How many tunes do you know

buskerSean · Post by **buskerSean** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 3:08 am

How many tunes do you know? one of our local fiddle players reckons he knows about 600! The very concept is baffling.

Also Padraig O Keffe could apparently play any tune from O'Neils 1001 straight off.

djm · Post by **djm** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 5:12 am

Three. I can never remember more than the current tunes my teacher has set for me. When I hear a tune from a previous lesson I can sort of follow along, but generally I just have zero retention if I'm not playing a tune regularly.

djm

Rick C. · Post by **Rick C.** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 8:46 am

Not nearly enough.

And no matter how many I can learn in a year's time, it always comes back to that!

Rick

fluti31415 · Post by **fluti31415** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 8:58 am

buskerSean wrote:How many tunes do you know?

Define "know." My number is either 0 or 500.

SteveShaw · Post by **SteveShaw** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 5:08 pm

If I were to write a list of all the tunes I've ever "learned" it would come to more than 500

. But before you run away with the idea that I'm just showing off I should add the following severe caveats:
(1) tunes I regularly play in sessions: 100?
(2) tunes I'd like to play, and can play proficiently at home, but which none of the others play: another 100?
(3) tunes I've played but not recently and am rusty on: 100?
(4) tunes I've played but not for years and would struggle to reinstate without a lot of effort: 200?
(5) tunes I could play with confidence if I went to any other session than my own regular one: 0

All the above categories are infinitely variable according to prevailing conditions. I couldn't even play Harvest Home with you unless I'd leaned across and quietly asked: "how fast do you do it, Busk? Lilt or no lilt? How many times? Whaddya go into after it? then reprise all questions for next tune!

Cheers

Steve

SilverStrand · Post by **SilverStrand** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 6:05 pm

Not enough.

SteveShaw · Post by **SteveShaw** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 6:25 pm

Is it just me, or do y'all have the same experience as this: Someone new to your session, or even someone who shows up every week, asks you "Do you know...(such & such a tune)?" - and you say weakly "I've heard it but I can't really play it yet..." or: "I think I might know it but has it got another name?"

Cheers

Steve

peeplj · Post by **peeplj** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 8:35 pm

I think I'm up to several hundred; it's hard to say.

Some of the folks I session with know and can start many more than me.

--James

colomon · Post by **colomon** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 8:09 am

SteveShaw wrote:Is it just me, or do y'all have the same experience as this: Someone new to your session, or even someone who shows up every week, asks you "Do you know...(such & such a tune)?" - and you say weakly "I've heard it but I can't really play it yet..." or: "I think I might know it but has it got another name?"

Well sure -- there are probably hundreds of tunes that I know well enough to recognize or play a few licks from, but cannot play reliably. And invariably they got that way because people like to play them in sessions...

Jack · Post by **Jack** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 12:23 am

Hmm...I've never thought about counting them...I don't play any of them well as well as I'd like to, though.

mikk · Post by **mikk** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 2:16 am

I think I need to upgrade my memory card. I'd say honestly about 30 to 35 tunes at any one time. The unfotunate thing is that when a new one comes in another one slips out. I think some people must have 2,000 Gb brains.

Jack · Post by **Jack** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 2:33 am

mikk wrote:I think I need to upgrade my memory card. I'd say honestly about 30 to 35 tunes at any one time. The unfotunate thing is that when a new one comes in another one slips out. I think some people must have 2,000 Gb brains.

I don't know all these hundreds of tunes like so many people seem to. I probably don't even really know fifty.

Cathy Wilde · Post by **Cathy Wilde** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 2:08 pm

If you mean tunes that go "*#@#!" "*%$@!" "&$%^!" or "***#!" every third or fourth measure, then I know 'em ALL.

SteveShaw · Post by **SteveShaw** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 5:19 pm

I suppose that a lot depends on how you define "know." I have about eight tunes that I'd dare to play to the assembled company unaccompanied. Then maybe 100 that we play in our regular session and have done for ages....but if I showed up at your session and started on some of that 100 you might conclude that I don't know them "properly" at all, and I might think the same about you, but we'd struggle on and it would work out. I think that this is one of the great strengths of "our" music. You just have to collaborate with others of like mind if you're to play it well (pure-droppists excepted of course) and I enjoy that side of it a lot.

Steve

cowtime · Post by **cowtime** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 6:46 pm

I know none of them well enough, that's for sure.

Chiff and Fipple Forums

How many tunes do you know

How many tunes do you know

Re: How many tunes do you know