In view of the serious negativity often expressed against the use of printed musical memory aids of any type in any circumstance, I won't repeat the statements about classical music and recording hacks, and 'untrained folkies'. Neither will I repeat the negativity that such publicly negative people aren't 'real musicians'...

When I began to receive music lessons in the 1950s, I experienced the 'ruler across the knuckles' trick, until I complained to my father - a good quality amateur classical violinist. BTW, he COULD play without music when soloing, but when playing in any 'formal' ensemble he used music. He had little 'folk music as it is assumed here' experience, but also during the 1930-40's had 'parlour party' experience - sheet music was not always used in such 'informal' ensembles. When we played piano & violin duets, we also used music - which was useful as my often apparently ADHD type memory when younger meant that I often 'lost my place; and needed to 'vamp' till I could resynchronise - usually to my father's annoyance - although also his respect for keeping the beat going reliably.

During my music training, I had to play from the music at times, and also had to play things from memory - both situations, as well as sight reading were part of the Piratical Exams. One also had to memorise several tunes each year for the Theory Exams - you were asked to transpose a certain tune into a specified key and then harmonise it.

As a Church organist and Sunday School Pianist, I played from music always - when accompanying large groups of singers, the last thing you need is a momentary lapse of memory, especially if the tune is not a commonly played one. In such circumstances, one rarely looks at the page anyway, and often I would close my eyes while playing anyhow (or 'vague out' with my eyes open!). I also used to be able to transpose 'on the fly' at the keyboard, but I am a bit out of practice at that skill these days.

As a result of my training, especially the painful part, I have a need to have ready access to the page for SOME of my repertoire, but with SOME other of it, I have it in memory. I know so many tunes that I can play - and I also used, when in good practice, to be able to play almost any tune on sight, or with 5 minutes 'rehearsal' - that I often forget on what note (or relative note of the scale a tune (both instrumental and vocal) starts, and often how the damn things goes. I now have compiled a small indexed note book that has the tune name, the key, the first note and the direction in which the tune moves - this assists greatly for memory work.

I DO sympathise with some of the complaints, and I DO understand that some of you may have suffered greatly with lazy people who have deluded themselves that they are great musos, but if you reject my talent when I pull out my memory aids - well you can sod off then, as to me, you appear very narrow minded, and you also don't appear to be very tolerant of those who are not as 'perfect' as you! :-)

:-P