Guided analysis questions are a practical way of teaching singers to explore their own music. In my many years of teaching music analysis, I have found that students often didn’t know what questions to ask, so I began creating sets of analysis questions for each piece to help them through the process. While the questions are provided, students do the analysis themselves, so they feel they “own” their discoveries and can incorporate them into their performances in ways that are more personal than if they just read someone else’s work. The analysis guides in each chapter serve as a scaffolding for developing independent analytical and interpretive skills. Not only do they allow singers to explore important ideas, but with regular practice they learn how to come up with the questions by themselves.
Reading someone else’s analysis of a work can be useful, but every singer also needs to learn how to delve into a song on their own to develop a personal relationship with the song and create a great performance. In this way they can not only effectively express the meanings originally created by the poet and composer, but also enrich them with the ideas and emotions that bubble up in themselves as a result of their own ability to more deeply explore the song.
