translation, people think of our fans that we've won. So there's always a couple of people that write us and they're like I love it, I'm so excited, like I knew it, congratulations, I knew it and we try to correct them. But it's this really sweet thing of like oh, I've hitched my wagon to the right band and sort of like this is my team and so I don't know, there's a bit of like a boost for everyone that's with you, like I know that, like my mom, when this happens, she's really lifted. You know, like it just sort of it creates this. I just think of like airplane wing lift like around everyone that's sort of supporting you is like really pumped about these little things, however little they might be. It makes them feel like they invested in the right place, I think. Abby: super well said.

Abby Posner:

I totally agree with that. I think that it's like you send out a mailing list with the announcement and people are like, oh my gosh, amazing, we knew it, like we've been following you since 2010 or whatever, and they get so pumped because they are exactly like Rachel said, like you're along for the ride with this band and you've seen them through highs and lows and it's just like a win for them. I love that. It's so true. I felt that I felt so much love and I felt so lifted up by my fans when I announced this, you know.

Nick Grizzle:

That's the end of part one. The conversation continues on our Patreon page. The Acoustic Guitar podcast is brought to you by the team at Acoustic Guitar Magazine. I'm your host, nick Grizzle, joined for this episode by Jeffrey Pepper Rogers. The Acoustic Guitar podcast is directed and edited by Joey Lusterman. Tony Gonzalez is our producer. Executive producers are Lyzy Lusterman and Stephanie Campos Dal Broi. Our theme song was composed by Adam Pearlmutter and performed for this episode by Thu Tran. If you enjoy this podcast and want to support us, visit our Patreon page at patreoncom, slash acoustic guitar plus or find the link in the show notes for this episode. As a supporter, you'll have access to exclusive bonus episodes, along with other special perks and if you're already a patron. Thank you so much for your support.

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Nick Grizzle

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