Is a singer a musician?

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: GUEST,Rossey
Date: 03 Apr 18 - 07:17 PM

At the end of the day. a musician plays an external object which has been converted or facilitated to make sounds. Musicians may also sing. Singers who only use their voice, only play a metaphorical internal instrument. My father was a singer, he sure as hell wasn't a musician. My brother is a musician who also sings. But anybody who performs music could join the Musician's Union.

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: r.padgett
Date: 04 Apr 18 - 02:39 AM

NO your father was a singer, he sang a tune however good or bad and also sang a set of words
The voice is a musical instrument ~ singers are musicians

Ray

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Apr 18 - 05:08 PM

Mmm. Ray this is more philosophical. The voice is not an instrument. By definition an instrument is an external object altered or utilised to play sounds. A voice is just internal, natural and only metaphorically an instrument. Ok you sing and perform music... but it is not learning a skill to play an external note producing object.. but anyway, everybody is right and wrong. depending on the angle you come at! Some singers are trained or train themselves to use their metaphorical vocal instrument. I would call this one debatable (but no winner either side!) A good pub argument, that might end up in someone banging their head off the table in frustration, or possibly banging someone else's head off the table!

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 04 Apr 18 - 06:20 PM

Rossey - No, the voice is not an instrument, but your claim that a musician must play an instrument is not supported by e.g. the OED! See my response to Ray, 05:57AM, 27/3. Also, a less serious response to Andy7 at 09:04 21/3.

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: r.padgett
Date: 05 Apr 18 - 03:20 AM

My view is that the voice was in fact the first and original musical instrument that god gave us and probably all music was devised with the voice in mind! and used as a bench mark for scales and keys etc

Ray

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 Apr 18 - 03:49 AM

The term 'vocal music' says it all for me
It's a long tome since I read Bruno Netl's 'Primitive Music' and John Blacking's 'How Musical is Man' which were both influential in persuading me that the voice was man's first musical instrument - time I read them again, I think
'Click music' and mimicking animals for food gathering (like imitating bees for honey-gathering) - are very early examples of the voice being used as a musical instrument
More recently, the voice being used to produce music for dancing when there are no musical instruments available, or in Scotland for retaining the subtleties of tunes.
The voice is basically a tool used to communicate ideas - once you use it for something else it becomes what it is used for
This is basically a philosophical point, same as - if you are caught in flood and turn a table upside down to escape, does it become a boat?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: GUEST,Rossey
Date: 05 Apr 18 - 09:41 AM

I can see your point Jim 'diddling' or 'mouth music' is using the voice as a substitute musical instrument. But as you say it turns to the philosophical and semantics and subsets when you have an ordinary singer. As far as I'm concerned my late father was a singer not a musician, and he used musicians to back him up. As a whole band they were musicians. But within the subset my old man was a singer, not himself a musician    Whereas my brother who was originally my father's backing musician and harmoniser -is a musician who now sings to his own backing! This one just goes round! Everybody is right though! My head hurts!

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 Apr 18 - 11:13 AM

"My head hurts!"
Mine too - but that's more about the Bourbon I consumed last night
THis isn't really important, but what is important is that, if you want to be in any way a proficient singer you need to treat your voice as a musical instrument and master it in the same way
MacColl always made a bign thing of this when he worked with other singers; he evolved a series of exercises to keep the voice in good shape - still works for me nearly fifty years later
Below are excepts fom a long series of interviews we did with him in the early 1980s
Jim Caaarroll

Recording 4.
“Now you might say that working and training to develop your voice to sing Nine Maidens A-milking Did Go or Lord Randall is calculated to destroy your original joy in singing, at least that’s the argument that’s put to me from time to time, or has been put to me from time to time by singers who should know better.
The better you can do a thing the more you enjoy it. Anybody who’s ever tried to sing and got up in front of an audience and made a bloody mess of it knows that you’re not enjoying it when you’re making a balls of it, but you are enjoying it when it’s working, when all the things you want to happen are happening. And that can happen without training, sure it can, but it’s hit or miss. If you’re training it can happen more, that’s the difference. It can’t happen every time, not with anybody, although your training can stand you in good stead, it’s something to fall back on, a technique, you know. It’s something that will at least make sure that you’re not absolutely diabolical         
The objective, really for the singer is to create a situation where when he starts to sing he’s no longer worried about technique; he’s done all that, and he can give the whole of his or her attention to the song itself, she can give her or he can give his whole attention to the sheer act of enjoying the song”.
(Interview tape 3).

This is what he said in response to the often repeated claims that traditional singers did not concern themselves with technique but produced their songs “naturally” without thought or preparation; in other words unconsciously.

“I believe that this notion really begins in the Romantic Movement. It begins with that notion of the rude, unlettered hind with a heart of gold and all the rest of it. Basically, today, I see it as a very reactionary and very bourgeois point of view. I think it stems from a belief that the working class are incapable of doing anything which demands a high level of expertise and a high level of skill, particularly in the creative field.
How is it possible then, that this body of music that we call folk song and folk music, traditional song, traditional music, whatever you like to call it, how is it possible that this, which has been made by labourers, seamen and all the rest of it, should have, should demand this level of expertise, should demand this high level of craftsmanship on the part of its performers. “No”, they say, “the songs are simple”, and all the rest of it. And that is nonsense; that is utter nonsense.
To some extent it’s the same idea that the nineteenth century English folk song collectors had about the music itself; they talked about it being simple, “the simple music of unlettered people”. But unlettered there is used as a pejorative term, as though the ability to read and write is all important. The implication being that if you can read and write, then you are going to be a better singer than if you can’t read or write, and we know that’s nonsense.
It’s this snob thing and it’s the snob thing which makes them say “you don’t need to work at it; you don’t need a high level of craftsmanship to perform this.
The best of folk music in the world, wherever it comes from, whether it’s a Joe Heaney or whether it’s that young man singing those Azerbaijani songs, is full of the most extraordinary expertise, full of the most extraordinary physical ideas, vocal ideas I mean, I mean physical in the vocal sense”.
(Interview, tape three).

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 05 Apr 18 - 02:37 PM

In the 70s I booked that Fred Jordan for a festival concert. I billed him as a brilliant musician. The place was packed but they all asked for their money back at the end. Mind you, he did spend half an hour tuning his vocal cords.

I'll get me coat!

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 05 Apr 18 - 02:57 PM

The term 'vocal music' says it all for me

Indeed, Jim. You might have included 'instrumental music' in the statement mind. ;-) Different sorts of music with very different & definite defining characteristics (one might talk about 'classical', 'folk', 'heavy metal', etc...). But all music, when all is said & done. If it ain't to your taste, hard luck; enjoy the fact that someone else enjoys it... And run away from it as fast as possible! ;-)

P.S. Bourbon? When there's good Irish whiskey to be had?! I may never forgive you... :p

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 Apr 18 - 03:12 PM

"I may never forgive you.."
A Lidl lapse Raedwulf
Can't afford Middleton and have to be in the mood for Jameson - I'm not keen on the rest
I'm a Scotch malt man Laphroig at heart, but Highland Park will do
Cheers
Jim

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 05 Apr 18 - 03:50 PM

:D You're forgiven. Auchentoshan insists... ;-)

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: r.padgett
Date: 06 Apr 18 - 03:16 AM

WEll your fault for mis describing him thus Steve Gardham ~ as you know there are (nowadays) many different audiences and a sophisticated awkward bunch they are too!!

Ray

Subject: RE: Is a singer a musician?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 06 Apr 18 - 04:21 AM

From: Johnny J
Date: 27 Mar 18 - 05:34 AM

How does this apply to Rap artists? Not that I think there's much in the way of music there.....

That one's easy.
There's:
A-Singers
B-Instrumentalists
C-Rap

(The final hyphen may not have been necessary)