Hartog and Susan Zeegers in half-finale Mooie Noten competition

Congratulations to Hartog, and also to Susan Zeegers who are both through to the half finale of the Mooie Noten, a competition for Amsterdam singersongwriters only, but both these artists have performed on guild nights this year, and we know they both have true quality. Hartog got his place automatically by winning the Hou Je Kop Luisterpop! 2006.

However maybe this is a good time to express some of my personal thoughts about competitions in general. Several guild members have asked me why doesnt the guild start up a competition, maybe something like a Haagse version of Mooie Noten. There are several reasons why we do not plan to do this

1- In my humble opionion competitions suck
2- In Jaaps humble opinion competitions suck
3- competitions suck

And besides that, competitions suck. So we dont want to be involved with such a marlarkey, unless we could somehow make a competition where everything was fair, which we all know is impossible. However there are a few good things about competitions, for example that singersongwriters who deserve attention get it. In many cases this works perfectly.

As soon as a singersongwriter plays with accompaniment, it becomes something different. The art of being able to hold the attention of an audience on your own is a completely different thing. The difference between performing with 1 backing musician and 20 is much smaller than the difference between playing with 1 or none.

What if an organisation changes the rules from only two backing musicians allowed for part of the performance, to allowing an entire band with drumkit and trying to get people to dance and shit. I dunno about this Mooie Noten thing but it does trouble me that they are also opening up to (semi)acoustic acts with maximum three people. I dont know why they are doing that when there are so many awesome singersongwriters in Amsterdam, enough to fill the compteition with talent, so the only reason I can think of is that they are simply trying to get more public in the door. I guess this competition has always been more about the songs than the songwriters themselves but it still seems somewhat of a shame.

Now to me Im in the dark about what the decription "(semi) acoustic" means so if anyone can enlighten me, please do.

Does that include a miked up drumkit?

Does that include electric bass guitar?

I would really like to know

The Den Haag Songwriters Guild respects the efforts of other organisations in Holland who organise competitions, and the time and money that go into this. However at this stage and probably never do we wish to join in the circus. We have discussed the idea a little bit but conflict of interest is way too big. And besides once you get half a dozen awesome singersongwriters in a room, it may be very much a question of peronal taste rather than quality of performance or songwriting.

And we book plenty of duos and sometimes even bands on our events, but we are not putting these people in competition with each other, and I think that as soon as you do that, if you call it singersongwriter then it should also be solo. Otherwise it becomes too much reliant on the technical and sympathetic abilities of your musical buddies, the interaction between performers on stage, that kind of thing, whereas a singersongwriter competition should not be judged on those kind of elements.

Just my opinion, feel free to shoot me down if you disagree.