“Singer-songwriter” is used 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 their performance of it. Most records by such artists have a similarly straightforward and spare sound that placed emphasis on the song itself.
The term has also been used to describe songwriters in the rock, folk, country, and pop music genres including Henry Russell, Aristide Bruant, Hank Williams, and Buddy Holly. It came into popular usage in 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 reintroduced the Medieval troubadour tradition of “songs with public personalities” after the Tin Pan Alley era in American popular music.
When I was a kid, I discovered Marty Robbins’ “Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs” in my Dad’s record collection and played it obsessively. I fell in love with the stories that that album told and the colorful characters in songs like “Big Iron” and “El Paso.” It was immediately apparent that to me, music was not just a melody and a beat; it was also visual and preferably cinematic. The story that the lyrics told was what really brought a song to life for me.
by Fifi Rong
From the tender age of eight, melancholy wove its stars into the fabric of my life. Deep, existential contemplations about life’s transient nature became my constant companions. My young mind, captivated by these musings, delved into the profound mysteries of existence. In these depths of reflection, I discovered music’s magnetic effects, a revelation that ignited a spark in my soul.
Around the age of ten, I discovered my natural singing ability, dreaming of a life as a music artist. However, this dream faced immense resistance. I grappled with a soul-tormenting dilemma: a burning desire to devote my life to music, contrasted by a deep-seated belief, instilled by those closest to me, that I lacked the talent. Their laughter and doubts, and concerns that I was chasing a delusion, cast long shadows over my aspirations. The belief that “I wasn’t a good enough singer, nor did I look the part,” became an unchallenged conviction for the next decade.
第一章：无望的梦想
我从小就是个感情丰富、爱沉思的孩子。在我幼小的心灵里，我经常沉浸在对生命本质的思考之中。在这些深邃的反思里，我逐渐发现了音乐对我灵魂的强烈吸引力，这成为了唤醒我内心深处火花的启示。
大约在十岁时，我发现自己天生具有唱歌的才能，开始梦想成为一名音乐艺术家。然而，这个梦想遭遇了巨大的阻力。我陷入了一种灵魂深处的挣扎：对音乐的热爱与深植于心的不自信之间的矛盾。周围人的嘲笑和怀疑，以及他们认为我追求的不过是一场幻觉，给我的志向蒙上了阴影。长久以来，我无法挑战内心的那个声音：“我唱的不够好，长得也不够漂亮。”
Continue readingby Ben Richel
During my childhood in Savoie, France, most of my free time was devoted to one activity: imagination. I imagine grandiose destinies but also standard and common stories: From fishermen in the Philippines to Western rockstars, from 19th-century wars to post-collapse scenarios, from my Star Wars spin-offs to projecting myself on stage later… I could imagine revolutionary flying machines, and the same day imagine the realistic routine of the today’s French middle class (I am myself in the middle, like Malcolm!)
For me, everything is interesting.
My life has been built by imagining and connecting lives. It was obvious that one day I would invent characters, partly because expressing my whole personality cannot be done by simply embodying a predefined, cliché role given by society.
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Hi, I’m Raging Flowers, a singer-songwriter-producer from Auckland, New Zealand. My primary instrument is the electric guitar. I make jazzy self-help indie pop that celebrates the diversity of feelings. My music is about truthfulness, exploration, and hope.
My music career has had an unusual start. I’ve been a long-time music learner, but I decided to pursue a career in tech. I studied Computer Science and had a career as a Software Engineer. I worked for some of the top software companies in New Zealand. I was a star Software Engineer in various fields, including music, blockchain, and AI. Back in my programming days, my ambition was to run a small business of my own.
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Years back, I attended my late cousin’s funeral in the core of the inner city where she lived. One could call the area run-down, poor, and even scary. It was the kind of place where taking to the street at night was risky, let alone by day. Many of the shops were closed down, and the upkeep on the surrounding buildings was minimal, to say the least.
My cousin had been renting a three-room apartment over a dingy hotel where she lived a hand-to-mouth existence due to childhood traumas. Every time I went to this city, I made a point of stopping in on her for a visit because, despite her struggle, she hadn’t lost her sense of humor and hadn’t forgotten the ways of knowing taught to us by our grandmother. She was fun and had a great sense of humor. She didn’t let too much bother her, and I enjoyed spending time with her. It was relaxing because there was no pressure to be anything else than two cousins spending time together. We would often jump into my car, as she didn’t own a vehicle, and drive out to the country for fresh air and a change of scenery.
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When I released my first single, ‘Always Time’ as ZEETRICITY!, I found it incredibly moving how many people resonated with the subject matter; for such a personal song to have such an effect reminds me exactly why I began writing music in the first place.
I have always believed that music is the most powerful form of art because it is a constantly evolving medium that takes on various forms. However, its intention always remains the same: to resonate with the listener.
There is a special connection between the creator of the music and the one listening to it, creating a small window of insight into each other’s lives.
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Hi, my name’s Jamie Hutchings; I’m a singer, songwriter, guitarist, percussionist, and sometime improviser and producer. I’m based in Sydney, Australia.
Music was a given in my family household as my dad was a woodwind session cat. He’s 83 now, but he still gigs here and there, but as kids, it was his bread and butter. So all of us inherited his musicality in some form, but still (particularly with my brother and I), we found ourselves gravitating more and more towards rawness and originality over professionalism and technique. I was looking through my mum and dad’s record collection the other night, and it’s almost exclusively Frank Sinatra records. Sinatra is amazing, but the overexposure to music in a show-biz format perhaps contributed to us going in a different direction!
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Lissa and I began performing and recording together in Los Angeles in 1980. Our first band was called ‘Live Nude Girl’ formed during the post-punk era. Angular, with arcane drum-machines, synths, guitars, and theatrical graphic visuals. I am an American-born Australian, who grew up in Sydney, went to design school in Melbourne, then after starting my career in visual communication design, relocated to the USA to freelance in design and get serious about song writing. To find collaborators, starting bands, and doing solo singer-songwriter spots around LA, while designing in the daytime.
You’ve found me!
Not by coincidence.
Simply put, everything has led you here.
The time is right: Winter is coming to Europe, and I’ve just finished a hot EP to warm your heart and quench your thirst for handmade music.
Here is the EP “Snow Flies In Circles All Nite “. Three musical works that didn’t quite fit into the previous album, “Flawed Music For Bored Avatars,” and demanded their very own framework. The three pieces form a marvelous triangle for discovering and understanding myself as an artist.
Continue readingby Tony Meade
I’ve spent my life as a late bloomer, perpetually running to catch up. I was late into my teens before I even knew that I could sing, into my twenties before starting to play guitar, in my late twenties before I was in a band writing my own songs, and only years later would release my first album. Chasing the clock, hoping to catch up before time runs out.
I was born and raised in the hills and valleys of West Virginia, a land of contradictions itself – a place of conservative values and union labor, of startling beauty and stifling poverty, of struggle and soul. It was here that I had my first musical experiences, from the traditional country gospel of my ancestors to sneaking into my older sisters’ bedroom to pilfer and explore their collection of 45s, pretending I was giving concerts, using the bed as a stage.
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