Monday 26 January 2009

How do I enter?

• The competition opens on 17th February 2009.

Pick one of the five traditional tunes detailed below, several of which have actually been used for scientific songs, and set your own words that introduce a particular theme in the history of science. Think creatively!
  • ‘Clementine’
  • ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’
  • ‘What Shall we Do with the Drunken Sailor?’
  • ‘O God Our Help in Ages Past’
  • ‘English Country Garden’

• If you’re having trouble getting started, then have a look at the inspirational historical examples that will be posted online on this blog. Please provide a minimum of two verses, and a maximum of eight. Don’t forget the chorus!

• It’s fine to enter with the lyrics alone but if you would like to then please do include performance directions, suggestions for instrumentation and voices, tempi and dynamics, musical genre, etc. However, please format your entry as a text file or pdf file, not one that uses specialist music-making software.

• Also, why not record a version of yourself or your friends, your band, or your choir singing the song and submit it to our supplementary competition as an audio or video file, preferably as an mp3 or mp4 file?

• Send your song lyrics and performances to historyofsciencesongs@googlemail.com by Friday 17th April. You should receive a message in reply confirming your entry.

• Prize-winners will be announced at our Annual Conference in Leicester on Saturday 4th July 2009, and immediately thereafter on the BSHS website.

Enquiries about this competition should be sent to melanie.keene@gmail.com with the subject header OEC Song Competition


Please note that by entering this competition you guarantee that your lyrics are your own original work. The BSHS will use the winning entries in our activities to bring topics in the history of science, technology and medicine to new audiences.

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