...I think at this point all you're doing is arguing semantics....
You say "all you're doing is arguing semantics" like it's a bad thing. The whole point of this thread is semantics, isn't it? Semantics is "the study of meanings of words in language." If we're not going to get into semantics, what's the point of this thread? lol
The thread title is "Does playing an instrument make you a musician?" The implied alternative is that there is more to being a musician than playing an instrument. What that difference actually is depends on who you ask -- which is what the field of semantics is all about. Is it skill, love of the instrument, love of music in general, getting paid to play, being able to charge regardless of whether you actually charge or not, making a net profit from play, music being your primary source of income?...
None of these are right or wrong answers on their own; they depend on the situation. To answer the question posed in the thread title, it depends on who you ask.
If you ask your average teenager, who doesn't pay any real-world bills, "What is a musician?", you are likely to hear that it's someone who performs music in some way, usually on an instrument, presumably because they enjoy it (why else would they do it?). You may not hear any mention of money at all.
If you ask a 30-year-old woman with a degree in psychology and a master's in secondary education, who has a full-time job as a career counselor at a high school, "What is a musician?", you are likely to hear that it's someone who makes a living writing, performing, and/or recording music. Love for music, skill, talent, and natural musical ability probably won't even come up - it's may not be part of her off-the-top-of-her-head definition at all.
If you ask a 53-year-old adult with 3 kids and 1 grandkid, who has a degree in electrical engineering and has been working as an engineer with the same company (full-time with salary & benefits) for 30 years straight, who has a couple of nice guitars he bought in the '80s from when he used to play in a bar-band on weekends for extra dough, "What is a musician?", he might tell you that he used to be a part-time one, and although he still loves music, aside from the annual neighborhood barbecue or playing at his church for free, he hasn't really performed in years and now mostly just plays at home for fun. To him, a musician might be someone who loves playing music *and* makes money from it, full-time/professionally.
If you ask me or any adult working musician, "What is a musician?", you are likely to hear something similar to/a combination of the career counselor & the engineer's responses - someone who writes, performs, or records music, usually on an instrument, and it's his primary income source. The word "composer" is usually reserved for someone who earns his living from writing and licensing music, perhaps recording as well, if he doubles as an instrumentalist. Composer also imply classical "art" music, or alternatively, commercial music (jingles, etc). Songwriter usually means just what it sounds like - someone who works for a publishing company or record label, etc, who writes music for others to record, and that's his job.
On the other hand, "singer/songwriter" means something totally different. A singer/songwriter has the same implication, in my opinion, as "aspiring actress," in that most people will assume you mean that it's not a full-time job, you may not get paid at all, and you do it completely out of passion, to balance out the reality of working at a coffee-shop or retail store, etc. "Singer/songwriter" can also be used for someone who makes a full-time living writing songs and singing them, such as Fiona Apple, etc, and usually accompanying him/herself on guitar or piano, often without a backing band, or the term can even used as a description of the genre of acoustic, rootsy/folksy music usually without a backing band.
In my humble opinion, to most adults who earn their own incomes, the label "musician," given without further clarification, is taken to meant "professional musician." If you specify "aspiring musician," just like "aspiring actress," etc, everyone understands that this means you
hope to be making a living by doing it someday, but right now, you are not making money from it or even losing money doing it. This is different from a "hobbyist," like the electrical engineer, who isn't even trying to make money from it and doesn't charge to perform (e.g. playing at his church).
Hobbyist musicians, aspiring musicians, professional musicians, singer/songwriters, composers, etc are all musicians. Musician is the umbrella word for all of these things. However, my main point is that, if we're talking semantics (which is, from what I gathered of the original post and the thread title, what the point of this discussion is), "musician" said alone implies you mean it as a job title, and without further clarification, to most people is implied to have the word "professional" in front of it.
Whew! Hope this helps. Personally, I just say I'm a bassist
