Just curious to know how many tunes do you know on the uilleann pipes? And where or how did you learn them?
I recall some of you saying around 500 to 800, although I do understand that you may mean other instruments as well. I also remember reading on another thread that Tom Busby knew about 150 or so tunes, so it seems it varies quite a bit!
I know so many tunes I’ve never played the same one twice .
RORY
I know so many tunes there are some I haven’t even played once yet.
It seems that session musicians often know hundreds of tunes. I’ve never been much of a session musician, always playing in performing bands, but I’m working on building my repertoire. At the moment I’m currently at around 90 tunes on the pipes. Keep in mind I’ve only been playing the pipes for a few years, and last Fall was when I transitioned officially to performing on the pipes as opposed to my other instruments. I’m aiming to get around 200 tunes as a base for traveling to sessions. It’s hard though because different sessions often play different tunes, but at the very least there will be some cross over in the form of more common tunes.
Yes, it must depend how many sessions you go to, and how experienced you are at listening and picking up tunes.
Same here though, I am not a session player, Alberta is kind of a desert on that regard. However I’m looking to get a few tunebooks.
Don’t really know, I haven’t counted in a long time, but not very many - something over 100 I would guess.
I don’t play in sessions, hence I mostly just learn tunes I like. At my age, I have a hard time remembering ones that I learned years ago, if I don’t play them often, so my tune base is something of a revolving door.
About 30 tunes that I know by name;
about 150 that I can only name as ‘Goes like this…’
and an unknown number that I only seem to be able to play once others at a session start them up…
I think I probably know roughly 600 tunes. I would imagine that session players who can play almost anything you throw at them must have a great many more.
I “know” about 120 tunes but I could only play 30 or 40 right now. Maybe another 30 or 40 that I could play reasonably well, if someone else starts. I have another bunch which I used to play but which would require a little practice before I could bring them back to life.
I have learned about 700 tunes (give or take) which comes in handy when playing sessions. However, I certainly wouldn’t refer to that many tunes as “my repertoire”. Far too difficult to remember how to start them all - let alone actually trying to sound good playing them.
I now keep a much shorter list of tunes and a few good sets that I really like to play and make an effort to keep somewhat practiced on just those ones. So out of hundreds of tunes, fewer than 10% (if that) would I consider as my “repertoire”.
Kind of a personal question, isn’t it?. Oh wait…repertoire. Never mind
Which is more important , quantity or quality ?
RORY
Never had any complaints about the size of my repertoire - although I am a firm believer that the quality of your performance is always more important than size.
I am correct to assume you play multiple instruments?
yes, flute - i’m not 100% sure about my estimate, although recently i’ve been trying to compile a list as a reference/aide-memoire which will hopefully provide a more accurate figure
About 6 songs, thanks to my instructor. 
But I have only been playing a little over a year… give me time!
Now, if you count guitar, several hundred.
The size of repertoire of some of the regular session players amazes me.
I used to go to a two-week music camp every summer, with big sessions every night, and oftentimes I wouldn’t hear a certain tune again for the whole camp. Each night’s session would go on, what, 8 hours or so?
When the massive size of these people’s repertoires fully struck me was one night when they got onto playing nothing but polkas in D. They played them for an hour or so, polkas in D, each one played three times. Not sure how many it was, but it was a ton!
Another night they got onto playing nothing but tunes in B minor. They played loads of reels, but when it came to jigs they seemed to be stumped. Then a fiddler went into a “big” jig in D (four parts, I think) that had the last part in B minor, which I learned and still play (though nobody else seems to know it around here).
One way to get a sense of what are the most commonly played session tunes is to go onto thesession and rank the tens of thousands of tunes there by most commonly included in member’s tunebooks. I did that once. Of the 100 most-common tunes I knew all but a couple, and of the next 100 I knew 80 or so… yet I can sit in a session for hours and not hear a single tune I know!
I think it’s hard to maintain a big repertoire unless you regularly attend sessions. What I did was to write out the first 2 bars of every tune I knew and put these music-sheets in a practice folder and play through all the tunes as often as I could. The problem then was that there are loads of reels in A minor that have very similar 2nd parts! So I had to write out the beginning of the 2nd parts too, on those. Ditto several reels in D Major.
Indeed, I think the more sessions you go to, the better your ear develops?
There is one pub near me which has sessions, maybe I could hop over there just to listen. Since I play a C# set I’d probably just sit back & listen. 
Although I do have a whistle in C, and they do have “Open mic” nights. Hmmm…
It’s not the size that matters… it’s what you do with it