Is a singer a musician?

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 16 Mar 18 - 07:19 PM

is an all day breakfast dinner?

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 16 Mar 18 - 06:15 PM

Tunesmith - yes, see above. Jeri - I managed to not quite be that blunt for once, but agreed! ;-)

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Jeri
Date: 16 Mar 18 - 05:45 PM

I don't understand the need for labels, other than just to communicate with people. Call yourself a musician if you do music. Call yourself a good musician if other people do. This argument is stupid, IMO.

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 16 Mar 18 - 05:35 PM

Can somebody who strums three chords badly call themselves a musician?

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 16 Mar 18 - 04:19 PM

I sing and accompany myself on a musical instrument. Hey, I'm a musician musician! :-)

I'll get me coat.

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 16 Mar 18 - 03:16 PM

If somebody can read music and play a musical instrument, if somebody can read music and sing, then either can be given the sheet music of a piece that they have never, ever seen or heard performed before and play, or sing, that piece exactly as the composer intended it to be heard. They have every right to call themselves musicians.

By this definition, my computer is a musician.

Composers and songwriters may interpret their own works differently each time they perform them. Putting the dots down in a score shouldn't necessarily preserve tunes in aspic.

In ensemble playing, sticking to what is written is advisable although it wouldn't preclude some well constructed ad-lib harmonies. Solo performances allow greater interpretation and the score may be no more than a guide.

My brother-in-law can sit down at a piano and make a good attempt at a previously unseen piece. Take the music away, however, and he is lost even if is a well known tune. I, on the other hand, can work out a tune from the score but would have to learn it bit by bit. If it is a familiar tune I can usually busk it on a range of different instruments. I consider both of us to be musicians.

Picking up on the original question, if a singer can present a song as a performance or work together with other singers or instrumentalists, then he/she is a musician.

DC

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: GUEST,Rog
Date: 16 Mar 18 - 02:47 PM

No try joinING a "session" and singing a song, you will be as welcome as a f in a space suit.

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Mar 18 - 12:34 PM

"musicians" because they couldn't, or chose not to learn their native music from a sheet of paper."
A bit of an oversimplification, I'm afraid
One of the greatest influences of Irish music in the 20th century was O'Neil's Collection - over 1000 annotated tunes
A story told to us by our late neighbour, piper, Tom McCarthy related how fiddle player Denis Murphy pestered veteran musician, Padraig O'Keefe for on of his tuns until finally, after payment of several pints, O'Keefe promised if he came to the bog where he was was cutting turf the following morning with his fiddle, he would be given the tune
Murphy duly turned up next day to find the old man working, cutting slabs of turf out of a high bank
O'Keefe threw down his slán and proceeded to write out the tune in the wet turf with his finger
When asked for a name he replied "The Bank of Turf"      
It's still played under that name
It really isn't as simple as musically literate or not
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Mar 18 - 11:53 AM

In your first paragraph, you state Django was a composer. But he could not read music. In your second paragraph, you say that if you can’t read, then all you can do is mimic what you’ve previously heard. Both of these things cannot simultaneously be true.

There are lots of people in various Roma or Sinti (broadly referred to as ‘gypsy’) families who play music to a very high level, who can improvise freely, who can compose, and who can certainly play in the style of Django, without being able to read a note. The music’s been handed down as part of their tradition.

To say that they are not ‘musicians’ because you have decided on your own private definition of ‘musician’ which includes being able to read standard notation, is quite an eccentric stance to take.

All cultures produced music way before they produced a system for writing it down. Even today, I don’t think Indian classical music, for instance, is written down – it’s mostly improvised. Is there really ‘no way on Earth’ that Ravi Shankar couldn’t be described as a musician? ‘

The idea that Django, Ravi Shankar, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, Tommy Emmanuel etc, (not to mention all the blind non readers like Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Tcha Limberger etc) are not really musicians – quite aside from the legion of folk musicians that we’re all familiar with – does not work for me. It seems obvious to me that they are.

The musicians I like, I like because of their ability to play, not their ability to read. There are countless folk musicians who fit this bill. Reading may be a useful skill, but it’s certainly not necessary to be a reader to be a musician.

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 16 Mar 18 - 11:08 AM

GUEST,kenny - look up the meaning of the word "mimic" [Mimic = Imitate (someone or their actions or words), especially in order to entertain or ridicule.]. I think that you will find that you can mimic something that you have seen or heard, it is impossible to mimic something or someone that you have never heard or seen. That being so the following is a bit selective isn't it?

"The above is utter elitist pish. So what's the difference between "mimicing what you have previously heard" and "mimicing" what's written down on a piece of paper ?"

Kenny you forgot the bit about "If somebody can read music and play a musical instrument, if somebody can read music and sing, then either can be given the sheet music of a piece that they have never, ever seen or heard performed before and play, or sing, that piece exactly as the composer intended it to be heard".

Kenny asks me how I can possibly know that? I know that for certain because that is why a system of notation for writing down music was invented and evolved - It was done so that a composers work could be faithfully performed without the musicians playing ever having heard it played before.

In terms of "traditional music"? Not the same thing at all especially when applied to song and the traditions of the minstrels and troubadours who did mimic and who did constantly change/amend their songs to suit the audience of the moment. Same to a much lesser degree was the tradition of the verbal transference of history in the form of song and story by "tradition bearers". Over the generations details imperceptively change - that does not happen with written and notated record.

From the following I take it GUEST,Kenny that you do not read music? That if put in front of you you could not follow the musical score of a piece of classical music:

"....give a sight-reader a piece of paper and they will play what's on the piece of paper, which may or may not be by the composer. You seem to totally disregard the concept of individual interpretation."

The music was notated solely because the composer wanted his music performed exactly as he wanted it to be played. As to the reference to Mozart ("If people were given music composed by Mozart in the form he listened to it, they would probably walk out in disgust") the main change has been in the instruments used to perform the work, that change means that Mozart's Horn Concertos are better played and easier to play today than they were in Mozart's day. If I were to pay good money to listen to any piece written by Mozart, I would be downright annoyed if those playing the piece went off piste and "did their own thing" with it.

"Amazing to think that Irish traditional music was kept alive and is in the healthy state it is today largely thanks to people who weren't "musicians" because they couldn't, or chose not to learn their native music from a sheet of paper." Not amazing at all Kenny, but I bet that at some point down through the ages somebody has taken the trouble to "collect" and notate those tunes long before the day of the tape recorder. But that means that the version "collected" was not the original version but the version current at the time it was notated or recorded. In Scotland in the late 1700s a chap called Robert Burns did exactly that and gained international immortality for his efforts, in the aftermath of the last Jacobite rebellion Burns was instrumental in saving and preserving the songs, tunes and culture of Scotland.

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 16 Mar 18 - 10:45 AM

Steve - Heh! Thank you, sir. T'internet is a bugger sometimes, so pleased you saw the humorous undertone, rather than took umbrage at the read word. So many do... *sigh*

I'll maintain, though, my original point - What is a musician? Without an answer to that, the question in the thread title is meaningless. Skipping a long anything, if you think you're making music, you're a musician, to my mind. Whether you are a good musician or a bad musician is a secondary question & entirely beside the point.

If you're scraping at a fiddle because you've only just begun is beside the point.
If you're writing down the sounds you hear in your head, even though you're incapable of playing a note (if Stephen Hawking had written an opera...) is beside the point.
If you are one those perennial butts of musical jokes - a drummer, a bassist, a viola player - is beside the point.
If you are "only" a singer... it's beside the point.

I argue that if you are trying to create music, you are a musician. With encouragement & help, you can become a 'better' musician, whatever 'better' means. But if you are creating music & there are people who enjoy listening to you... You are a musician. And anyone who wants to tell you different is talking from their base not their apex!

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 16 Mar 18 - 09:18 AM

A voice is an instrument, so if you make music with it, you can certainly consider yourself a musician.
I sing, but am not a musician, as when I sing it is not necessarily musical...

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Will Fly
Date: 16 Mar 18 - 09:03 AM

As far as Reinhardt is concerned, we have his recordings - regardless of what any "assistant" may or may not have done.

To say that playing by ear is just mimicking is debatable. I can sit at a session, hear a tune I've never played before and "get" it sufficiently to play along with it AND then add some harmony should I choose. That's not mimicking, it's remembering - which requires the ability to absorb a melody and then play it. Many players I know can do this - some, incidentally, can also read music, some can not. I myself can, but it doesn't stop my ear functioning!

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Mar 18 - 08:25 AM

"that piece exactly as the composer intended it to be heard"
If people were given music composed by Mozart in the form he listened to it, they would probably walk out in disgust
Interpretation has to be everything
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: GUEST,Andiliqueur
Date: 16 Mar 18 - 08:15 AM

I was going to agree with Observer's comments yet again but then kenny is right too. I may not play a musical instrument (as I love singing so much I didn't want to distract from this enjoyment and I suppose I am lazy) but my son is an excellent musician, being able to produce a tune from virtually any instrument that he comes across. However he is a classically trained violinist and it took many years to encourage him to play "fiddle' at which point he had to "forget the dots" and all his classical technique. He's done it and it's wonderful to listen to him just play by ear. It has been fascinating reading all your views. Like the definition of Folk Music "Is a singer a musician" is totally debatable!!

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: GUEST,kenny
Date: 16 Mar 18 - 07:55 AM

The above is utter elitist pish. So what's the difference between "mimicing what you have previously heard" and "mimicing" what's written down on a piece of paper ?

"If somebody can read music and play a musical instrument, if somebody can read music and sing, then either can be given the sheet music of a piece that they have never, ever seen or heard performed before and play, or sing, that piece exactly as the composer intended it to be heard".
How can you possibly know that, especially in terms of traditional music ? You give a sight-reader a piece of paper and they will play what's on the piece of paper, which may or may not be by the composer. You seem to totally disregard the concept of individual interpretation.
Amazing to think that Irish traditional music was kept alive and is in the healthy state it is today largely thanks to people who weren't "musicians" because they couldn't, or chose not to learn their native music from a sheet of paper.

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 16 Mar 18 - 07:28 AM

When you first played your party piece to yer grannie?

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 16 Mar 18 - 07:27 AM

"Can't help but wonder if this real musician [Liam O'Flynn presumably] could read sheet music."

His father was a teacher and a fiddle player, his mother came from an extremely "musical" family and she played and taught piano. That background would explain his early introduction to, and interest in, music and as a piano teacher I would venture that at least his mother could read music and most likely, being of that era, his father could too. To date I have not yet encountered one single piano teacher that could not read music. I would be amazed that either parent would have ignored that part of young Liam's "musical" education.

Liked the introduction to the discussion of the word "instrumentalist", which would describe somebody who can play a musical instrument to the most proficient of degrees but who could not be described as a "musician".

Will Fly mentioned Django Rheinhardt earlier in the thread. Rheinhardt did not read music, yet he composed. To do so he required an assistant who notated what he played - without that assistant doing what he did, very little, or nothing, of his work would now remain and whatever did would only be lesser players pale variations of what Rheinhardt played.

If somebody can read music and play a musical instrument, if somebody can read music and sing, then either can be given the sheet music of a piece that they have never, ever seen or heard performed before and play, or sing, that piece exactly as the composer intended it to be heard. They have every right to call themselves musicians. On the other hand if you can only play, or sing, "by ear" you only have the ability to mimic what you have previously heard and irrespective of how good the "performance" there is no way on earth that you could describe yourself as a "musician".

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Andy7
Date: 16 Mar 18 - 07:25 AM

"Food for thought. When learning your first instrument, at what point do you become "a musician"?"

As my first instrument was the fiddle, it was a long time before anyone would have called me a musician!

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: GUEST,Sol
Date: 16 Mar 18 - 06:28 AM

Food for thought. When learning your first instrument, at what point do you become "a musician"?

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: The Sandman
Date: 16 Mar 18 - 05:17 AM

I believe it is an instrument for producing sound - if it is used to produce musical sounds, it becomes a musical instrument
Jim Carroll.
Iagree

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: GUEST,kenny
Date: 16 Mar 18 - 05:06 AM

Does it really matter ? At the end of the day, it's just labels. How about this as an excercise in logic ? Is a "song", "music" ? If yes, then it would logically follow that a singer is a musician.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to spend my time better by re-acquainting myself with the music of Liam O'Flynn [ RIP ]. Steve's suggestion on that thread of the "Planxty" retrospective CD/DVD set is spot on [ apologies for thread drift ].
Can't help but wonder if this real musician could read sheet music.

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 16 Mar 18 - 04:48 AM

An instrument is by definition something outside the person using it. You can use your teeth for cutting or grinding, but that does not make them cutting or grinding instruments. Thus, the following are not instrumentalists: singers, whistlers, beatboxers, art-farters ..., whereas tap dancers are.

Arguably though, a singer using a microphone and amplifier can be called an instrumentalist, the instrument not being the voice. –

More importantly: a composer is definitely a musician.

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Mar 18 - 04:27 AM

"But we also have to accept common usage if we wish to make ourselves understood."
If we wish to understand the art we are all supposed to be involved in, we need to be able to sort out the wheat from the chaff.
We may need to accept the existence of common usage - that doesn't mean to say we have to agree with it
"Folk Music" is in enough trouble by too many people having done that - try asking "what is a folk song" on this forum, then run for cover!
"Is the voice an instrument?"
I believe it is an instrument for producing sound - if it is used to produce musical sounds, it becomes a musical instrument
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Mar 18 - 04:01 AM

"But we also have to accept common usage if we wish to make ourselves understood. "

If we all did that Mudcat wouldn't exist.

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: r.padgett
Date: 16 Mar 18 - 03:58 AM

Is the voice an instrument?

Ray

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Johnny J
Date: 16 Mar 18 - 03:51 AM

Yes, I believe that the human voice is an instrument too. So, a singer can also be a musician.

However, to me, a musician is someone who is either qualified in music or trained to a certain standard... formally or self taught, it doesn't matter and, perhaps, performs for a living. Not necessarily all three and there are maybe other descriptors.

Personally, I can sing a few songs when it suits and get a tune out of a few instruments. Some better than others. I can also read music reasonably well although I'm slower with the bass lines.

Yet,I feel embarassed to call myself a musician and would rather describe myself as a player(of instuments)and would probably call myself a "singer of songs" rather than a musician if that was my main interest.

Others might think I'm being a bit hard on myself and others in a similar position but just because one can change tyres on a car, check the oil, and do other repairs it doesn't make him or her a mechanic. Nor does putting emulsion and/or paper on your walls make you a painter and decorator.

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Andy7
Date: 16 Mar 18 - 03:51 AM

Yes, you could in theory call a singer an instrumentalist, there'd be nothing orthologically or semantically incorrect with that.

But we also have to accept common usage if we wish to make ourselves understood.

Another example ... a bus is powered by a motor. So if I caught the bus to Brighton, I could quite correctly say, "I motored down to the coast".

But if I did say that, you'd assume that I'd driven there in a car; not because my statement was factually incorrect, but because, in everyday speech, the verb 'to motor' has become synonymous with 'to drive a car'.

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: TheSnail
Date: 15 Mar 18 - 07:52 PM

I've heard it said that anyone who plays an instrument, e.g a fiddle or a guitar or a flute, should call themselves an instrumentalist not a musician.

A friend of mine, a very good fiddler, says disdainfully "An instrumentalist plays an instrument, a musician plays music".

A couple of people have said on this thread that the voice is a musical instrument. Does that make a singer an instrumentalist?

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Mar 18 - 07:31 PM

But is a bodhran owner a musician?


I'll get me coat...

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 15 Mar 18 - 07:03 PM

you could join equity.

i was in there for a few years as were most of the midland folkies when Nottingham's Lenton Lane Studios were going - I used to see Jack Hudson, Mick Peat, Roy Harris etc doing extra work on Boon and Peak Practice.

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 15 Mar 18 - 06:45 PM

For amateurs it's a BS session. Go crazy on it.

But if a singer wants to turn pro they'll most likely have to join the same union as all the "real" musicians. Usually classed as "vocalist" in the islands and States nowadays.

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 15 Mar 18 - 06:15 PM

@Sol and Ebor: Triangles and drums: most of the orchestral percussionists I have met have done a long hard musical training (and probably happen to play a melody instrument as well, but have just just chosen to play percussion). Your triangle player will probably flit around a vast array of different percussion instruments in the course of an evening's concert. Occasionally, if they are really short they might draft in one of the 2nd violins to play a single (well-placed?) ting on a triangle!
As for singers: yes, the human voice is a fine instrument too. I can think of several singers I know who do not read music, yet are capable of producing fine harmony and polyphonic arrangements without ever being able to write it all down in standard notation. So, yes, singers, are musicians too in my book.

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 15 Mar 18 - 05:37 PM

Raedwulf, dismiss the masses at your peril! David Cameron did and he lost his job immediately.

'Why would you prefer to think what someone else thinks?' because most of the people I communicate with are the people in the street, the Joe Bloggses, and when I have to communicate with anyone on a higher level I can adjust accordingly. However I've never been taken to task about calling singers singers or instrumentalists musicians until now and I have organised concerts and written about music for many years. ;-)

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 15 Mar 18 - 05:15 PM

so in conclusion, if you want to call yourself a musician, and doing so gives you pleasure - do it!

life is short.

its not like you called yourself a brain surgeon, and you want to cut someones head open.

you mustn't do that. however being a musician is open to interpretation - and I've seen bloody good musicians die on their arse.
being skilfull doesn't ensure acceptance by an audience.

your vision of yourself as a musician is as good as anyone elses.

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Andy7
Date: 15 Mar 18 - 04:47 PM

So, what does the suffix '-ician' signify?

Merriam Webster: "specialist; practicioner"

Yourdictionary: "a person engaged in, skilled in, or specializing in (a specified field)"

Other examples are magician (specialising in, or practising, magic), beautician (specialising in, or practising, beauty), mathemetician (specialising in, or practising, mathematics), etc., etc.

So, a musician is someone who specialises in, or practices, music. Not just instrument playing.

An instrument player should therefore be called an instrumentician.

... or maybe an instrumentalist!

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 15 Mar 18 - 04:04 PM

And Joe Bloggs will give you at least 6 different answers if you ask 14 of him, so he's not exactly a useful oracle here, is he? ;-) JB is pretty much the same where art is concerned - "Ah doan't know mooch abaht art, but ah knows a gud pick-chewer when ah sees it!" And where art is concerned, I confess to being pretty much the same! But I wouldn't trust the opinion of the man in the street about anything. He is, on average (lowest common denominator & all that), usually a bloody idiot!

Why would you prefer to think what someone else thinks, whoever that is? I prefer to think what I think! ;-)

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 15 Mar 18 - 03:48 PM

I prefer to think what Joe Bloggs in the street thinks. The technical stuff you're arguing about here is irrelevant to him. If you play an instrument to any level you're a musician. If you sing you're a singer.
Walk into any folk club in the land and ask anyone "How many musicians are there in here?" and see how many people include the unaccompanied singers.

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 15 Mar 18 - 03:30 PM

I would say that that's the wrong question. Or, perhaps, a secondary question. The primary question, surely, is "WHAT is a musician?" The trite & obvious answer, obviously, is "Someone that makes music!" That it's trite & obvious doesn't mean it's wrong, though it might suggest that a more thorough & considered answer is a good idea...

But only if you know (which really means "If you have an idea what...") what a musician is can you then answer "Is an X a musician?" Is a drummer a musician? Is someone who programs a computer to play music a musician? Is a composer a musician? A composer may not be able to play a note, but they *create* music. I have often suggested that classical musicians are not musicians, they are technicians - they don't create, they interpret. Like actors. Yes, I am very well aware that that is far from entirely true, but for the sake of the point... They are highly skilled technicians. So is a stonemason or a woodcarver. They do what they are told to do. They play the notes, speak the words, make the design that they are GIVEN.

So are they musicians, etc; artists? Is the man on the pneumatic drill a musician? Sounds like that have been incorporated into modern compositions. Is s/he a musician only if they drill to the composer's order? A musician if they are recorded without knowing?

The first question MUST be "What is a musician?"

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 15 Mar 18 - 03:11 PM

what's the advantage of being a musician rather than a singer?

i've played guitar since i was a kid, but i like to think of myself as a guitar player -rather than a musician.

i quite like musicians, but they're on a different planet from the rest of us. you don't get to be good by being normal.

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Mar 18 - 03:03 PM

THey haven't but if sounds produced by the voice falls within that definition, then by definition, the voice is a musical instrument - as guest Sol points out
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 15 Mar 18 - 02:34 PM

I don't think anyone has questioned the definition of 'music'.

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Mar 18 - 02:53 PM

Try various definitions of music and I think they are fairly consistent
the Oxford English Reference Dictionary seems to b typical of the ones on our shelves where it gives the first definition as "The are of combining or instrumental sounds (or both) to produce, beauty of form, harmony and expression of emotion
The second - the sound produced
Three and four refer to compositions written and printed
The fifth - certain pleasant sounds, eg - birdsong or a stream
In Scotland, port-a-buel translates literally as "mouth music"
Wide enough to include the voice as a musical instrument as far as I'm concerned.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 15 Mar 18 - 02:27 PM

Okay so in some dictionaries a singer is a musician but in everyday language I would regard a musician as someone who plays a musical instrument and a singer as just that, a singer; so I would describe myself in this context as a singer/musician. If I wanted to use a single word I would use performer. If someone described themselves as a musician in everyday language I would expect them to pull out an instrument.

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: G-Force
Date: 15 Mar 18 - 02:06 PM

It's possible to sing musically and it's possible to sing unmusically. So I guess a musical singer is a musician.

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: GUEST,Ebor Fiddler
Date: 15 Mar 18 - 01:42 PM

I notice that nobody has mentioned drummers ...

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: GUEST,sciencegeek51
Date: 15 Mar 18 - 01:35 PM

I am a singer... I play instruments but not at a level that I consider worth doing in public

music is music whether created by vocal chords or instruments... so a musician is one who makes music regardless of how they do it... it's up to others if it's worth listening to... but in these days of labeling and pidgeonholing and filling in blanks on forms, we tend to restrict ourselves. in my opinion

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: leeneia
Date: 15 Mar 18 - 01:04 PM

Yes. Now stop internetting and start singing. St. Patrick's Day is a few days away. How many good Irish songs do you have ready?

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 15 Mar 18 - 09:56 AM

As with all such words, usage varies. The most logical definition is: "someone who makes music as a habit". This includes composers, producers, amateurs, and of course "horrible musicians". To be called a musician is not a particular honour, and to call oneself thus is not a boast.

On the other hand, someone who is merely "musically talented" but never makes or made music will scarcely qualify – the Oxford Dictionary is wrong.

Neither will someone who sings in the bathroom without expecting anyone to hear it. And of course, there are fringes in the definition of "music".

Colloquially, the term is sometimes confused with "instrumentalists", not necessarily because vocal music is considered inferior. For example, sloppy journalists may write about "singers and musicians" at an opera house, presumably believing that the singers are more important than the instrumentalists.

Those who worry too much about words are often struck with an inferiority complex or other problems they do not dare to address properly.

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Mar 18 - 09:45 AM

Ask a silly question... :-)