A Brief History of SCALA

... so far!

Songwriters, Composers And Lyricists Association

SCALA President Robert Childs provides his recollection of SCALA's history. SCALA Prehistory Early in 1987 I was asked by a friend to join the committee of a South Australian writers' group as a representative of songwriting (which had been neglected by the group). At the second committee meeting that I went to, someone mentioned that another member had suggested that the writers' group organise a "Songwriters' Seminar". Everyone else agreed that that was a good idea and looked at me! With a minimal budget ($27 for 3 ads in the local paper plus some advertising fliers to put in music and book shops) I put together a "Songwriters Seminar" on 31st August 1987. The seminar attracted about 45 people and at some stage I rashly suggested we keep the momentum going and form a "Songwriters Association". A small committee was formed and over the next couple of months the idea for a songwriters organisation evolved into an umbrella association for songwriters, composers and lyricists (or librettists) of any style of original music and so the Songwriters, Composers And Lyricists Association (SCALA) was born. Evidently SCALA in Italian means "scales" (as in music) or "steps" as in ladders or stairs. SCALA's history is, certainly, a series of steps (and occasionally of snakes and ladders!!). SCALA History SCALA officially formed on 22nd November 1987 (see photo). We found out later that 22 November is also St. Cecilia's Day. Apparently St Cecilia is the Patron Saint of Musicians! SCALA's objectives (as set out in SCALA's Constitution) are to: Encourage the activity of Songwriting, Composing and Lyric or Libretto writing. Provide information and support to Songwriters, Composers and Lyric or Libretto writers by way of workshops, seminars, regular meetings and other activities which eventuate as SCALA evolves. Encourage the playing and recording of innovative and original music and the use of innovative and original music in commercial applications. Provide a service enabling Songwriters, Composers and Lyricists or Librettists to collaborate on innovative music projects and, in particular, to enable (non lyric) Composers to collaborate with Lyricists. Encourage and assist in the employment of Songwriters, Composers and Lyricists or Libretto writers in appropriate situations within the community. SCALA Venues SCALA's first major activity after its formation was to host a performance venue exclusively for Original Music. It was also decided that if we were going to have a performance venue it would be run weekly rather than monthly. SCALA's first showcase of local original music was held on Wednesday, 2nd December 1987 at Club Foote (now The Proscenium) in Blyth Street, Adelaide, South Australia. We've changed venues a few times since then (see the Venue Archives) but we've continued with live performances of original music almost every week. SCALA on Radio and TV In line with its objectives, SCALA has always been keen to encourage airplay of new and diverse original music. As in many other parts of the world Australian radio is dominated by artists promoted by the major recording labels. In mid 1990 SCALA was asked by an aspirant community FM radio to present a program of local original music as part of its test transmissions. Two years and a number of test transmissions later the station, now known as COAST FM. commenced full time transmission with SCALA presenting two hours of original music each Sunday at noon. The program won COAST FM's Community Access Program of the year in 1996. This program continued until 24th June 2001 with a team of 8 to 10 SCALA members taking it in turns to present their favourites of mainly local Original Music each week. SCALA On Air had a brief resurgence on an aspirant radio station (AIR-FM) in 2002. Sadly AIR-FM was not able to secure a full time broadcasting licence so, after 10 years, SCALA on AIR came to an end. The bulk of the music on the SCALA on Air programme was from unsigned original acts. Visit the SCALA Radio Archive to see playlists and read about presenters of the SCALA On Air Radio program. For some years (since 1994) SCALA has also provided guests every week for Radio Adelaide 101.5FM's Arts breakfast programme (Saturday mornings). Interviews are usually conducted by Cath Kenneally (or Ewart Shaw) and our members have the opportunity to play a song on two on air as well as discuss their music. (More details are on the SCALA Radio Page). Radio Adelaide was originally 5UV - Australia's first community radio station. For a brief period in 1994/95 ACE-TV (Channel 31 in Adelaide) videotaped our live performances at The Jolly Miller Hotel. These performances formed the basis of the SCALA Live! TV series (which ran to about a dozen hour long programs and one or two highlights packages). SCALA-run Competitions SCALA is a non judgemental organisation which tries to help all of its members to find an audience. However, song competitions are an important incentive for some songwriters, composers and lyricists, particularly in the context of the highly competitive music industry. In 1988 the SA Folk Federation of SA asked SCALA to help organise its Songwriters Event which had run as part of its annual Folk Festival since 1979. The Federation recognised that the Event needed broadening from its traditional 'folk' base. SCALA saw a value in the Songwriters Event of encouraging the writing of new songs and professionally recording what the judges considered to be, the best songs. SCALA helped organise all subsequent Songwriters Events with a dozen or so of the songs professionally recorded and released on cassette for each year from 1988 to 1993 (see SCALA's Recording Releases below). Along the way SCALA also organised the 1994 Clare Arts Festival Song Competition and the 1993 Safe Sex Song Competition. Winning songs from each of these song competitions were included on the Songwriters Event series of tapes. Also in 1997 SCALA ran the South Australia: A Sense of Place Song Competition - designed to collect songs about South Australia. Songs from this competition are on the South Australia: A Sense of Place CD (1998). With the demise of the annual Folk Festival, the Songwriters Event (which started in 1979) has also come to an end for now. In 1994 SCALA started its own annual competition the SCALA Festival of Original Music (FOOM) Song Competition. This was intended as a low key adjunct to our inaugural CD collection of SCALA member's songs but turned out to be an enormous success which became even bigger in subsequent years with increasing national and international participation. [Visit the SCALA Hall of Fame to see who won in our competitions] SCALA's Recordings SCALA has released an album of songs and music by its members almost each year since 1990. Many of these songs won awards in our song competitions. The early albums were issued only as limited run cassettes and have all sold out but might still be available through some libraries (see the Before The CDs page for details of this series). These early albums contained the first professional recordings of artists such as The Bedridden, Denise Alexander (Alex from the Borderers), Donald Grieve, Colcannon, Chris Davies (from JustaBoutEverything), The Daisyheads, Basil Schild (from Aunty Raelene) and they represent the only professional recordings by many other songwriters. CD Series Since 1995 our albums have been issued on CD (details on the SCALA CDs page). A number of our members have been encouraged to record and release their own albums. Many of these are listed in our Catalogue [currently offline as we want to revamp it]. SCALA's other activities In 1995 SCALA released the Made and Played SA catalogue with an update in 1997. Due to the time involved in preparing the second catalogue (which was twice the size of the first indicating rapid growth in the local music industry) SCALA decided to put its resources into only those recordings it actually had for sale. This resulted in the online SCALA catalogue [being revamped at present]. SCALA News SCALA published a bimonthly newsletter for its members from January 1988 to December 2003 (96 issues). SCALA's Board decided to issue SCALA News quarterly from 2004 mainly due to rising postal costs. From the beginning we decided that our newsletter should be more than just news and over the years it has contained many articles about a number of aspects of songwriting, composing and lyricwriting. We have put a few of these many articles on our website in our Resources section. You can read the latest news on this site. In October 1999 SCALA started to issue online email updates to members with email access. Online news updates contain information which falls between newsletters. SCALA Website SCALA's website was started by Dave Cobb in mid 1995. You can read about the history of the development of the SCALA website on the About This Website page. We added a Message Board to our website in June 2001 to enable anyone accessing our site to leave relevant information or to leave requests for collaboration. This message board is open to anyone to use for these purposes. This page will be updated regularly so keep visiting! Long Live Original Music!!!!!!!!