I actually recently counted up all the tunes I know - around a thousand. Still learning new ones, too. Haven’t counted everything yet, either. Helps to have titles for everything. One factoid about size of repertoire I picked up from thesession.org was how someone observed some pro players, they started playing early in the morning, continued into the wee hours, never repeated anything, 3 tunes per set, something like 12 sets per hour, spread out over a week of daily playing; so something like 2k tunes per player, was the take home message. Most of them wouldn’t have names for much of it, never mind actually bothering to list them all; but it seems to be a benchmark for serious players to have a repertoire of that size. Certainly if I know a thousand tunes these people who practically live in pubs would know 2k or more.
All of this tuneage under one’s belt makes it a bit frustrating when dealing with people who haven’t learned Rakish Paddy et al. You been living under a rock, bro?
Yes I live under a rock… Or “The Stone In the Field”
Where do you learn so many tunes from? Sessions? Will my ear develop better over time, along with my motor skills,eventually being able just to play what I hear on the fly?
There was an article by the great Tom Busby I once read in which he stated that his repertoir was around 120 tunes. I like to keep mine around the 120-150 mark and work on expanding my ability to pipe them well. Every now and then I will add a few more tunes to my repertoir, but let a few others slide into the nether regions of my mind so I still can count off the top of my head only about 150 or so.
However, once I get into a session, it’s amazing how many more tunes come back to me when others are leading the way.
I’m not sure where exactly I learned a lot of it, really. The Willie Clancy and John Walsh books got me started, also a local session tunebook, I think. That was about all there was in 1995, you know. Other tunes came from recordings. Some I still remember learning from such-and-such musician, too, fiddle tunes especially. Not sure how you build things up. Uh…just don’t forget them!
Busby also wrote about being envious of musicians with a “built-in tape recorder” in their heads, i.e., musicians who can just cue up a recording internally; he had to learn everything from the printed page, according to himself. He also thought this among other things didn’t reflect well on his own music, as he signed correspondence with
“Tom Busby
Bum
(Bad)
Piper”
Which was him being self-effacing - in America, “Bum” means indifferent, but also refers to the lazy or homeless. Tom was in truth a terrific piper. Maybe he couldn’t play all week without repeating a tune but he still played wonderful music.
thesession.org likely has some good advice on retaining tunes. Maybe you can get one of those tape recorders, err, iPods installed for real nowadays, who knows? Or just listen to the stuff non-stop. Most any capable musician does that, I’d imagine. Plenty of them certainly advise doing so.
I listen to a lot of tunes over and over and over again while playing along with the CDs. One starts to hear patterns develop and you can anticipate to a degree where the tune is going. I think by trying to play along with the CDs using Amazing Slow Downer or other software you will develop your ear and motor skills. There are a number of Tutorials CDs that have slow and fast versions of tunes, also. I wouldn’t limit myself to just pipe CDs, I find I enjoy playing along with fiddlers, for example Bobby Casey’s recordings are mainly just him playing solo so you can hear the tunes pretty clearly.
When you think of players playing on the fly ~ they’ve played so much and recognize the patterns and can pick it up quickly because of that.
Or “The Stone In the Field” 
Or just listen to the stuff non-stop. Most any capable musician does that, I’d imagine. Plenty of them certainly advise doing so.
