Zuki mentioned playing everything by memory. I do the same. When I was a teenager and just starting out with my music career, I was lucky enough to have met a fellow who gave me great advice. I could play well but I had to read everything. This he advised me was not a good idea, as you can't connect with an audience (or the other group members) while you're "reading." He said to learn ONE song a day by memory and at the end of the year you'll have 365 songs in your repertoire. I did that, but didn't stop there. I kept going, as by now, I had developed many memorization tricks. Not only did I memorize the music but also the words. The reason being, this same gentleman said, that by singing the words to yourself while you're playing the song, it comes out more legitimate with every note where it should be. Also, you can put more feeling into a song when you know what the words are trying to say.

So here I am years later with a few thousand songs under my belt that I can play and sing out of my head. At one time I was going to contact the Guinness Book of Records and see how long I could play without repeating a song twice. Sorry I never did it when I had the drive. Now the only way I could do it would be with Viagra!

But what I was leading up to is that memorizing songs is not as difficult as you might think. It just takes awareness of how the mind works best to absorb material. It's like the great bodybuilders....they don't just "throw the weights around," they use their mind to concentrate and focus on muscle growth. An old Metaphysics saying: "everything starts in the mind!"

That said....kudo's to Zuki. It's still not an easy task by any means!