Sponsored: Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and Salim-Sulaiman To Judge New Band Hunt

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The Sennheiser Top 50 contest is a nationwide hunt for India’s best emerging bands. The top three bands in the contest can win prizes ranging from a two-year endorsement by Sennheiser to recording sessions at Flying Carpet Productions with producer Ashish Manchanda.

Aspiring bands can register by submitting their songs and recordings through SoundCloud links to the Sennheiser Top 50 website. The contesting bands will be narrowed down to the Top 100 through select routines of judging and online voting. This number of bands will be further reduced to the Top 50 after submission of music videos and filling out personal questionnaires. The Top 50 will then be judged by a star-studded jury consisting of the famous musician-composer trio of Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and composer duo Salim-Sulaiman. Says guitarist and composer Ehsaan Noorani of Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, “To find the best emerging bands in this contest, we’re looking for the whole package ”“ good songwriting, good presentation, and good production. We want the best and most talented indie bands to win all this amazing gear from Sennheiser and take their music forward, especially considering the fact that most of these bands normally can’t afford equipment like this.”

The Top three bands to win the contest will receive the Sennheiser D1 wireless microphone set and Sennheiser headphones, and cash vouchers from Amazon India. In addition to this, the winning band will win a two-year endorsement deal by Sennheiser India, the first runner-up will receive the recording sessions at Flying Carpet Productions in Mumbai, while the second runner-up will be able to take part in valuable mentoring sessions with either Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy or Salim-Sulaiman. Says Noorani, “We’ll be able to point the bands in the right direction with these mentoring sessions. We can point out the flaws and shortcomings in their music that they might not even know about, and enable them to work on these. Of course, we will also help them to develop their songwriting, both in terms of lyrics and melodies. This is an area which I feel is most important for bands to be ahead in.”

Register your band and submit your music here. Music can only be submitted through SoundCloud links.