Remembering and Singing Melody - Memory and Ear Training!
Remembering and Singing Melody is an important skill for singers to have, because we need to be able to listen to various melodies and remember them quickly!
This useful skill is called Melody Repetition, and it is a test of our melodic memory as well as our sense of pitches and musical intervals.
Oftentimes as singers, we are required to listen to a demo of an original song composition and learn that new song by heart just by listening to it, before we step into the recording studio to record that song for an album or music project!
This means that we need to have a strong melodic memory in order to learn new songs quickly and also perform them well!
We can actually improve our melody repetition skills with ear training exercises that are simple to do and yet test our ability to retain melodies in our head.
Here is a demonstration of a simple Melody Repetition Exercise:
Melody Repetition Demonstration
In the demonstration, the key of the melody that is being played is sounded first, so that it is easier for us to know how to sing the melody.
Also, the melodies being played are intentionally kept simple so that beginners would not have too much of a problem singing them!
Try to sing along to the demonstration clip to test your own melodic memory!
I have also provided some practice music for you to practise remembering and singing melodies on your own. I have kept the melodies simple and mostly within a 5 note range so that everyone will be able to sing them easily!
Here are the melody repetition exercises:
Melody Repetition - Female Key
Melody Repetition - Male Key
Did you have any trouble with the various exercises? If you wish, you may try both of the above exercises, instead of just singing the exercise in your respective key, to test yourself further!
Remembering and Singing Melodies is not difficult once you get the hang of it, so keep listening to new songs and try to remember the melodies within one or two repetitions of the song!