singer-songwriter
Sign in to saveA singer-songwriter is a musician who writes, composes, and performs their own musical material, including lyrics and melodies. In the United States, the category is built on the folk-acoustic tradition with a guitar, although this role has transmuted through different eras of popular music. Traditionally, these musicians would write and sing songs personal to them. Singer-songwriters often provide the sole musical accompaniment to an entire song. The piano is also an instrument of choice. thumb|300px|Bob Dylan with [[Joan Baez during the March on Washington in Washington, D.C., 1963]] == Biog
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A singer-songwriter is a musician who writes, composes, and performs their own songs, handling both the lyrics and melodies. This role, rooted in the folk-acoustic tradition and typically featuring guitar or piano, matters because it allows artists to create and share deeply personal musical material while often providing all the musical accompaniment themselves.
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17 sectionsContents
- Biography
- History
- Traditions in different countries
- North America, United Kingdom, and Ireland
- Chanson, the French tradition
- ''Cantautore'', the Italian tradition
- Iberian-Latin American traditions
- Soviet Union and Russia
- Bulgaria
- Romania
- ''Liedermacher'', the German tradition
- Sweden
- Netherlands
- See also
- References
- Further reading
- External links
A singer-songwriter is a musician who writes, composes, and performs their own musical material, including lyrics and melodies. In the United States, the category is built on the folk-acoustic tradition with a guitar, although this role has transmuted through different eras of popular music. Traditionally, these musicians would write and sing songs personal to them. Singer-songwriters often provide the sole musical accompaniment to an entire song. The piano is also an instrument of choice. thumb|300px|Bob Dylan with [[Joan Baez during the March on Washington in Washington, D.C., 1963]] == Biography == The label "singer-songwriter" (or "song-writer/singer") is used by record labels and critics to define popular music artists who write and perform their own material, which is often self-accompanied – generally on acoustic guitar or piano. Such an artist performs the roles of composer, lyricist, vocalist, sometimes instrumentalist, and often self-manager. According to AllMusic, singer-songwriters' lyrics are often personal but veiled by elaborate metaphors and vague imagery, and their creative concern is to place emphasis on the song rather than on their performance of it. Most records by such artists have a similarly straightforward and spare sound that places emphasis on the song itself.
The term may also characterise songwriters in the rock, folk, country, and pop-music genres – including Henry Russell (1812–1900), Aristide Bruant (1851–1925), Hank Williams (1923–1953), and Buddy Holly (1936–1959). The phrase "singer-songwriter", recorded from 1949, came into popular usage from the 1960s onwards to describe songwriters who followed particular stylistic and thematic conventions, particularly lyrical introspection, confessional songwriting, mild musical arrangements, and an understated performing style. According to writer Larry David Smith, because it merged the roles of composer, writer, and singer, the popularity of the singer-songwriter phenomenon reintroduced the Medieval troubadour tradition of "songs with public personalities" after the Tin Pan Alley era in American popular music. Song topics of singer-songwriters from the American folk music revival include political protest, as in the case of Woody Guthrie (1912–1967) and Pete Seeger (1919–2014). According to the thumb|Singer-songwriter Pete Seeger of [[The Weavers, on banjo in 1955]]Journal of Popular Music Studies, from the folk revival and onward into its permanence in pop music, the role of a singer-songwriter has involved several dimensions of creative identity: