And regarding learning from tape; I too agree with you. In my case I have never sang a song learned from tapes in a concert. In fact I will not have enough confidence to sing it.

1. Lack of gurukulavasa
2. Information Overload
3. Learning from tapes

1. Without gurukulavasa, it becomes difficult for the Guru to establish a strict training schedule where the sishya has no option but to memorize everything and the Guru would be in a position to ensure that happened.

2. Factors 2 and 3 are intertwined. In this Information Age, we have access to thousands of songs. Performers might like a particular song that they heard somewhere and might wish to learn it. Without access to a Guru, they might end up learning it from tapes. This can be both good and bad. It can be good in that the same rendition can be repeatedly played, enabling the artist to learn the nuances of the krithi well. But, depending on the experience level of the artist, this might fail on a number of fronts. 1) Lack of a Guru to explain the meaning 2) Complacency – Feeling that they have mastered the krithi before they actually have. This makes them move on to the next krithi and they end up learning a lot of krithis half of which they hardly remember.

I’m sure I might be mistaken but I feel that artists should refrain learning from tapes alone until they reach a particular level. They should always strive to learn from someone even if the other person is a peer.

So I personally feel that people should memorize it properly with the meaning and then sing them in concerts without the lyrics. I have never heard of MDR and KVN seeing the lyrics and singing in concerts. I know KVN is totally against having the lyrics in concerts.