Back to School Beats Competition
2025, Sponsored by EarSketch
Ready to rock the start of the school year? Kick off the school year with rhythm, creativity, and some serious sound and join EarSketch for the Back to School Beats Competition, where student music producers, DJs, and coders go head-to-head in a showdown of sound and style.
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The competition runs from August 12 through November 21, 2025.
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Results
Top Winners
Top 3
Timothy M.
Grade 10
Teacher: A. Wozniak
Lane Tech College Prep
Chicago, IL
"Creating my song taught me how to blend two different feelings; peace and chaos into one cohesive track. I chose trap because of the hard drums and energetic patterns naturally bring intensity, which made an interesting contrast with the calm atmosphere I wanted to express. I used the sample “the way the wind moves pt.1” by Sons of the Morning gave the piece a drifting, aromatic foundation, and layering sounds like strings, flutes, and light vocals added an elegant, peaceful touch that softened the chaos over it. Through the process of making this, I realized how each creative decision could shift the emotion of the song, and I learned to appreciate the opportunity to experiment and push myself. Taking on this project reminded me that meaningful experiences often come from simply choosing to try, and I’m grateful I embraced this one."
Top 3
Axel P.
Grade 11
Teacher: A. Wozniak
Lane Tech College Prep
Chicago, IL
"I had no clear inspiration from the start. I had a whole different intention until halfway through the actual song when the song was ACTUALLY forming inspiration got to me. It's not much of an inspiration to me, but it can be to someone else. The progression from an ugly beat to a more interesting near out of tune sound can be representation of progression. It can be precepted in any shape or form by anybody. We all go through the same thing at a different level. Either someone loves this or hates it."
Top 3
Kristin S.
Grade 08
Teacher: A. Wozniak
Lane Tech College Prep
Chicago, IL
"This song represents how stress builds up in my life, it's inspired by Artic Monkeys' indie rock music. I used layering to show responsibilities, deadlines, and pressure stack on top of each other. The song starts simple with drums and bass, then adds guitars and percussion until everything hits at one in the chorus. When the chorus reaches the loudest and most intense point it's a way to show how stress overwhelms me when everything piles up simultaneously. Just like how the song eventually fades out in the outro, I know that with time, the stress passes and things calm down again. This is my own soundtrack that represents what I go through and how I survive this chaos."
Honorable Mentions
Marius B.
Grade 10
Teacher: B. Remess
Lane Tech College Prep
Chicago, IL
Isaac D.
Grade 10
Teacher: B. Remess
Lane Tech College Prep
Chicago, IL
Carmen C.
Grade 12
Teacher: A. Wozniak
Lane Tech College Prep
Chicago, IL
Lilah G.
Grade 11
Teacher: A. Wozniak
Lane Tech College Prep
Chicago, IL
Ishmael M.
Grade 11
Teacher: L. Flemister
Hiram HS
Hiram, GA
Isabella B.
Grade 11
Teacher: A. Wozniak
Lane Tech College Prep
Chicago, IL
Audrey S.
Grade 11
Teacher: B. Remess
Lane Tech College Prep
Chicago, IL
Requirements
Music
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Song length must be between 30 seconds and 2 minutes
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Song must have at least five (5) unique sounds
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Song must include sounds from more than one artist
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Song must be a remix, distinct from the original songs.
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Recommendations:
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Including more than one artist on EarSketch
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Changing tempo, pitch, and/or order of beats
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Adding effects and loop beats
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Making your own beat
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Recommended: To avoid potentially overlapping sounds, each sound be arranged on its own track.
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​Code
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Final code must run without errors in the console and play in the digital audio workstation (DAW)
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Code must include fitMedia to insert sound clips
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Code must include comments to describe code and document the message in the song
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Recommended: Code should include at least one level of complexity: loops, conditional statements, makeBeat(), custom functions
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Story
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Submission must include a short reflection explaining the message of your song
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Recommended: Students should choose a theme or genre to their song (Theme Examples: friendship, family, their interests, etc.; Genre Examples: country, hip hop, etc.)
Resources
Getting Started
We're excited to bring back the Back to School Beats competition! Here are some resources to help you get started. Below, you'll find a recording of our Teacher PD from September 10th and Getting Started Video Tutorial for the competition. New to EarSketch? Check out our Getting Started in EarSketch YouTube playlist and handout for your and/or your students' reference.
Getting Started in EarSketch Playlist
Lesson
Looking for a lesson to teach with the competition? Check out our Introduction to EarSketch Byte-Sized Beat! We've included a lesson plan, slides, student worksheet, and template code to help make the jump to get started as easy as possible! We recommend spending 2-3 days with your class on this lesson as working on their songs in EarSketch may take some time for students. The template/sample code exists to help beginner students understand the format for a solid submission. Students may import the script so they can edit the code and create their song.
Ready to submit?
Students can either submit their songs directly from the EarSketch platform or by going to a link. We recommend submitting directly from EarSketch since it helps students to skip the step of finding and copying/pasting their script-URL, but either way will work! The video demonstrates how you can find your script-URL.
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Please note students under the age of 13 should have their parents/guardians submit on their behalf.
Submit directly from EarSketch
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Find your song in the Script Library
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Click on the three blue lines next to your Script Name to expand the menu
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Click Submit to Competition
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Complete the form and click submit
Submit externally using a link
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Find your song in the Script Library
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Click on the three blue lines next to your Script Name to expand the menu
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Click Share
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Click the blue clipboard next to the Share URL. This copies your script-URL.
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Go to the submission button below
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Complete the form
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Paste in your copied EarSketch script-URL
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Finish the form and click submit