The role of creative thinking in the professional activity of a singer

Statement of the problem. The relevance of the topic is stipulated by the orientation of modern art to the singer, whose creativity is characterized by the creative function. The wide stylistic spectrum of vocal music with a variety of emotional and psychological content, present in the repertoire of a modern singer, together with the intellectual component of vocal expression, requires active productive, not just reproductive (secondary) thinking. Objectives, methods, and novelty of the research. The purpose of the article is to substantiate on the viewpoint of performance cognitivism the role of the singer’s creative thinking as a condition for successful professional activity. Within the framework of the study, stylistic, interpretative, and cognitive-activity research methods were applied. The singer’s thinking has not yet become a subject of comprehension by musicologists, hence the study relies on the definition of musical thinking developed by V. Moskalenko (2013). The novelty of the obtained results lies in proving the integrative role of the creative function of the singer’s I-consciousness. The thesis is proved that singing as an interpretation provides the singer with a platform for reproducing the imaginative and artistic meanings inherent in the composer’s work. Research results and conclusion. The singer’s activity is based on the trinity of “body – soul – spirit”, which is sublimated in the system of cognition as “technology of sound production – psychology of image – interpretation of music”. Each of them can become a “point of reference” for reflection on one’s own paths of vocal creativity. The denominator is thinking by music – the fundamental creative function of the singer’s I consciousness to manage oneself and the creative process in given conditions. The singer identifies themselves with the Artist with their history against the background of an already known performing tradition, which is recognized by listeners, but over time has the property of “aging” with them. A new history (interpretation of a composition in the time-space of another generation of listeners) does not cancel the tradition, but opens up new possibilities for its development. The interaction of the formed skills of vocal technology, psychology, and creative thinking enables the process of self-growth of the performer, allowing them to “rise” above technical tasks to the art of artistic and imaginative producting, which has a spiritual nature. As an example, the creative style of the Kazakh singer Dimash Kudaibergen is analysed. Not only the range of voice and timbre variety are impressive: through intercultural interaction, various singing techniques are combined in his interpretation creating the “performance metastyle”: this is a movement from the school of technology to the art of interpretation; the creation of one’s own artistic image, pesenting the song as theatre. The conclusions indicate a research strategy for recognizing the role of singing thinking as a condition for performing interpretation. Thinking mechanisms (intuitive, reflective, cognitive, creative) operate at different stages of professional training, but are synchronized in the final artefact (performance).