her aspects of their own development. A fundamental precept is that society has a basic responsibility to help each individual develop to her or his fullest capacity. Singing seems to be a means to promote both musical competence and full development , which clearly are compatible goals.
-- N. M. Weinberger
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Music relies on memory. What is the nature of this memory? Researchers in both cognitive science and behavioral neuroscience are actively engaged in a major debate about memory. They are particularly concerned with the growing multiplicity of forms of memory. How many are there? How do they differ from each other? Two of the generally accepted types are "declarative" and "procedural" memory. In a moment, we will consider their relevance for music. But first, some definitions are needed.
"Declarative" refers to memories that can be consciously recalled and stated. The contents of declarative memory seem to be largely life episodes, i.e., recall of a specific occasion, like your first date, what you had for dinner yesterday, etc. or facts, e.g. the capital of France. Declarative memories are acquired rapidly; generally, they don't require much repetition of the experience to become fairly strong. In fact, highly emotional events need be experienced only once to leave a life-time declarative memory. Each reader can probably think of such a personal experience.
"Procedural" refers to things learned that are not accessible to this type of recall or report. Such memories do not have as their contents specific experiences but rather things learned and stored that are more implicit than explicit. Examples are how to ride a bike, how to recognize a letter of the alphabet, etc. Put another way, motor and perceptual skills are classified as procedural memories. This type of memory requires repetition, takes a long time to learn well and becomes part of one's capabilities. Information in the procedural memory system becomes automatic, that is it is used to process sensory information and make highly practiced movements unconsciously and without distracting us from attending to other things.
This distin