"But how on earth do you?"

In an earlier blog I wrote about the importance of immersing oneself in the poetry before attempting to learn a song. The single most frequently asked question is this: how on earth do you memorize all those songs? Before embarking on this huge project three years ago, my principle fear was seeing my memory impaired by advancing age. But now, at the age of 54, I find my memory improving. I ascribe this to an increasing attention to reciting the poetry at all stages of the learning process, and I find it particularly helpful in the days before a recital. This is subjective I know: it may not work for others. But the notion of song as being firmly attached to rhetoric is very dear to me.