In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing. A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs. The lyrics (words) of songs are typically of a poetic, rhyming nature, though they may be religious verses or free prose.

A song may be for a solo singer, a duet, trio, or larger ensemble involving more voices. Songs with more than one voice to a part are considered choral works. Songs can be broadly divided into many different forms, depending on the criteria used. One division is between "art songs", "pop songs", and "folk songs". Other common methods of classification are by purpose (sacred vs secular), by style (dance, ballad, Lied, etc.), or by time of origin (Renaissance, Contemporary, etc.).

A song is a piece of music for accompanied or unaccompanied voice or voices or, "the act or art of singing," but the term is generally not used for large vocal forms including opera and oratorio. However, the term is, "often found in various figurative and transferred sense (e.g. for the lyrical second subject of a sonata...)." The word "song" has the same etymological root as the verb "to sing" and the OED defines the word to mean "that which is sung".

Noun

song m. (definite singular songen; indefinite plural songar; definite plural songane)

1. song

   Kven er det som syng denne songen?

   Who sings this song?

• “song” in The Nynorsk Dictionary – Dokumentasjonsprosjektet.

A song is a relatively short musical composition. Colloquially, song is often used to refer any music composition, even those without vocals.

Contents

• 1 Sourced
• 2 Unsourced
• 3 See also
• 4 External links

Sourced

• Song opens a window to the secret places of the soul.
  • Habad. quoted in Siegel et al. compilers and eds. (1973) The Jewish Catalogue, p.211. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America. ISBN 0827600429.

• It is best of all trades, to make songs, and the second best to sing them.
  • Hilaire Belloc, On Everything, 'On Song.'

• Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
  • Percy Bysshe Shelley, To a Skylark.

• The best days of the church have always been its singing days.
  • Theodore L. Cuyler, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 554.