mmm ted, the only place success comes before work is in a dictionary, I sing for an hour a day, sometimes more, warming up warming down, warm up for at least a half hour before any sort of performance be it session or otherwise and only last friday someone said "You are really lucky to be born with a voice like that". Truth is a singing voice is an instrument but because it doesn't have a fret board, keys or machine heads the tuning and fannying around with strings and things it's not so obvious to all that it has taken place, just out of earshot and sight. And the "by rote" works the same, ones larynx retains muscle memory on songs and eventually any song sung often enough becomes a "by rote" number. I agree about getting all the attention, don't know why, maybe cos the audience can join in