A link to the rules and regulations can be found on the 'Enter the Contest' page. You can also click here to read the rules and regulations..

The Unisong International Song Contest is open to songwriters in ALL countries. As we've been around since 1997, proudly being the 1st truly International song contest, our roots run deep in the international arena, through our past Grand Prizes and global friends and contacts. So we not only accept entries from around the world, we highly encourage them. We have received entries from over 90 countries worldwide thus far, and from every continent except Antarctica (maybe some penguin songwriter will enter a song soon too!!!)

Excellent. Unisong has had the most international winners of any major international songwriting contest. From over 25 countries and counting. Even our most recent Grand Prize winner, Judith de los Santos is from Mexico. Plus other past international Grand Prize winners like Sascha Dupont from Denmark (2000), and Claire Dallison (1999) and Ruth Merry (1998) both from the UK. In recent years we’ve had 1st place winners from Australia, Germany, Iceland, France, Canada, and Ireland. Plus other major prize winners over the years from Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Singapore, Spain, Japan, China, and New Zealand to name but a few. In fact, more than one third of all Unisong winners have come from outside the USA.

No, there's no limit on the number of songs you can enter. You can enter as many songs as you want in different categories, or as many songs as you want in the same category.

Even though the winning songs in the L.U.N.C.H category have their own prizes and guidelines, the winning song in this special category will still be eligible for the Grand Prize alongside the other 1st prize winners in the other 18 categories. In addition, any song (including those entered in the L.U.N.C.H category) are eligible to be a ‘Winner of the Month”, selected out of the pool of entries of a given month, regardless of what category it is entered in.

Take a chance and enter it into the categories that you feel fits it best. A great song will always stand out and be recognized even if it doesn't fit exactly into a specific category. The categories are meant to be a guide, not a rule. Or if you just can’t decide where it fits on your own, we’re offering an extra option this edition where we’ll select the best category for your song for an additional $5. You’ll see this option available to you on the entry form online or when you download and print out an entry form.

The “Winner of the Month” is an additional “contest-within-a-contest” feature where one winner will automatically be selected from all entries in a given month and awarded an extra $250 prize, a one year membership in Songbridge www.thesongbridge.com, a free “killer drum track” by world class session drummer Chet McCracken www.chetmccracken.com, and a one month individual spotlight of the writer and their song on the Unisong website.

There will be a “Winner of the Month” selected in this edition of Unisong for the months of November, December, January and February. This feature is judged in-house and separately from the main contest, and wining this prize has NO bearing on the regular contest judging afterwards. You don’t have to do anything extra to be considered for this mini competition, just enter your songs from November through February.

Rather than have a dedicated category for Performance and Song like last year, we are instead debuting our Performance Option for $10, where only the vocal or instrumental performance of any song in any category will be judged separately and specifically for the $1000 “Best Performance Prize” we are offering. When you check this option, only the Performance will be judged for this separate prize, not the song (music and lyrics), arrangement, or Production. Some criteria for judging this specific prize include the power, pitch, emotion and clarity of the vocal delivery, and overall artistic integrity. Or the sheer musicianship and virtuosity of the performance if it is an instrumental.

This is actually designed to give you several opportunities to submit your instrumental songs for this edition if you wish to. In the Jazz category, you can submit either a Jazz song with lyrics and vocals OR a Jazz instrumental piece. In the Blues category, you can submit either a Blues song with lyrics and vocals OR a straight Blues instrumental. And in the regular Instrumental category it can be any kind of style of instrumental, but no songs with vocals are allowed.

This way if you have a Jazz Instrumental piece, it would fit in both the Jazz category AND the Instrumental category. You could enter your piece in one or the other, or both. It’s the same situation with the Blues category. And the regular instrumental category is meant to encompass not only Jazz and Blues Instrumentals, but a whole range of other kind of Instrumentals too, from Symphonic or Orchestral, to Country, Pop, Film/TV score pieces, and everything in between.

No. The song critique option is only available for songs entered in the contest.

Yes, if needed. You can copy the application if you're submitting more than 5 songs or lyrics (which is the maximum amount of song entries available on one entry form). This does not apply to direct on-line entries or entries through Sonicbids.

Unfortunately, we can't accept personal checks from those living outside the USA, including Canada We can only accept international bank cheques and money orders, or credit cards. Or Pay Pal if you enter online. Please don't send personal checks with the words "US Funds" written in next to the amount. This will be returned. Also, we can't accept bank wire transfers for payment, as there are too many fees involved on both ends and currency conversion issues as well.

Yes. You can submit one check, money order, or credit card information for all of your physical entries. For on-line entries, you will be instructed to follow the entry and payment procedures one song at a time.

All entrants will receive notification when the winners are posted via e-mail, besides the top winners and finalists being listed on our web site after the winners are announced. The Grand Prize and Top Four Prize winners in every category will be e-mailed and called personally by one of our officers (one of our most enjoyable tasks). Depending on a variety of factors, we anticipate that the winners will be announced no later than June 30th, 2007.

Yes. You retain ALL rights to your songs. You do not give up and publishing rights in entering Unisong.

Yes. Since Unisong has no ownership in any of your songs, you are free to submit songs to Unisong that have already been pitched elsewhere. In fact, we encourage you to do whatever you can to create success with your songs.

The preliminary levels of screening of songs are done by Taxi, a top independent A&R company. Their screening procedures are carefully and respectfully implemented with the goal of selecting the best songs as finalists to send on to the selected panels of judges who have expertise in a particular genre or style of music. The judges then select the winners for each category from this group of finalists. Then after all the categories winners are chosen, one final Blue Ribbon panel consisting of the highest level judges available, will choose one Grand Prize winner from the 18 categories and 19th L.U.N.C.H category winners.

Since 1997. It was originally founded by veteran songwriter Alan Roy Scott (Music Bridges), along with publisher David Stark (SongLink International) and songwriter/promoter Brett Perkins (Brett Perkins Presents) who set out to create a different kind of song contest. The Unisong International Song Contest was the first international song contest created "by songwriters...for songwriters". Mr. Scott is still the main creative and guiding force behind it today.

The winners and their winning songs are on the web site. Just click on the title of the song to listen to it. We'll also have all our winners and finalists listed on the site going all the way back to the beginning in 1997 in the near future, but the only winning songs you can listen to are the most recent ones from the recently completed 10th edition (2005-2006).