Most of what I play is jazz and some of the chord progressions give me a devil of a time if I'm trying to memorize from the written page, perhaps it's just too easy to "get it" for the tunes to stick, but when figuring things out from recordings I seem to get the tune halfway memorized just through the process of working it out. Best of all for me though, is live transmission. If somebody plays a song for me, then with me, it comes across real fast. Not easy, it demands concentration, but it's fast. Lyrics to songs are a different thing for me though, I keep a written copy handy and just keep trying to recall it over and over, if I'm stuck, I reference the paper just for the line or phrase that jammed me, then try to recall from the beginning again.

Frank i.t.s.