An earlier discussion I commented on made me decide to get up on my soapbox here 🙂 .  I'm a semi-professional singer and guitar player in Vermont (I get paid, I play often, but I aint a rock star).  I'm one of the only people I know who doesn't play live while staring at an iPad.  I have over 200 songs in my working repertoire and I know them all, which allows me to really perform them rather than just reproduce the chords and lyrics as I read.  There's a big difference between playing songs you truly know and have internalized, versus reading off an iPad or music stand.  Now, before you tell me how nice it must be to have a photographic memory...I don't.  I can't remember what I had for breakfast.  But, I work hard and smart when I learn new songs.  I put the effort in up front, and then I feel like I "own" the tunes in the sense that they are part of me and I can sing them on stage, while I'm walking down the street, washing dishes, or anywhere.  Learning the tunes you play is totally within your control and can make a 3-chord campfire player sing and play with more emotion than a seasoned pro with an iPad addiction.  So, how do I do it?

1). Ditch the excuses.  Every iPad jockey I know says something like "I just can't remember lyrics, I get lost, I blank out, etc".  If you have enough brain power to play a G chord, you can learn songs.  I was one of those "I just can't play barre chords" people for my first few years, and that attitude held me back.  Thankfully, I just decided to jump that hurdle no matter what.  Ignore the mental block and accept the fact that you might drop a lyric or 2 when you start out playing songs you know instead of song you read.

2) Pick songs carefully.  If you're playing covers, don't just play everything you like.  Play only the songs that work for your voice and playing style, and songs that you'll still want to play in 20 years.  If the songs are meaningful to you you'll invest more effort in learning them.

3) Here's how I quickly learn lyrics:  First, get comfortable playing the song through while looking at the chords and lyrics.  Second, sit down with a legal pad and begin writing the lyrics out long hand.  If you get stuck, don't peek at the lyrics just yet.  Rack your brains, think about where the story of the song goes, really sit with that blank space in your mind for awhile.  If the next line pops into your head, you've just cemented it by conjuring it from the depths.  If not, peek at the lyrics and move on.  Write each verse over and over until you can do it without cheating, then the next, and the next.  Obsess over the song, sing it in the car, in the shower, and this is the key:  really rack your brains before peeking at the lyric you're forgetting.  This sounds like a long, tedious process but in reality you can learn most songs cold in 3-4 hours of this exercise, plus reinforcement by singing and playing the tune repeatedly over the next few days.  If you make this effort, and play the tune regularly, you'll have another tune in your memory bank that you "own" in the sense that you've internalized it, it's locked in, and you can play it without simultaneously reading a device or a printed sheet.

I know a lot of people will dismiss this and say "Yeah, I just can't do this".  But the truth is, you can.  And if you do, you will be able to put your heart into performing the songs, not just reproducing them from the page.  Now, if you're a sideman playing gigs with little or no rehearsal, you really can't avoid the iPad or the music stand.  But if you are performing live you owe it to yourself and your audience to learn the songs you play.  Someday, someone will say to you "I wish I had your knack for remembering songs" and you can say "My 'knack' is putting in the work and ignoring the mental block, and you can do it too"

Ok...climbing down from my soapbox now, I hope this is useful!