I never have any trouble with key changes in "session" situations-I somehow seem to know instinctively what key the others are shifting to---don"t ask me how !! Of course, I DO get caught out sometimes--everyone does ! But then I just stop playing until I hear a natural point at which to join back in again. This is actually very effective if several of you do it,especially in an Irish session !! So even if you"ve made a mistake,you learn to make it look as if you did it deliberately !! So if you can get into the habit of "holding back" after a key change sometimes, you"ll see what I mean !!

Yes, I know exactly what you mean, bubblyrat. If the tune isn't familiar to me, I sometimes play what I sometimes call 'non-committal' chords (probably modal chords, with drones or similar), which seem to sound more or less OK with what's being played. Then after the first time through the tune, I can usually play along properly, having got the tune in my head and knowing which chords to use.

I have never had any difficulty in learning almost any tune( it gets stuck in my head for days on end,night & day,until I can either accompany it,or play it,or both, and then it goes away !! Then it"s filed away !) but my BIG problem is remembering how a tune goes by the title !! People say " Do you know Thingybob?" ,& I say,"Yes,but I can"t remember how it goes/starts !".Then someone else starts it off,and it INSTANTLY floods back into the brainbox !! Does anyone else have that problem?? Scrump?? Terry ??

Yes, I have that problem all the time, not just with tunes but with songs. I may 'know' a song (perhaps I've got a record of it at home) but I'm not familiar enough with it to sing it myself, and can't remember the tune off the top of my head. I just ask the person to play or sing or hum a bit of it, and when I recognise it I'm away. As long as it's something I've heard before, there's no problem. I find names of tunes are more difficult to remember than tunes themselves, for some reason. Possibly because the names don't always have an obvious relation to the tune (there are some tunes that seem to reflect the names, but most don't IMO).

As I said earlier, I often find tunes easier to remember than words for some reason! I may be able to remember the tune of a song I haven't sung for a long time, without remembering many of the words. This seems to be a cause of surprise to some people, who seem to think words should be easier to remember than tunes.