Singing as a method of inquiry Abstract: In this paper I will argue that singing can be used as a powerful method of inquiry into historical material. In the last fifty years or so, scholars and performers of Early Music have collaborated to create music with the ambition of making it more historically trustworthy. The word “authentic,” seldom used these days, has been replaced with “historically informed” and gradually musicologists have been replaced by practicing musicians who have begun to develop new research methodologies using their own practice. Thomas Campion (1567-1620) wrote a large number of lute songs. By singing the songs, the synergetic effect of singing – listening – sensing – feeling, makes meanings come alive in a way that escapes the eye when only reading them, or the ear when only playing them on an instrument. The synergetic effect is also enhanced by the fact that these songs were influenced by the emblematic tradition, so popular among renaissance intellectuals. An emblem consists of the combination of a motto, a picture and a poem. By letting the eyes, so to speak, wander between the motto, the picture and the poem, the spectator was supposed to understand the contents of the emblem in a way that neither of the three ingredients could reach on their own. This understanding was reached by involving more than one of the bodily senses - a kind of synergetic effect. These emblems were recognized also outside of books, in so-called applied emblematics, when there was no picture there to see. Campion was familiar to emblems and used them. Since the reader of Campion’s songs was already supposed to experience the song in a synergetic way, singing as a method of inquiry becomes even more useful.‬ I will show this by singing, analyzing and describing some of Thomas Campion's songs.