We have compiled the most Frequently Asked Questions for you. The section "About the Platform" deals with all topics concerning the community. With "About the Project" you will get answers to specific questions about the Beyond Music Project. If you can't find what you're looking for here, please contact us !
Beyond Music is a non-commercial entity, made possible by the Swiss Beyond Foundation. Established in 2007, the Beyond Foundation is a non-profit organization supporting causes that unite world cultures through music. Our aim is to foster cross-cultural awareness, understanding and mutual respect with the help of creativity and dialog.
The Executive Team of Beyond Music consists of Regula Curti, Founder, and Konstanze Wiedemann, CEO.
In order to register, you must have received a personalized invitation from Beyond Music. All invited users are recommendations from our Ambassadors, selected music producers and music managers.
If you would like to apply for an invitation to Beyond Music and you are a professional musician, composer, singer and/or songwriter, please click here and tell us more about you as an artist.
Young artists between the ages of 13 and 18 must provide written permission from a parent or guardian. A template can be downloaded when creating a profile. Once the signed document has been uploaded, the profile will become visible to other users. Instructions on how to upload the document are provided.
No, it is completely free to register.
Your profile can be viewed by other registered users, our Beyond Music Ambassadors and by selected music producers and music executives. Once you have submitted a composition for the Beyond Music Project, a condensed version of your profile can also be viewed by the voting public.
Protecting your data is very important to us. Please have a look at our
The filter feature under the menu item Artists allows you to search for artists according to their instruments, vocals, cultural background and genre. All of these filters are tags, which are set by the users themselves. You can choose to have the search results shown in a list view or on a world map, which includes short profiles and links to audio samples.
Connecting is easy. Simply send them a message using the Chat function on the artist’s profile or go directly to the Chat and search for the artist's name. For larger collaborations, you can also create Group Chats.
You can send the following file types: audio (wav, aac, mp3, aiff, m4a), video (avi, mpeg, m4a, ogv, webm, mp4, mov), images (gif, jpg, png), documents (pdf, txt, doc, docx, xls, xlsx).
If a file type is missing which you use frequently, please send us a message to info@beyondmusic.org.
The maximum file size is 100 MB. Please note that larger files may take a few seconds to load.
Under Account Settings you can choose to disable or enable the email notification.
Please contact the Beyond Music team by using the contact form or write to info@beyondmusic.org.
If you find any prohibited music content, other violations or suspicious activity, please contact the Beyond Music team by using the contact form or write to info@beyondmusic.org.
The Beyond Music Project is open to all artists invited and registered to the Beyond Music platform.
If you would like to apply for an invitation to Beyond Music and you are a professional musician, composer, singer and/or songwriter, please click here and tell us more about you as an artist.
We are looking for creative collaborations! All contributions should reflect the Project’s theme (see corresponding FAQ below). Artists from at least two different cultural backgrounds must work together to develop and submit an original piece of music. The participants are completely free to choose the style of music and to decide whether they create a purely vocal, instrumental or mixed piece. The most important factor is that the music is characterized by cross-cultural musical interaction and collaboration.
The compositions must not have been released for commercial exploitation through other platforms (e.g. iTunes) or made available on recording media prior to upload. After being submitted to the Beyond Music Project, pieces of music may not be exploited commercially on other platforms (e.g. iTunes) or sold on other recording media. Please find out more in the Conditions of Participation.
Our planet is suffering in many ways. As a global community we see it from different angles. When you share your own point of view musically, it increases consciousness, urges action, transforms and heals.
We are searching for folk songs, pop and rock songs, instrumental pieces, protest songs, odes to beauty, ballads, chants, choir music, gospel songs and hymns that range from the solitary voice to the communal voice, from anger to hope, from lament to joy.
This is a place of connection, dialogue and debate. It encompasses a plurality of cultures and styles that require constant translation. It is a testing ground of comprehension, ideas, poetry and music.
The collaboration must be developed by a minimum of three artists from at least two different cultural backgrounds, in accordance with the idea of Beyond Music "Uniting Cultures through Music". Any genre and any combination of genres is welcome.
Music submitted to the Beyond Music Project is not required to be professionally recorded and produced in a studio. Feel free to use online digital audio workstations (DAW) for your recording, producing, mixing and mastering. Many of these workstations are free to use. You can find lots of articles about good DAWs on the net, this is just an example and without checking the accuracy of the information.
After you have created an original composition in a cross-cultural collaboration, you must nominate one ensemble member as “administrator”, who will upload the piece as an entry for the Project.
The administrator should specify all contributing members of the ensemble so the composition will appear in each member’s profile under “music”. Each contributor must furthermore approve the submission before it is officially registered. Your ensemble must provide a short text explaining on the cross-cultural background of the piece you submitted. The ensemble can create various tags that will allow other users to search for the piece at a later stage according to vocals, instruments, cultural background and genre.
Your collaborative ensemble may upload a maximum of three pieces to the Beyond Music Project.
If you are a member of more than one ensemble, you can enter three compositions with each group. We encourage you to join in with different collaborations and submit various pieces of music to the Beyond Music Project.
We can't wait to listen to your musical versatility and creativity!
The Beyond Music Project is composed of these stages:
1. Collaboration Stage
Get to know professional musicians, composers, singers and songwriters from all over the world within the Beyond Music community and connect with them! Share your experiences and talk about possible collaborations! Work together and create an original piece of music based on the theme of the project (see FAQ above). Important: The collaboration must be developed by a minimum of three artists from at least two different cultural backgrounds, in accordance with the idea of Beyond Music "uniting cultures through music". Any genre and any combination of genres is welcome.
2. Submission Stage
During the submission stage, artists can upload their collaborative works to the platform. The submission stage goes from November 4, 2019 to September 10, 2020. Each of the collaborators involved in a piece must agree to the upload in order for it to be successfully submitted.
3. Voting Stage
From September 10 to October 1, 2020, the general public will be invited to select and vote for their favorite compositions. Everyone has one vote per track every 24 hours, but participants are not allowed to vote for their own pieces. At the end of the voting phase we will publish the list of the most popular tracks. The collaboration with the most votes will receive the Public Award worth up to 5,000 US dollars.
4. Song Selection and Album Stage
As it will not be possible to invite to the workshop and the album recordings this year due to the virus pandemic, there will be no selection procedure of the Artistic Director after the voting phase that determines the pieces of music that will be professionally recorded. Instead, the winning music of the Creativity Awards and of the Public Award will form the Beyond Music album Vol. 2. The winning music pieces will be prepared for release by a Producer. Beyond Music will then upload the music titles to the most relevant download and streaming services both as individual tracks and as part of the Beyond Music Album Vol. 2. The songs and album will be marketed and distributed by Beyond Music. All revenues from the exploitation of the tracks will be paid out to the winning artist teams.
You can find an overview of the changes due to the virus pandemic here.
Please see below for more details about the prizes.
Since the album recordings cannot take place due to the worldwide pandemic, we will honour your collaborations with a total of 16 Creativity Awards. The prize money of 4,000 US dollars for each winning team will be increased up to 5,000 US dollars starting with the 3rd Creativity Award. The increase is combined with this regulation: Each member of a winning team will receive 1,000 US dollars for his or her participation, up to a group size of 5 members. Collaborations of more than 5 artists have to share the prize money of 5,000 US dollars equally.
The winner of the online voting, the song that gets the most votes, will receive the Public Award. The prize money for the Public Award of 4,000 US dollars to date will be increased up to 5,000 US dollars. The above rule also applies here: Each member of the winning team will receive 1,000 US dollars for his or her participation, up to a group size of 5 members. A winning team of more than 5 people must share the prize money of 5,000 US dollars equally.
After being prepared for release by a Producer, Beyond Music will make all winning music titles available to the market-relevant download and streaming services (Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Apple Music and Deezer) both as individual tracks and later as part of the Beyond Music Album Vol. 2. The individual tracks and the album will be marketed and distributed by Beyond Music. All revenues from the exploitation of the music titles will be paid out to the winning artist teams. Direct payments from collecting societies to the performing artists' are not affected by this.
We select the winning music pieces on both objective and subjective musical and content-related criteria. The musical performance is rated by musicality, vocal and/or instrumental performance and originality. In addition, we will also take into consideration how the submitted pieces fit with the Project’s theme.
We will present a total of 16 Creativity Awards for outstanding collaborations from February to October 2020. Compositions that demonstrate enthusiasm, creativity and musical versatility and embody the spirit and values of Beyond Music will be honoured.
The prize money of 4,000 US dollars for the winning team will be increased to 5,000 US dollars starting with the 3rd Creativity Award. The increase is combined with this regulation: Each member of a winning team will receive 1,000 US dollars for his or her participation, up to a group size of 5 members. Collaborations of more than 5 artists have to share the prize money of 5,000 US dollars equally.
From September 10, 2020 at 10 a.m. CET the 3-week voting phase will begin, during which the public will be invited to vote for their favourite collaborations. The voting phase will end on October 1, 2020 at 10 a.m. CET. Everyone has one vote per track every 24 hours, but artists are not able to vote for their own pieces.
At the end of the voting phase we will publish the list of the most popular tracks. The winner of the online voting, the collaboration that gets the most votes, will receive the Public Award. The prize money for the Public Award of 4,000 US dollars to date will be increased up to 5,000 US dollars: Each member of the winning team will receive 1,000 US dollars for his or her participation, up to a group size of 5 members. A winning team of more than 5 people must share the prize money of 5,000 US dollars equally.
All additional information can be found here:
For all other inquiry, please contact the Beyond Music team by using the contact form or write to info@beyondmusic.org.