Whenever there’s a family event, such as Thanksgiving, a cousin’s wedding, or any event that involves non-musical people (in other words, most of my family), someone always asks me, “So, what do you actually do?” For a long time, I answered, “I’m a record producer.”
They would respond with, “Oh, so you put up the money to make the records.” I would then explain that no, that’s a movie producer. Record producers are the people who make the records in the studio.
They would then ask, “So you’re an arranger?” Again, I would answer that I do those things as well, but I am a record producer who makes songs with the artist. Then they would say, “Oh, so you’re a composer.”
I’m sure this has happened to many producers and composers around the world, and I understand how some of these terms can be a bit vague, especially since nowadays, many of these terms are actually consolidated, making it hard to know which one you are.
So, let’s take a look at the best definition for each of these terms. Maybe it’ll help you avoid a lot of small talk at your next family event.
Table of Contents
Composer
Back in the day, anyone who wrote music was called a composer – whether they wrote a song with lyrics, an instrumental, or a big movie score. But now, the term is mostly used for someone who writes orchestral music in the classical world or, in popular culture, as someone who writes movie music.
The tricky part is that composers who write shorter songs with lyrics have now been given the name “songwriters”. And it gets even more confusing when someone like Ludovico Einaudi writes an instrumental piano piece that becomes a radio hit on NPR or KCRW, and they start the segment by saying “The great composer Ludovico Einaudi wrote this song”.
Is he composing a piece or writing a song? Does a song have to have lyrics to be a song? If so, then most electronic music, EDM, and ambient music creators would be called composers.
But it sounds weird to call Deadmau5 a composer, even though many of his tracks don’t have vocals or lyrics. The confusion comes from the definition of a composer.
To simplify it even more, I’d say today a composer is someone who writes a commissioned piece specifically for a certain medium. That means they’re hired to write a piece of music that has a purpose beyond just being enjoyed on a record by fans.
This includes film scores, trailers, commercials, video game music, and theatrical musicals.
The main difference between a composer and a songwriter is that a composer writes a piece to be performed – whether it’s by an orchestra to serve a movie or by the cast of a musical to serve the musical. Even commercial writers are commissioned to write music that adds value to a bigger product than itself.
On the other hand, a songwriter works within a more defined and traditional format so that it can be called a song. This usually means it’s under 10 minutes, has a traditional verse-chorus-bridge structure, and many times has a melody performed by a vocalist or instrumentalist.
Producer
Traditionally, a “producer” was responsible for ensuring a recording project was brought to perfection. Along with the engineer, they worked to get the best possible performance from the vocalist and oversaw the recording, arrangement, and mix of the album.
A producer can be thought of as the director of a movie. They ensure that everything is top-notch and have the final say on the album. Quincy Jones is a perfect example of the record producer stereotype. He coached Michael Jackson, hung out with famous stars before their duets, and looked over the shoulder of famous engineers while they tracked and mixed.
With the advancement of technology and smaller setups, the “bedroom producer” was born. This person does everything on a computer, sometimes in their bedroom, with a minimal setup and no live musicians.
Yet, they manage to create something that becomes a hit and goes platinum. Finneas, Billie Eilish’s brother, is a perfect example of a recent bedroom producer. He produced most of Billie Eilish’s early hits in his bedroom with his sister.
The term “producer” has also changed a lot with the growth of electronic music and hip-hop. Often, the producers in these genres are the artists themselves, doing everything from writing the song to mastering the record themselves.
So basically, a producer makes sure that the song idea is fully written, arranged, recorded, mixed, and mastered to the highest level possible. They can either do all the work themselves or hire a team of session musicians and engineers. The producer acts as a middleman between the artist and the label, hired to make sure the project is done on time, within budget, and to the highest standards possible.
Arranger
Alright, let’s talk about the arranger. You’ve probably already been one, especially if you’re a bedroom producer who’s handling all the parts, creating MIDI loops, and building song structures within your computer. In that case, you’re arranging the song, right? Absolutely, but this term can be a little confusing.
It’s an old-school term that doesn’t quite fit the modern music industry. These days, arrangers are typically called in to create specific, complex musical arrangements for larger ensembles. For instance, an artist might hire a string arranger to write a beautiful arrangement of their song for an orchestra to play.
Some genres, like salsa, funk, and even some pop music, still use horn sections in their recordings. But horns can be tough to record live if you’re not experienced. That’s why arrangers are especially important for horn section arrangements. Many horns need to read music in different keys, so the arranger has to write the parts out properly per instrument.
So while the producer might come up with something that sounds like a horn section during the demo for the song, the musicians who come in to play the parts need to have them written out correctly. This is where arrangers come in.
Arrangers are still doing what they’ve always done but in a much more specialized way. Before technology made it possible for producers to be one-man bands, arrangers had to write out the parts for every musician to play from the beginning to the end of the song.
But with computer setups, the producer can map out the final arrangement themselves. This has changed the game a bit, but arrangers are still an important part of the music-making process.
Final Thoughts
So, you might be thinking, “Okay, but what’s the deal with someone like Max Martin, who does everything from composing to producing to arranging to mixing a song? What do we call that?”
Well, nowadays, people usually refer to all those roles as simply “record producer.” This change came about when hip-hop became popular and artists like Dr. Dre, Kanye West, and Pharrell started taking on almost every aspect of making an album, except for maybe the vocals.
More and more artists began to take on the roles of producers and composers, and this shift in responsibilities changed the definitions.
Prince was actually one of the pioneers of this, doing everything from creating the music to making decisions about album artwork and photo shoots.
Record labels also started to realize how important producers were in helping create a unique sound for an artist. For example, Jack Antonoff, who’s part of the band Fun and also an artist in his own right, has worked with every major pop artist from Miley Cyrus to Taylor Swift over the past three years and has won a bunch of Grammys.
In the cases of those artists, they wanted to sound more like Jack than like themselves. The same goes for Pharrell. For a while there, it seemed like everything on the radio was produced by The Neptunes.
And if you look at the credits for songwriters, you’ll sometimes see that the producer actually wrote the song. So in the music industry, a producer can be a composer, producer, arranger, engineer, and even a record label!
Well, folks, the industry is always changing, and that’s what makes it so darn interesting!
