Singers' recall for the words and melody of a new,unaccompanied song

Abstract

The nature of the relationship between words and music in memory has been studied in a variety of ways, from investigations of listeners' recall for the words of songs stored in long-term memory to recall for novel information set to unfamiliar melodies. We asked singers to perform an unaccompanied song from memory following deliberate learning and memorization of the words and melody separately and together. Participants with high levels of musical expertise gave more accurate and fluent performances than those with lower levels of musical expertise, but only when they had memorized the words and melody together. While some errors were conjoint, such that erroneous recall of one component — words or melody — affected recall for the other, a higher proportion were separate, such that participants were able to preserve one component when they recalled the other erroneously. Words and melody are thus recalled in association with one another, so that retrieving one enables retrieval of the other, but are not integrated to the extent that failure to recall one accurately invariably results in failure to recall the other. Finally, more hesitations were made at the ends of phrases than at the start or mid-phrase, suggesting that the formal structure of a song provides a framework for recall. In conclusion, memorizing words and melody together is an effective strategy, but perhaps only for singers with high levels of musical expertise.

Keywords

expertise learning melody memorization retrieval strategy

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Calvert, S.L. and Billingsley, R.L. (1998) ` Young Children's Recitation and Comprehension of Information Presented by Songs ', Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 19: 97—108 .

Calvert, S.L. and Tart, M. (1993) ` Sung versus Verbal Forms for Very-long-term, Long-term, and Short-term Verbatim Recall ', Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 14: 245—60 .

Chazin, S. and Neuschatz, J.S. (1990) ` Using a Mnemonic to Aid in the Recall of Unfamiliar Information ', Perceptual and Motor Skills 71: 1067—71 .

Davies, W.H. (1929) `The Moon and a Cloud', in The Complete Poems of W.H. Davies, p. 248. New York: J. Cape & H. Smith .

Crowder, R.G. , Serafine, M.L. and Repp, B.H. (1990) ` Physical Interaction and Association by Contiguity in Memory for the Words and Melodies of Songs ', Memory and Cognition 18(5): 469—76 .

Ericsson, K.A. (1996) The Road to Excellence. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum .

Gilboa, A. (2002) `Do Words Affect Memory for Melodies?', unpublished PhD thesis, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan , Israel.

Ginsborg, J. (1999) `Expert Singers' Memorization and Recall of Songs: The Interaction of Words and Music in Memory', unpublished PhD thesis, Keele University , UK.

Ginsborg, J. (2000) ` Off by Heart: Expert Singers' Memorization Strategies and Recall for the Words and Music of Songs ', paper presented at the Sixth International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition and Fourth Triennial Conference of the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music, August, Keele University , UK.

10.

Ginsborg, J. (2002) ` Classical Singers Memorizing a New Song: An Observational Study' , Psychology of Music 30(1): 56—99 .

11.

Gruson, L.M. (1988) `Rehearsal Skill and Musical Competence: Does Practice Make Perfect?', in J.A. Sloboda (ed.) Generative Processes in Music: The Psychology of Performance, Improvisation and Composition, pp. 91—112. London: Oxford University Press .

12.

Karpeles, M. (ed.) (1974) `The Lowlands of Holland', in Cecil Sharp's Collection of English Folk Songs, Vol. 1, pp. 22—3. London: Oxford University Press .

13.

Kilgour, A.R. , Jakobson, L.S. , and Cuddy, L.L. (2000) ` Music Training and Rate of Presentation as Mediators of Text and Song Recall ', Memory & Cognition 28(5): 700—10 .

14.

McElhinney, M. and Annett, J.M. (1996) ` Pattern of Efficacy of a Musical Mnemonic on Recall of Familiar Words over Several Presentations ', Perceptual and Motor Skills 82: 395—400 .

15.

Rainey, D.W. and Larsen, J. (2002) ` The Effect of Familiar Melodies on Initial Learning and Long-term Memory for Unconnected Text' , Music Perception 20(2): 173—86 .

16.

Rubin, D.C. (1977) ` Very Long-term Memory for Prose and Verse ', Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 16: 611—21 .

17.

Serafine, M.L. , Crowder, R.G. and Repp, B.H. (1984) ` Integration of Melody and Text in Memory for Songs ', Cognition 16: 285—303 .

18.

Serafine, M.L. , Davidson J. , Crowder, R.G. and Repp, B.H. (1986) ` On the Nature of Melody—Text Integration in Memory for Songs', Journal of Memory and Language 25: 123—35 .

19.

Sloboda, J.A. and Lehmann, A.C. (2001) ` Tracking Performance Correlates of Changes in Perceived Intensity of Emotion during Different Interpretations of a Chopin Piano Prelude ', Music Perception 19: 87—120 .

20.

Sloboda, J.A. and Parker, D.H.H. (1985) `Immediate Recall of Melodies', in P. Howell , I. Cross and R. West (eds) Musical Structure and Cognition, pp. 143—67. London: Academic Press .

21.

Stevens, K.J. , McAuley, J.D. and Humphreys, M.S. (1998) ` Relational Information in Memory for Music: The Interaction of Melody, Rhythm, Text and Instrument' , Noetica: Open Forum 3(8), URL (accessed April 2006): http://www.2.psy.uq.edu.au/CogPsych/Noetica/OpenForum.html

22.

Wallace, W.T. (1994) ` Memory for Music: Effect of Melody on Recall of Text ', Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 20 (6): 1471—85 .

23.

Williamon, A. and Valentine, E. (2002) ` The Role of Retrieval Structures in Memorizing Music' , Cognitive Psychology 44: 1—32 .