POLL: How Many Tunes Do You Have in Your Head?

[colomon]

I think D: 150-350 is probably more realistic for me -- a lot of tunes fit in one or the other category (rusty or dormant), but not both! And a lot of those tunes it's probably fair to say I never really learned. But I thought I had them at one point.

Boy, that's kind of weird to think about, really. I can remember the existence of some of the tunes I've lost. "Fisherman's Lilt" for instance, comes to mind -- I know it's close relative of "Sailor's Bonnet", but even though I could once play both equally well, the sailor beat up the fisherman and the fisherman is gone from my head.

Dale Dahl's polka, and that one three part jig he taught us. The tune Frank Maher plays before "Coppers and Brass". "Rusty Gulley". "Father's Jig" and the one that comes after it. Those first tunes I wrote....

Yup, there's a lot of forgetting in there. And those are only a few of the ones I can remember I forgot!

[PhilO]

So Colomon, 'tis true you've forgotten more tunes than I've learned...

Philo

[Jennie]

I've got about 40 or 50. I seem to be stuck at around that number. If I learn more, older ones I haven't played for a while go away. I guess, like my PC, I need more memory.

This seems sad, to see some of them go away. But maybe it's part of a natural cycle that we should just appreciate? I'm tempted (you already saw me reply in this thread) to try to boost my numbers somehow, to make it to the 200 club. Flash cards, a routine of pulling up old tunes, anything.

But I'm sure having fun with the tunes I know. And I love being able to join in with a tune I've learned long ago, to revive it. maybe it's okay just to keep learning new tunes and letting some fade, and play our hearts out. Some may have a bigger memory card, but my tune bank is healthy and my brain still has the capacity to acquire new tunes, even though the rate is slower than it was twenty years ago. I should just quit counting and let my ears and my heart tell me what tunes to play.

Jennie

[Wanderer]

While reading Wanderer's response in another thread on tune lists I noted two things. First, Wanderer described exactly what I do. Second, he's had hundreds of tunes in his head. That blew my mind, because I only have about 40 that I can sit down (or stand) and just play without reading.

So, how many tunes do you have in your head? These would be tunes that you can just pick up your whistle or flute and play.

Philo

I just now read the first post to this thread (missed it before..heh!) and saw it was in reference to me...now I've got a swelled head

I don't really feel like I know that many tunes...a lot of fiddle players I know can just kick my tail on knowing tunes. The amount I've probably known, all told, equals about one new tune learned every 2 weeks.

[KDMARTINKY]

If you are speaking Trad.....I would say between 15 and 20. Now if you are wanting to know how many Barney songs I know.......just ask my twins....

I'll be in town or driving down a highway and out of now where I am singing I love you, you love me..........

[Cayden]

As Bloomfield said, at some point it doesn't matter anymore repertoire becomes a fleeting thing you forget many, you go in and out of playing certain tunes, you get to play tunes on the fly. I used to keep a list and go over it every now and again to make sure I didn't loose any tunes. I gave up on that when it was over 500 and there were tunes on it I didn't want to keep in practice. that was well over 20 years ago. I probably have three times the amount of tunes now.

[oscartherabbit]

I've got about 40 or 50. I seem to be stuck at around that number. If I learn more, older ones I haven't played for a while go away. I guess, like my PC, I need more memory.

-Brett

"Every time I learn something new, it pushes old stuff out of my brain". Homer Simpson (and also written my coffee mug).

[DarnTootin]

We haven't heard from many of us in the 0-10 range, so I'll speak up.

I haven't exactly been keeping count, but in honor of this thread I finally added them all up. After exactly one year of playing/learning, I know 9 tunes (Rights of Man, Off to Calif, Peg Ryans, Rakes of Mallow, Kesh, Lilting Banshee, Glass of Beer, Wind that Shakes the Barley, Down by Sally Garden). I play most of them daily.

Otherwise it sounds like you are asking about those tunes that you find running through your mind in the middle of the night while you are trying to fall asleep.

This comment reminded me: Yesterday, my wife told me that the past three nights, I'd been humming tunes in my sleep. Seems like a good thing. Eh?

[Daniel_Bingamon]

That's the nice thing about playing any wind instrument. You don't have to remember the words to the song. There are a lot more songs that I know the tune to, but not remember the words.

[colomon]

This seems sad, to see some of them go away. But maybe it's part of a natural cycle that we should just appreciate?

Totally. It's very natural -- you don't play certain tunes for a while, and they go away. But usually they don't go that far.

If you know a bunch of tunes, the tunes around the margin are always slipping in and out of your memory. For instance, last week sitting around the house, I tried to start "Lafferty's" several times, completely failing each time -- I literally couldn't get past the first note. (Heck, I couldn't even remember that name, even though that was the name I learned the tune under. Somehow the alternate title "Crane's Leg" got stuck in my head, and that's all I could remember.) Then at the session Sunday Marty started it. I was playing along (a bit clumsily) by the first repeat. And now the tune is firmly back in my head.

The only tunes you should ever be sad to forgot are the ones that nobody else knows...

[rh]

oh come on, you guys are great jokers. everyone knows there's only two tunes, there's the one that goes dum-dee dum-dee diddley dum and the one that goes dum-dee diddley dum-dee diddley....

[I.D.10-t]

Only one, but I can play it in all keys and all 75 versions of it.

In all honestly, I have no idea how many tunes I know (defiantly less than 100) but I think that I know of about five different versions of “the girl I left behind me” (sorry not an Irish piece). One of these versions I cannot play even though looking at it, it should be easier.

The other day I was playing around and started playing “The Foggy Dew” and my wife said “I didn’t know you knew how to play that”. I was thinking, I don’t. It surprises me how many tunes I could play, and that others would like to hear, that I refuse to play because they do not belong in my instrument. I guess that is the benefit of not having to play for others.

[Caj]

I'm at somewhere between 100-200, but I'm way out of practice now. I have a little book where they names are all written down, and tried to do the flash card thing so I'd keep practicing them. That never really worked.

For my first year I learned about 10 tunes grand total, I think. Then I taught myself to learn by ear, which got easier every day, and the next thing I knew I could pick up tunes really quickly, several a day if I was obsessed, and retain them very well.

Learning by ear is not just "traditional"; it develops your delicious braaaaains, and lets you learn more, faster, and better.

Caj

[breandan]

At the Fleadh in Clonmel last year our team played from 10.30 a.m. until around 4.30 a.m. next morning with a break of about an hour for a bite to eat [we did it in shifts] so guessing 3 tunes per set, each lasting around 4 minutes with a bit of a break in between sets that would equate to some 500+ tunes [10 sets per hour for 17 hours] and we still hadn't come close to exhausting the repertoire!

[HDSarah]

The only tunes you should ever be sad to forgot are the ones that nobody else knows...

But those are exactly the ones I DO forget, at least the ones that nobody else around me knows.

I LOVE O'Carolan tunes. I guess it must have been about 2 years ago that I resolved to learn a new Carolan tune every week. It didn't last long -- I got up to maybe 30 Carolan tunes and quit, and most are now somewhere on the continuum of rusty to forgotten. The problem was that other than a few of the most common ones, no one around me played them, so I never played them with others. Eventually I lost the motivation to keep them in repertoire, because with limited time for practice, I focused on tunes that I'd be able to play with others. I need to resurrect my Carolan tunes -- they are so beautiful. Maybe I should put that on my "to do" list for spring break, coming SOON!

I also agree that if you're trying to include the long-time Irish session players, you need some categories with much higher numbers. I bet most of the people who've played for decades and play at sessions regularly have no idea how many tunes they know, but I'd bet it's in the 500 - 1000 range. (My estimate is for tunes that they could easily join in on if someone else starts them, as well those they could start themselves.) That's one thing that's discouraging about learning Irish music: the repertoire is enormous and if you really want to play (rather than mostly listen) in a session, you need many, many hundreds of tunes in your head. (And you have to be skilled enough to play them fast.)

Can you sense that I'm drifting away from Irish music? (Not that I was ever all the way in it; at best I probably knew fewer than 150 session tunes, and they are all evaporating now that I don't play Irish much.)

Sarah