Singing by Heart: Memorization Strategies for the Words and Music of Songs

This chapter focuses on the practising, learning, memorization techniques of instrumental musicians, and the memorization strategies of singers. Very little empirical research has been carried out with expert singers, as opposed to expert instrumentalists. Although it might be predicted that singers&s; memorization strategies would be similar to those of instrumental musicians, the singer&s;s task differs in that he or she must memorize and perform from memory words as well as music. The purpose of the research was to identify effective memorization strategies for singers, with particular attention paid to the memorization of the words as well as the music of songs. The research programme took the form of a pilot interview study and three main studies, one observational and two experimental, which will be outlined in turn. Semi-structured pilot interviews were carried out with five professional singers and it reported learning the words and music of songs separately before combining them.