Thoughts from a drummer who can't read notes anyway... Practice, practice, practice... Ideally with someone else. This will turn practicing into a performance. You *will* play better knowing someone else is listening; being more critical of yourself. Recording can be used to substitute the mental heightening the 'listening' of another player causes, though the interaction between two or more people playing *together* will best from the associations you need to remember the song. Also, hearing yourself play is key. For 15 years I recorded every set we ever played. It was customary to listen to it afterwards and though I had split my time between audio tech and drumming, the feedback was immeasurably helpful for the band as a whole. My guitarist never wrote or read much of anything and as a drummer neither did I. By the time I threw in the towel we'd had about 50 *original* songs. It's real easy to remember songs you've <strike>wrote</strike> made. A good point was raised; are you a musician or a *something*ist? Orchestral players all have sheet music in front of them... I will admit that only a few songs were mine to start. Otherwise the only thing I needed to recall an entire song was the first note in it's key. It's been almost ten years but I think the only problem we'd have if back together would be remembering the changes we've made to our own songs over the years. Only when we neared a gig date did we really get anything done; motivation. Having guests in the studio also had astonishing effects on our practice performance. You have no motivation and no one to *play off of*. Also, everything you're learning is a cover. All but the most accomplished in their instruments or savants will take to covers well without an exorbitant amount of practice. Even then, **use it or lose it**. You will eventually forget how to play something you've *learned*; you will never forget how to play something you've composed. As a drummer muscle memory always told me where and how to strike a piece, not how hard or exactly when. That is the *feel*. It is my assumption that you're not *feeling it*. Only after an entire set (warmed up) would we play around with whatever new cover we're working on; a ratio never less than 10:1 of originals to covers. Learning how to play 12 covers (well) in a single month is asking a bit much. And would have been a complete impossibility in my band unless at least one of us basically already knew it and could say, *OK it's a blues riff in B, watch me for the changes and try to keep up*. --- **TLDR** A [memory][1] without an association is unrecallable. You are 'studying for the test'. *Practicing* alone will leave you without the associations necessary to recall the information in the real world application of a *performance*. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory