Songwriting Contest
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Description | Rules | Instumentation Rules | Entry Form
Description
Utah Pioneer Heritage Arts 2008 Songwriting Contest
The aim of the Utah Pioneer Heritage Arts Songwriting contest is to tie generations together through music. We hope you’ll write about your ancestors wherever or whenever they lived.
But this year if you have a story you want to share in song celebrating the lives and times of those who marched with the Mormon Battalion 1846-1847, we'd particularly love to hear it! If your song is chosen as one of the ten finalist songs, you will perform your original song live for the annual Frontier Fest at Gardner Village on Sat. June 14th between 12:30 and 1:30 pm in order to qualify for a spot as one of the top two winners.
On July 4th 2008 a trek begins at Mt. Pisgah, Iowa, re-enacting the Mormon Battalion’s 2000-mile march to San Diego, California (see www.battaliontrek.com).
The Mormon Battalion performed a great service for the United States by opening a southern migration route to the Pacific coast that could be traveled year-round.
But they also financed, through their wages sent back to their families, the migration of the Mormon Pioneers to Utah. Brigham Young, Utah’s Great Colonizer, said of the battalion, “It was indeed the temporal salvation of our camp.”
Colonel Philip St. George Cooke, Commander of the battalion, said of the battalion, "History may be searched in vain for an equal march of infantry. Half of it has been through a wilderness where nothing but savages and wild beasts are found, or deserts where, for lack of water, there is no living creature."
The top three winners will receive two free hours of studio time at Pitchfork Studios and the top winning songs will be placed on an album named “Battalion”, produced by Heritage Arts Recordings.
The first place winner will play his/her composition as part of that evening’s Pre-Show at “The Ghosts of Gardner Village” and receive two free admission tickets to the show. Second place winner will also receive free admission for two to the show.
A demo of your song must be sent, postmarked no later than May 15th 2008 to:
UPHA Songwriting Contest
1258 W. Pitchfork Rd.
Murray, UT 84123
We cannot be responsible for damaged, stolen or undelivered CDs or tapes sent in the mail. Sender is responsible to make sure their demo CD or tape has arrived. CDs and tapes will NOT be returned.
Demos do not have to be fully developed and are preferred in their simplest state. We are judging on lyric and melody. Please make sure to include a lyric sheet!
The top ten finalists will be notified no later than Friday, May 31st, and are expected to perform their song live on Sat. June 14th.
Contest Rules
Songwriters under age 18 must have a parent’s consent. You may submit more than one song for the contest. Each song submission costs $15.00. A portion of the proceeds may go toward the nonprofit Utah Pioneer Heritage Arts.
You can perform your original song yourself, using one or more of the allowable instruments listed below, or you can have someone play and perform the song for you. We are focusing on the strength of the song lyrically and melodically, so a simple accompaniment with one instrument is fine and encouraged. Please have available five copies of your song lyrics for the judges to look at if you are chosen to perform on Sat. June 14th.
Instruments used must have been in use by Utah residents during 1847-1869 or have their origins traced to that time period. See list of qualifying instruments below. If your song is chosen for the album, the accompaniment must come from the instruments listed below or have their origins in those instruments.
While the top three winners of the song contest will be receiving two hours of free studio time to record their original song Utah Pioneer Heritage Arts is not responsible for the cost of hiring musicians or vocalists to record the song.
Instrumentation Rules:
Allowable instruments of that time period: violin, mandolin, banjo, guitar,
accordion, harmonica, Scottish pipes, Native American flutes and Native American drums, piano, organ, and even woodwind or brass instruments that existed then. A cappella singing is acceptable.
You may use any instrument (or direct descendant of that instrument) whose existence during the years of 1847-1869 you can document. For instance, the steel-string guitar did not exist until1900, but the gut-string guitar did exist during that period and the steel string has its origins in the gut-string and thus can be used.
Exception: we are not allowing any electric guitars or any other form of electric instrumentation nor are we allowing any drums except Native American drums and military drums such as snare drums and field drums.
If there is an instrument you would like to use, not listed above, that has its origins from 1847-1869 and was used in Utah by any of the recognized pioneer heritage ethnic groups, then you must be able to document its use with the songwriting committee beforehand.
We look forward to hearing all your wonderful songs!
Phillip Fairbrother and Clive Romney- UPHA Song Contest organizers
For more information please contact Phillip Fairbrother
801-577-5908
the_frogbat@yahoo.com
Entry Form
Download your entry form here! 
Battalion Tips
Tips & Research Helps
Period Instruments:
During the period of the march of the Mormon Battalion (1846-1847), instruments were fewer in number and more difficult to obtain, particularly on the western frontier. So when music was desired, unaccompanied voice was very common.
Violins, mandolins, banjos, fifes, field drums, bugles and even harmonicas were some of the more frequently encountered instruments. So these instruments could serve well as the core instruments for your song accompaniments.
Mandolins and banjos would have had gut strings, so their sound would have been more mellow than what we are accustomed to hearing.
Stories of the battalion:
Brief histories of the battalion can be found online in many places. Here are a few:
www.mormonbattalion.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_Battalion
www.three-peaks.net/battalion.htm
www.onlineutah.com/historybattalion.shtml
http://wesclark.com/jw/mormon_battalion.html
www.desertusa.com/mag00/oct/papr/mormbat.html
www.sangres.com/history/mormonbattalion.htm
There are some good books about the Mormon Battalion which you can locate by searching for “Mormon Battalion books” on Google.
Following is an exhaustive day-by-day account that correlates all the journals of the members of the Mormon Battalion who kept journals. If you want to read the stories of the actual participants, this is it!
Annals of the Mormon Battalion
Download the Annals here! (6.0 mb)