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composition , the act of creating a piece of art. Thats it. The genre is irrelevant, the medium is irrelevant.

Jay Z whether you like it or not is a composer. I know the term is more used to describe those that deal with the more traditional side of things such as using an orchestra and so on but there really is no way to draw the line.

Interestingly, pop culture tends to use a more specific word than classical culture: song-writer. Here in the classical world, we tend to refer to Schubert as a "composer of songs", not as a "song-writer". These words have strong connotations in the English language. "Composer" connotes "classical" -- "Song-writer" connotes "popular" -- for better or for worse.

what about DeadMaut5 , a well known EDM artist

making electronic dance music with no words.

not a song writer but his music has definitely crossed the pop barrier.
most would say producer but that has other implications that don't really capture what the artist is doing.

the point is that you can't with any logic draw the line as to what composer entails. It really is the creation of art. What ever art that may be. You are a composer. A good composer ? that is another thing.

If composer conotates classical music, then there are no composers alive unless they are just rehashing what has already been done. In that case i think the term redundant would suffice instead of composer.

I agree that the lines are blurry; that's why the discussion is so common and interesting. Some pop artists do refer to themselves as composers. But that doesn't mean there aren't general connotations.

I think the amount of embarrassment derived is in direct proportion to the comfort in which you say it.

To nit-pick the nit-picking, ending one's sentence with a preposition is perfectly correct grammar in both formal and informal English; the fact that the same construction is nonsensical in Latin is irrelevant.

Calling all types of music "song" is like calling all types of food "sandwich"; if you really do eat only sandwiches, then it works out fine.

I agree with BadOrange really... What if one is using loops, or premade stuff to create music? The creation IS there... Perhaps it might not seem as creative as coming up with a new symphony, but it's still composition...

But I will admit that a few DJs that I've spoken to were quite timid of me and all admitted that they don't feel like 'true composers', to which I replied that since they're creating music, regardless the tools or the medium they're all equally composing! (plus I've done some very nice things with loops, so...)

Very nicely put.

Glad to see you posting again.

-J

Somebody who builds a watch by machining each part from raw metal, and somebody else who builds another watch from spare parts he has found, are both watchmakers - just different kinds of watchmakers, I guess.

Yes, it is, but my point was that people who use the older form tend to get looked at strangely these days if it's used in casual conversation. It's ok in a speech though. I have found that I have to adopt a different set of language conventions based on the different circles I associate with (yes, preposition at the end, I know!). It's not my preference to do that, it's more to put others at ease because I see the unease in some people when they hear educated language. The preposition thing is not problematic in itself because it doesn't reduce the precision in language. I only raised that as an example of the peer-pressure aspect of language evolution. It's the situations when descriptive words are lost to the general vernacular that it becomes disturbing. "Song" is a perfect example of this. It creates a lot of redundancy if precision is required. "Song in a sort of old classical style with 4 violin type instruments" is as good as you'll get from most teenagers these days. "Baroque String Quartet" uses a lot less letters and still has more precision. I'm not that interested in formal styling, but I am interested in descriptive precision.

I'm obviously the wrong generation to know about these things - but maybe the use of the word 'song' as a generic term for everything (including the kitchen sink) might be due to the advent of digital keyboards and pianos. The display on these things say 'song', whether it's a factory demo classical piece, or it's something you've played and recorded. (I only discovered this when I bought my DP last year, and it annoyed me no end that everything was a 'song' ).

Any comments from the younger sages out there?

Hip hop dj s and producers never claimed to be musicians, rather the opposite. I don t think Jay Z writes his music, he definitely didn t write the parts for his unplugged album (The roots did), and most his music is sampled from someone else's records ... and those who are not are ususally "produced" (i.e., written, in terms o hip hop vocabulary), by others ... So i dn t think it s fair to say he composes ...

It actually uses fewer letters, but the eroding distinction between 'less' and 'fewer' is another among many ways in which our language is evolving ... for better or worse.

It's true, though, that the conventions we choose can be manipulated at will by using different registers in writing as well as in speech. And I also agree that an oppositional culture of anti-intellectualism and anti-elitism perpetuates peer pressure not to sound educated or to use big words.

their claims don't really matter. They are clearly musicians. I think they are just tired of being labelled non musicians that they don't even bother trying to justify themself. A person making some sort of organized sound with a rock is a musician by definition.

And sampling, is harder than you think and does require a certain skillset. The traditional way to achieve this was via a turntable which can be viewed the instrument the performer being a dj.

You don't have to like it or feel they are equal to you but they are musicians. They are making music. I think John Cage cemented the sillyness of defining what is and what isn't a musician. You make music, you are a musician. period.

I always find it humorous when someone wants to sound intellectual and uses improper grammar. An example that I have heard more than once is, "Just between you and I."

As far as the word "song" goes. Romantic composers started naming some of their instrumental compositions "ballade" (ballad) or "romance" (love song). If the composers themselves are calling them songs then why get up in arms about others using that terminology?

First of all, because not every composer calls every composition a "ballade" or a "romance". People use the word "song" to refer to pieces of music that were not called "song" or "ballade" or "romance" by the composer.

Secondly, even those terms don't always imply a "song". "Ballade" can refer to a narrative poem or story -- and by analogy, to a piece of music that tries to tell a story. Same thing with "Romance", which can also refer to a book. ("Roman" means "novel" in both French and German.)

Finally, even if the pieces are being compared with songs (either because they tell a story, or because the melodies are very singable, or for other reasons), they are still instrumental works.

This could be, but then my question is: why does the display on such keyboards call everything a "song"? Why doesn't it say "composition", or "piece", or "recording", or some other word instead?

The same question can be asked about iTunes. Why does iTunes call everything a "song", instead of using some other more inclusive word?

I also hear this frequently, and it drives me crazy. Perhaps it shouldn't. I'm also bothered by the recent explosion in usage of comma splices. I was taught that comma splices are rarely acceptable in English; just this year I've started seeing them all over the place in both formal and informal e-mails, advertisements, blog posts, news, etc. The worst was when a friend's child came running up to him to show him how there was a grammar mistake in a book she was reading; there were two separate sentences, separated by a period, and she told him that they should have been separated by a comma instead. I almost hit the ceiling. Are kids being taught and encouraged now to use more comma splices?

[back to music... back to music... back to music...]

I notice that a lot, even in mainstream news broadcasts and from Harvard educated politicians. I wonder if they think it's politically incorrect to say "you and me".

My guess is that 'song' would have the advantage of brevity in a LCD display.

But then so would 'tune' -- a more logical choice, I would think, for iTunes given the obvious product tie-in. I dunno -- maybe they didn't want to be obvious?