Forget about what you've been told and learned.

How do you think an artist differs from a singer?

I'm really curious.

Artist: Mulitiple skills sets in the music making arena:
Sing, instruments, write, produce, arrange. I my opinion, those in bold are more important than singing. U can find more people who can sing than any of those in bold. That's a FACT.....Jack.

Graycap23 said:

True.

MY definition:

To me a singer is someone who can mimic or interpret lyrics in melodic form, in key and tempo to music or acapella as directed or expected.

An artist is someone who soley creates or contributes in an influential way to a pre-existing musical landscape. They not only sing but write music and/or lyrics, arrange or compose, and perhaps produce or play an instrument or several. I would also qualify singers who don’t do these things but have an unlimited unique and deliberate vocal interpretation that contributes to the overall musicianship in ways such as a Rachelle Farrell, Al Jarreau, Bobby McFerrin as artists as well.

To take it a step further I also consider singers who have dominant contribution, conceptualization and usually final say in their image, styling and performance presentation to be artists as well.
[Edited 6/17/09 6:34am]

An artist has the creative skills necessary to take music and inject something unique and personal to it (whether they're considered a singer/musician/composer/etc)

A singer would simply have the technical skills necessary to accurately interpret what they're asked to sing.



tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

Graycap23 said:

^^^
yeah that

An artist is someone, who by whatever medium, can get across their unique vision of something. They don't have to be one man bands to satisfy me, but they must be able to add something to what's already out there.

Harlepolis said:

An artist creates art.

A singer sings.

TonyVanDam said:

You have a gift of vague statements, Tony

Harlepolis said:

Very vague.

Harlepolis said:

Thank you!

TonyVanDam said:

So singing isn't an art?

LittleBLUECorvette said:

Whitney Houston can sing. But she NEVER created any of her song materials.

Mariah can sing and has written/co-written most of her song materials as well as arranged her vocal & keyboard parts. So I can called Mariah an artist, but not Whitney.

TonyVanDam said:

You know you about to get it from Mariah haters, just warning ya.

I DO think singing is an art. I mean anyone can sing and then there's those whose vocals defy logic and take you places (Minnie Riperton is a good example).

TonyVanDam said:

Isn't the voice they use an art. They create a picture with there voice. Idon't think Jackie Wilson wrote any of his songs, but is his voice not art?

I don't know about you but I never get nothing out of a lyric or a musical riff unless it was a solo (though I think the Funk Brothers and MFSB were the exceptions), but a GREAT singer who works a gem with that voice and uses it PROPERLY, that's an artistic statement in of itself. It's like what I call song stylists (Marvin, Sam, Jackie, Aretha, Gladys, etc.).

Timmy84 said:

TonyVanDam said:

That was the best monologue in his whole damn show.

Timmy84 said:

Katt Williams is a hypocrite. Dude always talking about haters, yet that's all he do thought out his whole stand-up.

LittleBLUECorvette said:

Exactly. I really can't stand him after he tried calling out Steve. Hell I was already upset over his rant over MJ. Whatever with his tiny ass, lol.
[Edited 6/17/09 20:50pm]

brooksie said:

And just for bringing Katt into this, Tony:

TonyVanDam said:

Singing is art. A singer uses their voice as an instrument which requires the understanding of different pitches. So singers are def. artists.

midiscover said:

I view art as the recreation of the sense of life.
It displays through our different means of perceptions: sound [music], sight [painting,sculpting] and physically [dance].
So IMO an artist is someone who can put all these means and create the sense of life through these means.

Last time I checked, weren't voices considered "instruments" as well?

Check this, if you could create something expressive from a VERY basic instrument, wouldn't that make you an artist?

Just saying.

Harlepolis said:

According to some here, you got to have write a verse and play three chords on an instrument to be an "artist".

There's singers and artists and then there's people who PRETEND to be singers, lol. Not everybody can be a "singer", lol. You have to learn that craft. You can "sing" but those that work at it well enough to present the musician's song or the writer's story, that makes them an artist rather than "just a singer".

Harlepolis said:

Are you saying that I could be an "artist" because of the music I created with a pencil?!? Oh please, that is barely a status of a "beat-maker"!

A singer is an instrument. they can be told how to sing where to sing when to sing, what style to sing in. But once the singer begins to create melodies and does vocal arragments then they become an artist's as they are no longer doing just whats been told. Just a guitar player isn't an artist untill they learn to play something they've created.
[Edited 6/19/09 15:10pm]