World of Pageantry

I have always wondered why people refer to instrumental music as a "song." For example, someone might state: "These are the songs we played on our concert," and then go on to list music for band such as the Holst suites, or something by Jager, or McBeth, or Hindemith, or WHATever.

A song is... sung.

Therefore, band music should not be referred to as "songs."

Hmm...I've never thought about that before, but I suppose that's true. I think that "song" has sort of been adapted for everything, though, so people use it a lot. That probably came from some songs that were sung being arranged for just instruments and continued to be called songs.

Lovablesheep brings up a good point. Songs such as Shenandoah(excuse the spelling), the shaker theme, and Danny Boy, have been adapted from songs, and I think that sometimes they just keep the term, song