Hannah-Lee... Over the past several weeks I've been buried in paperwork, filling out applications for provincial and national arts grants, and entering some of our songs in songwriting contests and awards contests. All of this involves carefully crafting words in answer to probing questions and making decisions about which songs in our repertoire could possibly merit an award. We're hoping to fund some of our projects this way, and to promote our music in the listening community. There are a lot of opportunities out there for the independent musician these days, so it is worth the effort.
One of the things I have found to be most difficult in this process is describing our sound. We don't fit cleanly into any one genre of music. This is generally a good thing for us; we like the idea of being unique, however when it comes to having to check off a box labelled with a specific genre, it's very frustrating. Who are we? We are definitely not pure folk and we are certainly not rock, though our music leans toward an edgier sound at times. Folk-rock? Um...okay...sort of. Most forms for funding and songwriting contests don't offer that description as a category, and most of the time there isn't an "other" box to tick off.
One contest, the International Songwriting Competition, came through for us, in that it had a category called "AAA", or "Adult Album Alternative". When I listened to the winners in that category from last year, their sound most closely matched ours; folksy-ecclectic with some edge. Brilliant! If only all the forms I have had to fill out could have been that easy.
Hopefully our music will speak louder than my words in all of these endeavours. After all, labels don't really matter. Thankfully, in the end, it's the music that is under scrutiny. We want it to be heard, noticed and appreciated for what it is.
What do you think? Who are we? How would you define our sound? Help us out friends and fans!
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