Free Sample

Hamlet’s Soliloquy for Free

Download this free sample of ScenePartner and use it to memorize Hamlet’s Soliloquy. It’s an mp3 over 11 minutes long, breaking down the monologue into easy to remember chunks that you repeat.

memorize-shakespeare-sample.zip (12.0 Mb ZIP file, 17.1 Mb uncompressed)

Or Play Our Video Version

YouTube : Memorize Hamlet with ScenePartner
Remember that when you download any other ScenePartner product, you’ll only get audio that you can put in a playlist to listen anywhere. You don’t need a video-ipod (or any screen at all). This video is just a fun visualization of the process.

Comparison of Text-to-Speech to ScenePartner

Here is a high-end computer text-to-speech of a speech from As You Like It:

Rosalind
Marry, he trots hard with a young maid between the
contract of her marriage and the day it is solemniz’d; if the
interim be but a se’nnight, Time’s pace is so hard that it seems
the length of seven year.

Now, listen to the ScenePartner version:

Comparison of Audiobooks to ScenePartner

I would like to also offer a comparison to an audiobook, but no commercial audiobook publisher would provide a version that I could edit to create an excerpt. Many are available for relatively low cost ($10-$20), so I recommend downloading one and see if it would help your memorization. I think you’ll agree that:

1. Tracks/Chapters. It may be one long track, in which case you’d have to keep track of the time-code at each of your lines. Or it may have chapter divisions, likely at each scene change. So you still have to listen to the whole scene instead of concentrating on your lines.
2. It is Performed. This is a HUGE problem for the actor who wants to learn lines. You’ll be stuck imitating the parts where the performer yells, where she whispers, and if your director tells you to emphasize a particular word, the next time you hear the audiobook, it will convince you to ignore your director (and they hate that).
3. Accent. Many of the best ones are made by the Royal Shakespeare Company and they all have British accents. If you’re from Texas, would you want to copy the accent, or speak in your natural tones?
4. Designed for Entertainment. In the witches scenes in the audiobook of Macbeth, there are wind and swamp sound effects, and in the battles, the actors yell over the din of clashing steel. Sometimes you can’t hear the lines well at all. Not good for memory work.
5. Character. Some audiobooks are read all by the same reader, saying the character’s names before each utterance (as if they’re reading every word in the script). That is awful.