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La participante ha escrito la letra y la música.

La participante ha escrito la letra y la música.
The participant has written the lyrics and the music.
From Lesson 265:On the talent show (la letra, el estudio, ¡ánimo!)·Spanish (Spain)

Questions & Answers about La participante ha escrito la letra y la música.

I thought letra meant a letter of the alphabet. Why does it translate to "lyrics" here?
In the context of music, la letra is the specific word used for the lyrics of a song. Notice that it is singular in Spanish even though we say "lyrics" in the plural in English. (If you mean a letter you send in the mail, that is una carta, while a letter of the alphabet is indeed una letra.)
The sentence uses la participante. If it were a man, would the word be "el participanto"?
No, it would just be el participante. Nouns ending in -ante (which describe someone doing an action, like participating) usually have the exact same form for both masculine and feminine. You simply change the article (el or la) to match the person's gender.
Why is the past participle escrito instead of "escribido"?
The verb escribir (to write) has an irregular past participle. Instead of following the normal rule of adding -ido, it changes to escrito. This is one of a handful of highly common irregulars you have to memorize, much like visto (from ver) or hecho (from hacer).
Do I really need the second la in la letra y la música? In English we just say "the lyrics and music".
Yes, in Spanish you should repeat it. It is the standard rule to repeat the definite article (el, la, los, las) for each individual noun in a list or pairing when they are distinct things. Skipping the second article sounds unnatural to a native Spanish speaker.

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