The competitors in the Off-Ramp: Exit 26 contest have finished their submissions and are now waiting for the public’s vote, in anticipation of the May 7 contest finale at the Westbrook Performing Arts Center.

Louis Philippe, founder and president of Reindeer Group Inc. and Reindeer Records Westbrook, and the organizer of the contest, made the announcement this week. The submissions, in the form of music videos, are available on Current Publishing’ website, www.keepmecurrent.com.

Viewers may vote on their favorite video on the site, until May 1. The winning band will receive a prize package including $1,000 per band member.

Philippe is no stranger to spotting new talent. For the past 25 years, he has organized Rock Off, a battle-of-the-bands-type of competition showcasing young bands, but this year Philippe has decided to move up to a new level. He hopes to create a new form of musical education that, if successful, could spread beyond Westbrook, throughout the state and across the country.

“I wanted to leave something behind that could go on for a long time, and empower young people,” he said.

This year’s contest was designed from the start to have a different format from the old-fashioned band battle, where bands perform live and winners are chosen by the audience and a panel of judges. This time, Philippe said, each band performed a series of tasks, all geared toward teaching the band members how to write and produce a song, create a music video for it, and perform it live. The only rule, he said, was that each song from each band had to have the same title: “I Scream At Walls.”

As to what the bands did with that title, Philippe said, they could create any kind of song they wanted, and the final collection of nine bands have written songs covering many different rock ‘n’ roll genres, from hard rock to alternative to heavy metal.

“It’s all over the board,” he said.

Philippe said he and the organizers gave the participants no equipment at all, but offered lots of instruction, and the artists have learned plenty.

“They know a lot of the business end of it (now) that they didn’t know before,” he said.

Knowledge of the business side of the music industry is what separates a casual garage band from a collection of serious musicians, Philippe said. That’s why he is trying to put together a full-blown educational curriculum around music and the music industry, which he hopes will meet standards set by the state’s Department of Education.

“We want it to be accredited,” he said.

Shelley Reed, an educational specialist for the Maine Department of Education, said she herself has always had an interest in music, so when Philippe first approached her with a skeleton of his idea, she said she was impressed, calling his curriculum concepts “well thought out.”

Linking something like music, which kids can feel passionate about, with real-world practical study, she said, could fill a unique need for education in Maine.

“I think it’s exactly what kids need,” she said.

Philippe’s plan is to have the courses of study centered on five areas: songwriting, recording studio experience, marketing, music video production, and live event production. Reed said getting those courses taught in a local school is, in part, up to the local school district. Getting the statewide recognition Philippe is talking about, Reed said, is certainly possible, as long as its place in existing curriculums is easy to see.

“Those ideas have to be anchored into the common core of learning,” she said.

Philippe said he plans to do that by raising enough funds to hire Suzanne Roy. She runs a Connecticuit-based business called Curriculum by Design, which creates educational programs linked to business, the arts and other disciplines.

Like Reed, Roy thinks Philippe’s idea is possible, saying, “I think the potential is there.”

Roy said there are plenty of places to link music industry instruction to traditional teaching curricula. For example, she said, existing math and business classes could offer much to students looking to learn about accounting, business management, and many other practices necessary to a musical artist’s success. Roy said there are similar relationships between music and science, history, and many other traditional school subjects.

“You can make connections across the (traditional) curriculum,” she said.

Philippe said he is in the process of raising funds through public donations to create his new curriculum, but it won’t be cheap. His goal is $145,000, and this week he said he has raised about 10 percent of what he needs, but he expects to bring the competition back next year, and keep the idea alive.

“It’s just something that’s going to grow each year,” he said.

Roy said the curriculum Philippe wants to build definitely has an audience beyond Westbrook, and possibly beyond Maine. If the state does offer accreditation, Roy said, other states may use Maine as a model for their own musical industry instruction.

“I think other states are looking for ways to do this, but they don’t have the time or resources,” she said.

Reed said having a program that meets state standards might also do a lot to encourage musical education in general, which can be tough during a budget crunch. Right now, the Westbrook School District is closing a $3.7 million budget gap for the 2011-2012 school year, which may lead to some music programs getting cut back. An accredited program like what Philippe has in mind, Reed said, could go a long way toward convincing decision makers that such a program is needed.

“Whenever you can take a course to schools and say, ‘These are the standards they meet,’ that’s what they need to hear,” she said.

Philippe said the current contest is designed to benefit the participating local bands, but since it covers all five of the areas of music industry education Philippe wants the new curriculum to cover, it also serves as a bit of a test case for the grander plan.

“In a sense, (the bands have) become our musical partner,” he said.

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A Closer Look

In all, nine bands are competing in the first annual Off-Ramp: Exit 26 contest. They are:

Beware of Pedestrians, with members from Gorham and Scarborough high schools Crossed Out, with members from Gorham High School

Midnite Haze, with members from Telstar middle and high schools

Phantom Companion, with members from Falmouth High School and Waynflete School

Stuck In Neutral, with members from Boothbay Region High School

The Modest Proposal, with members from Freeport High School

The Resistance, with members from Erskine Academy, Maine Central Institute and Warsaw Middle School

The Study of Wumbo, with members from Scarborough and Kennebunk high schools

Where’s Robert? With members from Mount Ararat, Morse and Brunswick high schools.