Songs

thumb|upright=1.2|American jazz singer and songwriter Billie Holiday in New York City in 1947 A song is a musical composition performed by the human voice. The voice often carries the melody (a series of distinct and fixed pitches) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs have a structure, such as the common ABA form, and are usually made of sections that are repeated or performed with variation later. A song without instruments is said to be a cappella.

thumb|Songwriting partners Rodgers and Hart working on a song in 1936 A songwriter is a person who creates musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music genre and film scoring. A songwriter who mainly writes the lyrics for a song is referred to as a lyricist. Pressure from the music industry to produce popular hits means that commercial songwriting is often a collaborative process with tasks shared among multiple people. For example, a songwriter who excels

piece of music that has been placed on a CD, audio cassette, LP record or other recorded medium in such a way as to avoid detection by the casual listener