A Singer-Songwriter's Approach to Vocal Performance of Their Original Songs: An insider's view

Abstract

Statistical data suggests that through media like radio, television and streaming, the music listening public engages with the output of singer-songwriters (SSWs) on a daily basis (Surveyspro, 2016). The singer is key to this engagement, yet existing scholarly discussion is focused primarily on industry and non-industry, etic views/perspectives of SSWs as a group (Bentley, 2016; Holman Jones, 2007; Jackson, 2007; King, 2012; Lanksford Jr, 2010; Potter & Sorrell, 2012; Reynolds, 2009; Rogers, 2016; Whiteley, 2000; Williams & Williams, 2016; Zollo, 1958, Zollo, 2016). Beyond the suggestion that for SSWs the process of singing their own original songs is comparable to singing covers of other artists’ compositions, the existing literature offers little discussion on the singer component within the musical product of the singersongwriter craft. In this paper, we propose that, whilst the singers’ process in creating a vocal performance on any song (original or cover) could be considered similar in terms of voice production, there are deeper considerations for SSWs and consequently, for the teachers who oversee their voice training.