Mike’s Minute: Evolution of the APRA Silver Scroll
The face of a songwriting competition/award has changed rather stupendously over the last few decades. Yes, indeed.
‘How? Pray tell us.’
Well, I used to be Director of NZ Operations at APRA. This became a reality in December 1992, and one of the first songwriting responsibilities was collecting broadcast and public performance royalties from all over New Zealand. That was the fiscal purpose. However, with that overall duty, there was one particular focus that arrived in our world in late 1993—the APRA Silver Scroll Competition, where NZ songwriters submitted original songs for a panel of judges to rate and decide which particular one was the deserving, winning (best!) song for any particular year. How did this competition happen? How did the wheels of the Silver Scroll turn?
Well, as it stood back then, songwriters had been entering the Silver Scroll from 1965 onwards by filling out a form and sending in a vinyl or CD copy of the particular song(s) they were entering. Songs they had written. Original work(s). Get the drift? Easier said than done!
Back in those odd old days, an APRA member could enter as many songs as they liked. It was a shambolic array, as some writers submitted up to ten, twelve—maybe twenty!—songs each. For all I know, someone may have entered 200 of their songs. Heaven forbid. But not in my time. So, in the year prior to my first Silver Scroll, I noticed there had been around 150 different songs entered. And in the particular year before my debut, the judges were flooded.
So how were they judged? The chosen panel of judges met in a Radio New Zealand studio, and each song was played once. As the entries rolled along (and if the total number was over 100, that took some time), the judges made notes and a winner was collectively chosen. They were played out one track at a time. And this avalanche of songs was rated by the ears of the judges, one by one.
As the history books will tell us, great songs know how to bask in their popularity. They know how to stay alive long after their creation. And in this identification and focus, judges needed to ascertain all that underpins great songs—the textures, the harmonies, the discords, the dynamics, the melodic paths that are travelled, and the loud and the soft and the slow and the fast. It is all an adventure within the boundless life of a judge’s impression and a song’s reticence to have a listener lose attention. But these judges picked a winner each year, so one thing led to another. And every year the trophy had a winner’s name put on it.
When it came time for us newbies at APRA to run the Silver Scroll (1993), we limited entries to one song per writer. And in they came—a carefully chosen stream, all ready for serious listening. I chose a panel of five well-considered musical minds (who remained anonymous), and they were given cassettes of the songs awaiting the chosen moment. I gave them approximately three weeks to play them over and over; and that they did.
On a sunny morning in September 1993, they gathered, noted, considered, and negotiated with each other over this collection of songs, with a Silver Scroll winner all ready to be picked. And so it was—‘Belle of the Ball’ was announced at the Silver Scroll function held at the Powerstation in Auckland, and it was handed over to the writer—Dave Dobbyn. It was the second time he’d secured that trophy. Wonderful!
The philosophy of running and judging a songwriting award—let’s call it that—or shall we label it a competition? Well, most things in life wear the cloth of competition. Is that not authentic? Veritable? True? Anyway, I digress. The philosophy of a songwriting award is to have judges who bring to the path of their decision a belief and consolidation in their choice.
It is all truth, and the environment is a palpable unifying celebration where, as we’ve said and come to know, the two unique components of songs come together to live that special life and be lauded in their existence.
