2025 Theses Doctoral

The Lived Experience of the Emerging Contemporary Singer-Songwriter: A Phenomenological Inquiry

Schmergel, John Alfred

The singer-songwriter genre is a unique compositional model that requires the musician not only to create the lyrical and musical content of a piece, but also to perform and interpret the original material in an intimately personal manner. Utilizing a coalescence of affecting performance, technical prowess, and confessional narrative song structures, the singer-songwriter holds the ability to conjure a captivating artistic experience—one that has enraptured audiences since its meteoric rise to pop culture prominence during the period of civil unrest that defined America’s identity crisis throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

In subsequent decades, music critics, scholars, and educators have scrutinized the developmental origins and artistic integrity of this genre, contesting the interplay of what specific elements constitute the identity of an “authentic singer-songwriter.” Due to this lack of consensus, further research was warranted to establish an in-depth understanding of the lived experience of singer-songwriters within today’s commercial music landscape.

The purpose of this study was to explore with five currently practicing singer-songwriters the elemental facets of their lived experience that led them to embrace this vocation and what continues to perpetuate their artistic ambition. Using a triangulation of qualitative data, this interpretative phenomenological inquiry uncovered phenomena that not only illuminate the holistic essence of the contemporary singer-songwriter’s lived experience but also highlight the potential cathartic psychological and emotional enlightenment derived from engaging in this particular manner of musical artistry for future generations of songwriters.