ISC 2007 Grand Prize Winners Collaborated on MusesMuse.com to Write Their Winning Song

Date: Apr 10, 2008

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Collaborating online made it possible for two songwriters living across the world from one another, to win the grand prize in the International Songwriting Competition (http://www.songwritingcompetition.com/). One of the most prestigious songwriting competitions in the world, ISC is renowned for its high-profile judges, who have included Tom Waits, Robert Smith (The Cure), Loretta Lynn, Brian Wilson, B.B. King, Ray Davies (The Kinks), Rob Thomas (Matchbox 20), Neil Finn (Crowded House), Chaka Khan, Charlie Walk (President, Epic Records), Monte Lipman (President, Universal Records), and many more. The Grand Prize winner receives a whopping $25,000 in cash and over $30,000 in merchandise and services, all geared toward helping further a songwriter's career.

Eduard Glumov from Aktobe, Kazakhstan & Z. Mulls from Swarthmore, PA, wrote their award winning song after finding one another online in the message boards at The Muse's Muse Songwriting Resource (http://www.musesmuse.com).

According to Mulls, it was a Creative Competition in one of the Muse's Muse forums that inspired him to write the lyrics. "I wrote a lyric about a guy who really likes a girl, but has to hang out with her and her (bad) boyfriend," he says. "I used a lot of short phrases, echoes and repetition, and those qualities -- the short lines, the repetition, the "bad boyfriend" storyline -- all fed into a good rock song."

When the lyrics were completed, Mulls put it up on his website. Some time later, Glumov visited the message boards in search of a collaborator and the two connected there, soon taking their discussion to email. When Glumov visited Mulls' site, he picked out a few of the lyrics there that he was interested in putting music to. "I'm Not Your Friend" was one of them and the moody, driving music Glumov wrote for the piece along with his haunting melody and passionate singing, helped give the song what it needed to make it into something the ISC judges couldn?t help but recognize. Their song has also won First Prize in the Rock/Alt Division of the Great American Song Contest (http://www.greatamericansong.com/).

According to the ISC website, "The collaboration between Eduard Glumov and Z. Mulls - from Kazakhstan to the USA - from one side of the globe to the other - perfectly reflects the International Songwriting Competition's mission of nurturing songwriting throughout the world." The Muse's Muse Songwriting Resource promotes that same nurturing mission.

The Muse's Muse message boards have been around since 1997 and currently have a membership of over 7,000. Lyric and song competitions are held regularly for the members there on an informal basis. Many great songs have been written as a result. It's likely that the amount of global collaborations in the arts will only increase as the Internet makes the process far easier than it has ever been in the past.