Most of my songs I need to play once a month or they go a bit rusty. Where I'll forget a chord or a section and I'll have to fake it through it. The problem is further exacerbated - if a song is already rusty, I'm less likely to play it in a performance situation, so I avoid it making it rustier still.
The solution to rust is to spend five to ten minutes in quiet practise time to polish it up. If I haven't played a song in six months I might need to refer back to my sheet and spend half an hour.
How to stop it rusting again? I'm still playing for an hour in the lunch room at work on Fridays. Since my set list is around three hours long, what I'm thinking is, have a setlist sheet and play in order. And then next session pick up where I left off. Until the sheet is finished, and then restart. That will give every song a play through once a month minimum!
For even better skillz, I'll give the sheet to an active listener and ask them to pick songs. I'll have to know my songs well for that. I plan later this year to stop in some open mics, I reckon if I have 70 songs in good condition and ask the audience to pick, that will be a good party trick 👍
In the meantime, play, and polish. I reckon currently 40 songs are rust-free, 10 are rusty, 10 need some more serious sanding, and around 20 are almost a lost cause 🙂
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