Songwriter

A songwriter is a person who creates musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music genre and film scoring. A songwriter who mainly writes the lyrics for a song is referred to as a lyricist. Pressure from the music industry to produce popular hits means that commercial songwriting is often a collaborative process with tasks shared among multiple people. For example, a songwriter who excels at writing lyrics might be paired with another songwriter who specialises in creating original melodies. Pop songs may be composed by group members from the band or by staff writers – songwriters directly employed by music publishers. Some songwriters serve as their own music publishers, while others have external publishers.