WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW IF YOU WANT TO WIN GRAMMY AWARDS: THE REQUIREMENTS YOU HAVE TO MEET IF YOU WANT TO WIN ANY GRAMMY AWARD.

Now let us be frank here. Every musician wants to be a Grammy winner. As a musician, it feels nice and prestigious to be declared a Grammy award winner. It also plays a huge role in one's career as a musician. Even if you do not manage to win any award, so long as you have been nominated for Grammy awards, your music career will grow immeasurably.

The big question then is, how can an independent musician be nominated for Grammy awards? What do you need to do to win Grammys? There are various categories of awards that are usually given, some of which are not even shown on television stations. Therefore, because you are already reading this, I am going to elaborately take you through all the steps you need to take to be a recipient of these awards.

Before we start and just to put things into perspective here, what are Grammys? Yes. We may be talking about the Grammy Awards and yet you are not aware of what Grammys means. Now Grammys started in 1959 intending to award it to outstanding artists as a recognition of the impact of their achievements in the music industry. These Grammys are usually given once every year. 

As you may already know, there are four main entertainment awards. Which include; Emmy Awards, Grammy Awards, Oscar Awards, and Tony Awards, these are usually referred to as the EGOT Family. Where E stands for Emmy, G stands for Grammy, O stands for Oscar and T stands for Tony Awards. The Oscar Awards also usually referred to as the Academy Awards, was initiated in the year 1929 to appreciate the achievements in the film industry. The Tony Awards, on the other hand, was initiated in the year 1947 and its main purpose was to appreciate and recognize achievements in the theatre industry. The Emmy Awards started in the year 1949 to appreciate and recognize achievements in Television.

Back to the Grammys, there are various requirements that you should meet in order to be eligible for Grammy submissions. What are these requirements? Is there any requirement that you may be familiar with?

Let me know in the comments section below. If you are not familiar with any single requirement, do not worry, I will explain everything to you. Now, Grammy is open to all artists to submit their music. 

There are three main requirements that needs to meet before you are allowed to tender in your submission for Grammy. 

Now, unto the first requirement, which is the;

i)Release date. 

Here, by release date, I mean that the submission should have been made publicly available through distribution between 1st October of the year previous to the voting year and 31st August of the voting year. This, therefore, means that, for instance, for the Grammy carried out on the 26th of January 2020, the nominees did their submissions between the month of 1st October 2018 and 31st August 2019. Note that the voting here started in 2019 after the cut-off date. Do not worry, I will explain more about voting in the next blog. So, make sure you read that in order to understand this better. The next requirement is the;

ii)The Length of the recording

By the length of the recording, I mean that for an album submission, recordings need to have a total of 15 minutes of playtime where such recordings have a minimum of 5 different tracks or rather, in cases where the number of tracks is not to be considered, the total playing time should not exceed 30 minutes. Note that this is about album submissions, therefore, it does not refer to singles.

Onto the third requirement, which is the;

iii)Format.

By format, I mean that the recording that is to be submitted needs to be available for sale via physical stores or through online platforms especially with respect to digital downloads or even through the known established streaming platforms. Every submitted song needs to also have the correct metadata information and an International Standard Recording Code (ISRCs) for each track.

If you, therefore, duly comply with all these main requirements then you will be eligible to tender in your submissions.

You should also note that Grammy entries are different from Grammy nominations. Do not get it twisted. A Grammy entry refers to submitting a recording to the Academy so that it can be considered for Grammy Awards. Remember that a recording academy here refers to the body that manages Grammy Awards. Now, when such an entry has already been accepted by the Academy, the voting members will then vote on the entry they feel should be nominated for Grammy Award. After all the voting members have voted, the votes are counted and entries with the highest number of votes are nominated for Grammys. All the nominated entries are then rightly categorized into their relevant groups. And so, plainly put, entries that have been nominated for the Grammy Awards are known as Grammy nominations.

Having said that, there is a prescribed way in which entries are made to the Recording Academy. One of the important things to note here is that such entries are only entered by members of the Academy.In the next blog, I have not only broadly explained the procedure of admitting entries to the Academy; but also, extensively given the step-by-step process of acquiring the Academy membership. This next blog is therefore a MUST READ!

Meanwhile, I know you may have some questions, comments, or suggestions about this blog. Do not hesitate to type them down in the comments section below and I will duly respond to them. Check the next blog to know more about the submission of entries and the process of the Academy membership application.

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